My Porter Davis Build Blog

My demolition has commenced... Here's our old house. Was rented our for just under two years so not quite emotionally attached to it as if it was a place I've lived in.  It was a good house. 3 bedrooms, 2 living areas, deck, underground cellar / storage. Could quite easily have renovated it to live in but we decided a knock down rebuild was the best course for us. Can't wait to live in a brand spanking new house! The kids were excited to see the excavator roll in. Sadly, the kids only got to see it roll in and park there. They were supposed to start demolishing 2:30pm on a Thursday. My wife took the kids there to watch but they must have been busy at another site because there was no action that day. By the time we went to have a look again the next day, it had already been knocked down. They must have started very early in the morning! Poor neighbours. The demolition is expected to finish this week. Everything is to be removed. All in all, it wi...

For our electrical appointment, I was spaced out like a zombie having worked to the wee hours of the morning with little sleep in between. Luckily the electrical selections were pretty straight forward and basically we could have just left it to the consultant to plot all the locations of the LED downlights and power points. You'd think it would be much less time consuming if they had done that to begin with. Have a base plan and a fully upgraded plan that people can just choose and be in & out in 15 mins. Here is the layout: Ground Floor: Upper Floor: For our kitchen island, instead of having the power points on the essa stone, we're getting them tucked inside a cabinet door like this  we can not get these: For the pullout bin, we wanted to put in the blum servo drive uno to auto open / close  can not get these even though they are from the same supplier (blum ) For the LED lights, they are hardwired Telbix 301 LED GU 10 Downlights wi...

This is our Tile Selections post. The Tile meeting was by far the easiest of any of our appointments. We went there previously twice to see the range and get an idea of what we wanted. The place is tiny and their range even smaller. Their 'entertainment' room for kiddies was stuffy and we had to jar the door open with a chair.  Anyway, the tile consultant seemed pretty experienced, especially with the speed she was mapping out all the tile zones in their mark up software. She suggested we go for a simple look to match our Espresso Ligna cabinets. My wife agreed and picked these Belgium Stone Diamond 600x300 tiles for walls and floors.  We also picked a darker brown Belgium Stone Lavagna Natural 600x300 tile to work as a feature wall for each bathroom.    I wasn't a big fan of 'simple' and luckily my wife was clever to suggest that we could use my selected tile just for the Master Ensuite... I chose the Pearl Ivory Polished 600x600 Tiles...

Other build blogs I follow: http://wembley35.blogspot.com.au/ : MummaDJ also has a huge alfresco just like ours. Good to read that the alfresco is one of the things she loves . http://waldorf44oakleigh.blogspot.com.au/ : Jack & Michelle are also doing the Chatsworth facade! http://bendigowaldorf.blogspot.com.au/ : Brenton probably has the hugest block of land Porter Davis has even worked on meaning their Govt & OHS is like $100 compared to my $20k! Not fair! http://waldorf46boston.blogspot.com.au / : I like what Phil has done to the  extended terrace / balcony ! http://waldorf44ma.blogspot.com.au/  : A very lovely stirling facade with a nice backyard pool to match! http://sandringham45.blogspot.com.au/ : The widest garage I have ever seen http://projecthouse2012.blogspot.com.au/ : I can not believe these guys' brickwork was so bad , they had to rip it all up and rebrick the 3 sides of the house. Update: New blogs that have starte...

This is our colour selections post. The Colour appointment was one of the better consultations we've had with Porter Davis. The colour consultant was friendly, knowledgeable, and gave us some nice suggestions. The only negative we have is perhaps towards the end, she got a bit tired and rushed a bit more than she did at the start. This is quite understandable though as there are a lot of rooms to go through for a 48 square house! We were the last to finish of all the morning appointments that day. Without further ado... Corinthian Deco 2D doors Melbourne Hawthorn bricks Kado Lux BTW Inwall Toilet Pan (We actually wanted the Roca Meridian Wall Hung Toilets but got quoted at double the price of these Kado ones) Mizu Deep Soaker Bath (not offered at Hopetoun) Kado Arc Freestanding Bath Nikles Fresh Twin Rail Shower Posh Domaine Round Ceiling Dumper Bolero Dusty Rock Floorboards (we actually chose Rustic Coffee thinking it was a safer choice b...

This is a nice door. I doubt Porter Davis can do this but just food for thought... Seriously, for anyone else adding a door under their stairs, take note that Porter Davis will not plaster the inside AND they will not put flooring their either (!).  They just put a door and you do the rest post handover.  

Our Tender appointment was completed last month. One word of warning... it is very very long! We started 9am sharp and still had open items past 5pm. In the end, we ended up getting our Tender emailed to us which was great because we got to review it over the weekend and spot a few more errors. I remember reading someone else's comments saying their Tender was long and at the time not understanding why it would take that long. I had emailed all my changes I wanted before hand so assumed it would be a matter of going through the Tender document and ticking off all the boxes. Not quite! Here's how the day went.. 9-11:30pm: Walk through Tender page by page, line by line. There is Site siting, how far the minimum set back is, whether you want dispensation to bring it closer, where all the silt pits are for collecting water, which trees and vegetation need to be cleared, which windows and overlooking and need to be glazed, and all the floor plan mark ups. 11:30 - 12:30: Go thr...