been a long while now

As we have been very quiet since November, it didn't stop us from working on our dream home in the background. We did a lot of trips to HomeWorld and spoke to many builders. We're carefully working on our dream house design taking into account the way we have been using our current house. We are upgrading so it has to be better than this one and working on the home loan for construction as well. We had meetings with friends and friends of friends who built recently and compared valuable notes with them. I've been continously reading Homeone forums if time permits. I've been on work training too and juggling my schedules with my kids' activities. The list goes on for a working mum like me. Sometimes I've been wondering how I am coping with all this. Well the answer is I've got a perfectly capable teammate who've been working very hard alongside me, my loving hubby. He took care of finances while I was listing the things we need and drafting the house plan which was a consolidation of the features we love from the display homes we've visited. At night, it'll be brainstorming time to make everything according to plan...

Although I wanted it to be a quiet building process, I guess it was best to let family and friends to let in to our exciting project. Many have given their important inputs and we've taken them on board as it's our first time to build and we're quite really bewildered by the whole thing...

Here's what we've done so far;

05 Sep 09 - Checked out houses at Homeworld IV (Masterton, Allworth, All Castle; McDonald Jones, Wincrest, Rawson, Eden Brae, Wisdom, Cosmopolitan)

12 Sep 09 - Checked out houses at Clarendon Parklea

24 Sep 09 - Meeting with Sales Rep from Clarendon

26 Sep 09 - Visited Clarendon Waterfall display home

27 Sep 09 - Meeting with Metricon (didn't quite make the cut considering price and other aspects)

23 Oct 09 - Land settlement

31 Oct 09 - Meeting with Sales Rep from Wincrest to discuss quote

03 Nov 09 - Submitted to Sales Rep from Wincrest modified floor plan with notes for re-quote

11 Nov 09 - Meeting with private builder MB to discuss initial draft floor plan and costing.

14 Nov 09 - Receive revised tender from Wincrest homes (changed mind after speaking to people who built with them and saw their house)

15 Nov 09 - Met with Sales Rep from Wisdom homes. Looking at getting an initial tender using Impression 38 MK II

27 Nov 09 - Meeting with another private builder JB and LW- Construction By Design.

29 Nov 09 - Deposit for Wisdom Homes - $600 to get tender, contour and soil

14 Dec 09 - Received concept plan from Construction By Design ( our specs given to them for redesigning)

18 Dec 09 - Received tender from Wisdom Homes (still having second thoughts as we're waiting for the right one)

01 Feb 10 - Meeting with Construction by Design (CBD). First presentation of Tri-Level Custom Design (design is very impressive, everything was accounted for to our own design in mind ;)))

22 Feb 10 - Tender received from Construction by Design

31 Mar 10 - Loan approved

24 May 10 - Council DA Application submitted

15 Jun 10 - Council DA Approved (surprising that it's very quick, thanks to LW for his awesome design)

25 Jun 10 - HIA building contract signed with CBD

26 Jul 10 - Excavation Starts

27-30 Jul 10 - Rain. No work

06 Aug 10 - Completed excavation and started boring holes for piering