Sneak peak our house (via at the Coventry display in Cranbourne)

It's going to be at least 12 months before we can put any pictures of our final finished house up here, but in the meantime we have some sample pics from our adventures to the new Coventry display located at The Avenue estate in Cranbourne.

The floorplan is a bit different from our final plans - the main change being the entry to the master bedroom and the lack of a walk-in pantry in the display. Everything else is fairly similar.

Here is an outside view of the house:



Formal living area:



Entry to the master bedroom through the formal living area (we changed this - now we enter from the front hallway entrance):

Redgum kitchen (not having this one - getting the one from the Delatite display):

View of family room and rumpus room from the kitchen:



Meals area:

Cut-out window in the study - we would like to do this too so we can get more natural light in the study:

Hallway / study / formal living area:

Front entryway from the outside:

Colour Selections and Tiles:

In terms of colour selections, the carpet in the display is fairly light-coloured, so we will probably be going a bit darker so the wear and tear isn't as visible. We like the wall colours though ('Antique White USA' by Dulux), so we will probably stick with this. We will also be going with the Burwood Blue bricks and the terracotta roof tiles like this display.

Even though it is not quite up to that stage yet, we did our tile selections the other day while we were both on holidays. Our selection is not as shiny as the ones in the Coventry display - we went for the ones that are similar to the Delatite display. The sales guy at Ultimate Tiles was a big help; they have so many selections that it would have taken all day otherwise! Will take some photos of our selections and upload when we get the chance.

Been a long time coming...the next update

Well, we have definitely been a bit slack with updating the blog, considering the last post was made in early December 2010!

At that stage, we were eagerly awaiting the preliminary building contract (given we were on week six of the expected 6-week timeline). If you had have told me then that we wouldn't progress to the next stage until mid-Feb, I don't think I would have believed you...but low and behold, so it was.

As of 5pm today, the final contract is due to be ready first thing tomorrow morning, but given Premier's previous track record with following up on their promises, we shall see what actually happens then....

In the meantime, I thought I might upload some of the pictures of the initial site cut to give you an idea of the depth of the house due to the backwards slope of the land. We visited the block again on Sunday and it looks like those heavy rains we had in February have washed away some of the top soil. So it looks as though we may need to go over it again before the builders get on site, just to even it up a bit.

Site Cut Pictures:

Here is the block with freshly mown grass before the site cut (photo taken 11/10/10):

And here is a view from the back corner. Notice how the block slopes down quite sharply at street level, then meanders back with a lesser slope throughout the rest of the backyard:

Big escavator digging up the dirt (photo taken 26/10/10):

Moving dirt:

Making the battered ledges at the front of the house to lessen the chance of a landslip. These will be nicely landscaped in the end since this is what we will look out to from our bedroom window:

Ledge looks pretty deep in comparison to Ben's van...

This shot shows how the actual house site is built up and then falls away quite sharply in the backyard. The deck will also be part of this built up area: