Woohoo...! After finally getting all our documents sorted, we have finally been released into construction! Awesome news.

Our CSA at Eden Brae has been great, and she has been on top of the whole situation, advising us with what's been happening, and what we need to do etc.

We also received an email from our Construction Supervisor, which was great too. At least we know who we're going to dealing with.

So sometime this week, we will be starting our site excavation. Was hoping to go past our block of land and take some before pics before it started, but we were too busy on the weekend. Oh well, doesn't matter, I'm sure the progress pictures will be better.

So, watch this space. Our build starts... NOW!

A couple of days ago I received an email from our CSA advising that they have lodged our CDC. Awesome! She advised that it will take 2-3 weeks for approval  This was great news!

It also said that our 'site start date' was still for 31/05/2016 which is soon. I thought the date was going to be rescheduled but I guess not!

We were given an approval checklist to make sure that all items below are completed. I think we've done most of them? But it's good to know to make sure that we're prepared:

Great news!

I got an email from our CSA at Eden Brae advising that our land has been registered! Awesome news!

She sent us details of our next steps as to what we need to prep for - Copy of email attached. I don't know if this is for house and land packages only, but hopefully this will be of assistance to some people!

1. Once your land is registered, a 149(2) certificate will need to be obtained from council. I can then order the CDC pre-assessment with this certificate which takes approximately 5 working days, from there your file is prepared for CDC lodgement.
2. CDC approval is received.
3. Require the sign off for the DA check letter- we understand that you have not seen the final plans but this is to ensure you have raised all the variations you want to so far. We ask for you to look at your current plans and variations to see if you may see something else you want. If not, you confirm with this letter that no more changes will be made.
4. DA check to be completed by the estimating team- The DA check is where the estimator will look over your consent and raise anything in the consent that is your responsibility as well as any additional items that have been requested. The DA check will also go through your entire file and check to see if any items have been missed or doubled up throughout the administration process. This takes roughly 1 week to complete.
5. DA Check completed - After the DA check is completed I will send you the final PCV in which I will need it signed and returned in order for me to be able to order your final plans and the amended 5% invoice from accounts which your bank may request. Final plans take 3-4 working days to be completed.

6. Site Start Appointment - Once your final plans have been ordered I will be able to book in a site start appointment to take place in 1-2 weeks time at our office. The site start appointment is where you will come in and sign off on your final documents. I will send these documents over to you a few days before the appointment so you don’t feel overwhelmed on the day. Approval of these can also be done via email if you wish which is usually much quicker.
7. Surveyor Peg Out- once we have your final plans we are able to order the surveyor peg out. The surveyor will go out to site and peg the position of your slab ready for excavator to begin
8. Bank Authority to Commence Construction (ACC)- during the above process we ask you to engage with your bank to finalise all loans and ensure the funds are ready to draw down on. Proof of this needs to be given to EBH in the form of an ACC letter. THIS MUST BE GIVEN PRIOR TO EDEN BRAE COMMENCING WORKS.
9. Production- once you have signed off all the final documents and provided EBH with all required bank documents, your file will go into production where all the orders are raised ready for the supervisor. Once this is complete you will be released into construction. This process takes 20 working days as per your contract.
10. Once released you will liaise with your supervisor on when the slab will get laid, it usually happens about 2 weeks after being released.

I am so lucky we checked our mailbox because j only check about once a month!

We received a letter from our solicitors saying that our land will be registered in 14 days. Awesome! The letter was dated about a couple of days beforehand so really we have about 9 days or so.

So glad we checked our mail!

Time to get our finances checked! Thank goodness we have a good broker.

Watch this space. Construction will start soon!

So I got an email from Eden Brae saying that our land registration has been delayed =/ which means our start date has been delayed to the 31st May 2016.

As much as we wanted it to start on time (so that we were able to get in by Christmas), it isn't the case. Oh well, what can you do!

Let's hope that it doesn't get delayed again! Last time we saw our land (which was probably about 2 weeks ago), it was looking great! The street signs were up, the footpaths were concreted and the lights were up! So let's hope there's not a lot more that needs to be done.

Hopefully my next post will be about our land being registered!

They were seriously 2 full on days! If you're keen, you can do them one after the other but I wasn't. We had a week break in between to talk and fight about our upgrades haha.

None the less, all our upgrades are complete and all PCVs have gone through to Eden Brae which we have also now approved.

It was a fun experience. Would I go through it again, yeah probably.. just the doing the selections and nothing else! haha

Now it's just the waiting game of getting our land registered, oh and we really should see our broker now to get things started!

Slowly but surely we're getting there!

** very late post **

We completed our tiling and carpet appointment with DiLorenzo a couple of weeks before Christmas. Our budget for carpet and tiling as $7k (I know.....)!

