20/08 - Proposed Demolition Date

Demolition NO GO for next week :( 

Application to AGL for gas abolishment has contained error.  They rang Vic Wide Demo office number and no answer.  They just left it as that without reattempt !!! Now I discovered that our gas meter has not been removed after a month .  Got Vic Wide Demo to ring AGL and found out what was the issue on the form. New form has to be re-submitted.  Now have to wait for another month before demolition can happen !!!

LESSON LEARNED :  Always follow up with a phone call after application submission to make sure everything is correct for processing (even follow-up calls for progress ) ... can't rely on third party to call back ... what a wasteful month of idle !!!

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Guaranteed by Sam from Vic Wide Demolition to have job done by Friday 31/07/12.  That is an assurance but we're still behind one week than previously planned.  Hope that they'll do a clean job so that there is no hinderance to site start.

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Vic Wide Demolition has been very helpful through out application for demolition.  They're waiting on permit of their Surveyor.  However, they've proposed to our council asset protection permit application that demolition to happen on 20/08, which is on Monday week.  

Cross fingers that it will happen as proposed !!!

17/08 - Contract Appointment - Not Signed

Contract Signing has been postponed until after second soil test is done.  This way we can have a more defined site cost as well as slab design ready for council building permit.

As soon as Demolition is completed (which will be by Friday 31/08/12), we'll inform our Admin girl to book second soil test. Results and slab design will take ~2weeks, contract signing will be the week after.  So it's looking at third week of September now to sign contract and site start would be early to mid October.  Hope that there will be no further delays to site start. 

Even if we have signed contract earlier, MainVue would still need to wait for second soil test and slab design. Therefore, it would not make no difference apart from contracting more/less to the provisional lump sum for site costs.  Therefore we decided to wait until all costs refined.

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So glad our admin girl who's filling in for the sale consultant is based in Mount Waverley office.  We will be signing up the contract with her in MW, which is much more convenient for us than at Point Cook.  Before tender, we requested to do paperworks at MW.  The sale consultant told us MainVue stopped offering clients to do so as they wanted to separate the business with Henley.   I suppose there's always exception!

16/08 - Electrical appointment

Electrical Appointment did not start too well with Argus refused to do downlights to kitchen bulkheads as they say they saw it burns holes to overhead cupboards.  Even if we accept the liability and take the risk, they just would not do it.  We intended to do this as kitchen features like displayed.  Now we just have to fall back to plan B with the 3 x pendant lamps over the kitchen island bench. 

Otherwise, everything went well and the Argus girl was quite helpful in working out how many lights and provision we can have to not breach 6 star energy requirement. 

We invested all downlights to ground floor as they would be too hard to do after hand-over and keeping first floor standard, apart from the light in the niche, which would be hard to do after hand-over.

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So glad to have called the admin girl today to book in for an appointment with Argus. Even though tender has note for MainVue to organize however it would have been forgotten.  Argus is all booked up until 16/08. Since it's only 1 day before contract signing, it still has to come as post contract variation.

15/08 - Contract Document Received

So much to read and check through ... Already found a few mistakes:
1. Did not delete standard bath tub as requested
2. Did not add to provide replacement rangehood as requested
3. Husband name spelt wrong
4. Door dimension incorrect in drawings.

23/07 - Settlement

The new property to be demolished has been settled today. Abolishment of services are being organized. 10% Deposit has been paid to Vic Wide Demolition Pty Ltd. Awaiting certificates and permits now for demolition. Contract appointment is coming up. Hopefully can sign in mid August before hubby going oversea.

18/07 - Tender Appointment

Appointment confirmed for 9am at Saltwater Coast in Point Cook.  It must be at 9am and must be at Point Cook.  I wish if they can still do it from the Mount Waverley office.  They used to offer that to client but have now stopped doing so. 

21/06 - Interior Design

Email correspondence between the interior designer and us has been slow.  There's only minor changes that we wanted to do (e.g. Brick type and front door) but it takes couple of days before getting a response :(

The interior designer needs 2 weeks to finalise the documentation for our colour selection. 

We're hoping to be booked in for Tender appointment on Tuesday 17th of July 2012.

We drove around sample addresses from Austral Bricks to check out Kooyong and other types.  We were disappointed with Kooyong (Bricks look too different from the showcase picture).

On the way home, we saw new houses with exact brick colour that we really like.  We knocked on the door to query owner and found out they were Homestead Blackwood.

I'm glad we changed our brick to Homestead Blackwood - cat 2, which only costs $1,300 (less cost but look better in our opinion).

19/06 - Decision Made - 2nd Deposit Paid

It is now decided that we will go for MainVue Emporio ER432.

Sale rep from Saltwater Coast in Point Cook has been fantastic with providing quotations.  He also promptly booked us for Colour Appointment on Thursday 21/06.

The colour went quite quick as we already knew what we want.  However, we were not too sure with the standard brick selection and may go for the upgrade of $3,500 to Category 3 Kooyoung from Austral Melbourne 76 Series.
All upgrades cost more than $10k, which is not something we envisaged.  We will have to revise and cut down some of the upgrades.  Some of the upgrades are:

Pivot doors ~ $4,000.
Tapware and basin ~$3,000.
Porcelein tiles and wall to ceiling extension ~$2,000.
Stone bench upgrades to 40mm ~$1,500
Adding drawers to ensuite and bathroom cupboards
Upgrade internal doors for detailed look instead of plain flush ~ $1,500.

Tender appointment is ~4 weeks time (mid July).

Electrical appointment will be after Tender appointment.  Then,

Contract appointment (mid August).  Finally,

Site Start (mid September).

Hopefully all goes to plan !