My Porter Davis Build Blog

Found this waldorf on sale earlier this month. I love looking at other people's Porter Davis finishes. Enjoy... :) The Chatsworth facade: Wonder where I've seen that before... :) Looks like standard roof tiles but upgraded wooden window frames. The choice of dark garage door is nice. The bricks look like the thin version of my hawthorn ones from Austral. 

Presenting to you... the magnificent L shaped Marriot kitchen...! Hanging pendant lights from Domayne ( Stella Pendant Light Copper - Small ). Nice choice from the wifey. 

If you've got a cool $million dollar budget for building a pool, this invention could be a pretty good wowser. Designed by Agor Engineering , an Israeli company, it's a Deck that slowly lowers to reveal a swimming pool! How cool is that!

Drum roll... I now present to you the final completion of the brand new Porter Davis Marriot!

I'm happy to report that our PCI went very smoothly.  We went through the house on Friday for about two hours and everything we spotted was agreed to be fixed. Porter Davis was also happy for essentially a second PCI to be done on the following Tuesday 27th as that was the earliest time I could book my independent building inspectors. This time, I chose Darbecca  and of the three that I have used now, Darbecca was by far the best to work with.  Anyway, without further ado, here's a list of my PCI issues: 1. Kitchen taps were not connected and the cabinetry holes should be filled.  

My Practical Completion Inspection is on in about 12 hours time! Here's a comprehensive checklist I've copied from the Homeone forums. 

Carpets were laid just before Christmas except for the master bedroom which was getting its squeaks fixed .  We picked the Palandri Category 2 carpets in Cedar Plank colour. Nothing too fancy as Category 2 was the included freebie and we didn't want to pay the Porter Davis premium for upgrades. Figured when it's better to let the kids wear out this one and replace it in a few years time at a much cheaper cost per square metre. Here's a roll of carpet. The most excited I've ever been to see a roll of carpet :)

This is a delayed post. I'm just catching up on some of the updates I was meant to upload but didn't have time to before the mad holiday season.  Here's how my master bedroom floor looked on December 19th. The floor is getting fixed as they were squeaking a bit in this section. 

Porter Davis is officially closed from Tuesday 23rd December to Monday 5th January. I'm told that Tuesday arvo was PD's Christmas party so suffice to say, very little happened in regards to my build that day. The only change I noticed was that they made sure the whole house was fully locked up, including the garage doors, which they never bother with. In preparation for handover next year (hopefully early Feb!), I've hit the button on this Sony 60" Full HD TV . Has an RRP of $1599 but as part of the Boxing Day clearance at JB Hifi, they were discounted to $998! I'm sure prices will come down further in a few months but it just so happens that my 10 year old LG 42" Plasma broke down last month so this is good timing. A 60" TV from a name brand for under the magic $1000 mark is a pretty sweet deal so I'm rapt.

The garage doors were installed 26th Nov. They are the standard Panelmasta Contemporary doors in Shale Grey. We were umming and arring about whether to go for the upgraded stained look to match the stained front door but in the end we decided to save the money and stick with the standard painted colours. We chose Shale Grey to match the facade render colour (Rampart). Here's the look from the outside. The facade hasn't had it's final render coat on yet so no idea how well the Rampart and Shale Grey will go together. That yellow spot is my sensor light! :)

Originally we had chosen Bolero Rustic Coffee floorboards but after seeing it in one of the display homes, we thought it looked too plain and there was not enough variation in the colour or patterns. We promptly raised a variation to change to Dusty Rock which is a much lighter brown / grey colour where the grains in the engineered boards shows through more. So.., I was lucky enough to get home after work today to find the installers still laying the boards. Here's them getting installed! Here's the look around the hallway

Shelves were installed on Friday 5th December  (week 25 of my build). Nothing magical here. All standard inclusions and no upgrades. It's much much cheaper to do it post handover. Originally I had asked for additional floating desks in the bedrooms but they were around $1000 each... $1000 each?!! Here's the walk in waldrobes for the kids bedrooms

Tiling started on Friday 7th Nov and finished around 26th Nov - week 24 of build. Initially the tiler said he'd only take a week but they ran out of tiles so had to wait for National Tiles to deliver more.  Here's the powder room shower. The darker tiles are the "Belgium Stone Lavagna Lapparto". Each ensuite has one wall with this darker tile. The lighter ones are "Belgium Stone Ice Lapparto". This is used for both walls and floor. 

The Fixing Stage invoice was officially sent to me on 27th Oct which put it at week 19 of my build. That's just over four months which, especially considering my delay due to the power lines, is damn quick. Anyway, back to the fixing invoice, it was sent a tad premature because there were just a 'few' outstanding issues that needed to be attended to... 1. Bedroom 2 door not straight Here the door is not aligned to the cornice or the wall.

This massive 1000sqm apartment with screaming city views and literally walking distance to CBD has just listed on the market. It is expected to fetch a new record for an apartment in Melbourne. Strangely the listing price is in USD so the final price could depend on how the AUD is fluctuating at settlement! http://www.domain.com.au/property/for-sale/apartment-unit-flat/vic/east-melbourne/?adid=2011580160&sp=1

Here's some photos of our Hawthorn bricks. These were category 4 upgrade and costs ~$5k. The off white mortar was another $1k on top. We chose to have the rolled joints instead of a flush finish. I think the off white mortar together with the rolled joints make the bricks stand out better and have been well worth the money.

Painting is complete. We've gone for the grey finish to the walls. Here's how the Winter Mushroom looks. Originally we thought of doing white for the architraves and doors but got convinced by the colour consultant to use the same paint all round. Was a bit worried at first but it has come off nicely. 

The carpenter has been around the last couple of weeks installing the architraves, skirting, ... and doors! Here's photos of the Deco 2D doors for anyone who is thinking of choosing them. They haven't been glossed over yet so hopefully they will 'pop' out more once painted. 

The stairs were installed a couple of weeks ago on 8th October. Here's the pics for the default Classic Stairs Option 2 you pretty much see in all the Waldorf displays. 

Went to visit the World of Style over the weekend. Wasn't intending to, but my Tiles Consultant rang up during the week to inform me that I needed to rechoose one of my Tiles (Belgium Diamond Lapparto) as they have been discontinued.