We were introduced to Annabee who was going to be our consultant for the day. We started off with tiling first for the bathroom. There are a few options to choose from the standard bathroom range (remember the building standard rate for Eden Brae is marked with a yellow sticker).

Because we had been to DiLorenzo a couple of times, we were pretty much set with what we wanted in terms of tiling, but things soon changed when I realised that some tiles that weren't in the builders range, we just had to pay for the labour on top.. score!

We initially wanted our bathroom wall time from the builders range, but Annabee recommended a matt finish white wall tile 300x600mm (which we will lay horizontally). For our floors, I didn't really like the builders range of bathroom floor tiles (and because they were only 200x200mm big,) so we ended up upgrading to a 300x300mm matte grey tile (where you just have to pay extra for the labour as well). You get a free vertical strip of decorative tile for each bathroom. We decided not to go for this and change the tiling in our niche instead. I chose a hexagon tile that we had to pay extra for (unfortunately) as it was italian stone tile. I knew I wanted it from the beginning so there was no changing that!

Left: Our niche tile, Right: Our bathroom floor tile

Next was our floor tiles for the rest of the areas (kitchen, dining etc). Again, I chose another tile that was out of the builders range. It was a glazed porcelain 450x450mm tile (as from what I read, it was recommended to get porcelain instead of ceramic). Yes, I went for another grey tile (I love grey)!

Our floor tile is #5 (Smoke Matt)

Next on our list of things to choose was our carpet. I initially asked Annabee if it was viable to get the standard range in carpet and upgrade our underlay, but she suggested that if you do that, that you either upgrade both or upgrade none (I don't know how much truth there is to that)! Anyway, we ended up not upgrading anything and left it with the standard builders range for the carpet and the underlay (which is only 3mm). We ended up going with the California Gully II - 98 Jaguar Minster carpet. It was pretty good carpet for carpet in the builders range which was also a shade of grey! haha

All up, our total upgrades for tiles and carpet came to (surprisingly) $3153.00. Happy we came under budget, and I was going to push to and ask for floor to ceiling tiling in the bathrooms but I thought I should just stay in my happy place and not ask for anything more!

Here are some prices (per m2) to help you with costs for labour etc:

• Labour to Lay 300x600mm Wall Tile - extra: $18.50 
• Labour to lay alternative tiles to Niche (1000mm x 1999mm wide): $150.00 (one off price not per m2)
• If you were supplying your own shaving cabinets (like we are) and want tiling from the bathroom countertop to the bottom of the shaving cabinets (we did a space of 540mm upwards):
• Supply Wall tile to 1800mm High (Above vanity only): $27.50
• Labour to lay Wall tiles: $48.00
• Labour to Lay 300x600mm Wall Tile - extra: $18.50
• Silicone to Vanity Height: $50.00

Day 2, and we were ready for our electrical appointment! The night before, we plotted out on our house plans where we wanted power points (and extra power points), downlights and tv outlets. Us planning the night before made it so much easier the next day.

We were introduced to Malinda who would be our electrical consultant for the day. What I loved about the appointment was that pricing was shown in real time, so we were able to see it slowly adding up! For this appointment, we budgeted $7k, and I think we were close to it. We got some extra things just because we thought that it was easier to do it there and then, and Malinda agreed. For example, all downlights downstairs we added in and Eden Brae will install them, we just need to provide the downlights (which saved us a lot)! We also included our alfresco fan through Eden Brae as it was cheaper to buy it with them and install it.

Ok, so we went over budget, but not by that much. We got everything that we wanted so we were very happy with the outcome!

The electrical breakdown is quite in depth. We mostly splurged on downlights and powerpoints. Instead of writing down our variations, I'll just outline how much each unit costs to give you an idea. Note: that most of these were included and prices are as of December 2015:

• Batten Holders (for downlights): $75.00ea

• Double Fluro light (for garage): $181.00ea

• Outdoor lights: $119ea

• Double floodlight (for backyard): $197ea

• Junction Box: $79.00

• Switches: FREE 

• Powerpoint (1 socket): $76.00ea

• Powerpoint (2 socket): $79.00ea

• Powerpoint (Outdoor 1 Socket): $114.00ea

• Powerpoint (Outdoor 2 Socket): $137.00ea

• Phone Socket: $110.00ea

• TV Point - Digital: $110.00

• Data Cat6: $146.00ea

• Digital TV antenna: $635

• Provision for wall mounted TV: $165.00ea

• Exhaust Fan: $156.00ea

• 3 in 1 lamp (for bathroom): $272.00ea

• Smoke detector: $152.00

• Motion detectors: $159.00

• Additional alarm keypad: $238.00ea  

• Upgrade to Navigator keypad and slimline siren/strobe (alarm): $284.00

• Keyfobs and transceiver (alarm): $225.00ea

• Install downlights: $48.00 per light

• Supply, wire and install ceiling fan in alfresco: $285.00