Carlisle to Ashford

One thing that has happened over the last few months though is that we have decided to change builders. Over a period of time I became a little concerned about how Carlisle Homes may want to place the house on the block and how far down they may have to dig (especially on one side), etc. The concern may have been unwarranted, but we wanted a ‘plan b’ in case we didn’t like what Carlisle came back with after the site survey (which we can’t do until we have settled on the land).

We decided to look at our options in terms of other builders, sloping block builders, etc, so we would have our ‘plan b’. During our search, we came across Ashford Homes. I contacted them and one of their sales representatives came out and spoke to us. Ashford are not as big a builder as Carlisle and it is unlikely that they will be able to build the house from start to finish in as quick a time as Carlisle, but they are more of a custom builder who we feel will work more closely with us, especially in so far as the location of the house, etc.

Ashford also offer more inclusions than Carlisle. Want eaves on the house? They are included (nearly $4,000.00 with Carlisle!). Flyscreens? They come as standard. Need to upgrade something? They do this at cost, not with a premium.

Ashford would have been able to build a plan very similar to the one we had chosen with Carlisle, but they actually had another floor plan on their website, which really took our interest, especially with a few small adjustments. The house was the same size, and a similar plan, but some of the things we would have had to have changed with the Carlisle house were not an issue with the Ashford one. The following differences were seen to be positives:

– Larger alfresco area under the roof line
– Laundry on left side of the house, not the right (this had always bugged me on the Carlisle plan)
– Large, walk in linen/storage closet (this was a small study which we enclosed)
– Large walk in pantry. Also, the fridge goes in the pantry so you can’t see it.
– Large back rumpus room which was separate to the main living area – this is going to be Paul’s man cave

Plus – we didn’t have to change the laundry door from a sliding door to a standard door and window, and we didn’t have to add the slimline kitchen window (which would have looked great, but I can spend that money elsewhere!).

There are other differences, but these were the main ones that caught our attention.

So, so much for ‘plan b’. After a second meeting with the Ashford consultant, in which we were able to negotiate to have evaporative cooling included in the house price (which was wonderful) our decision was made.

This is the Ashford ‘Ancouley’ Design from their website

This is our revised plan (love it!)

We have had a look through their selection area and a lot of the suppliers are the same so we won’t have to re-choose too many things. I will post soon on our selections.

Postponed…again… but we have stools and pendant lights

So, it has been awhile since my last post and essentially it is due to the fact that we still haven’t settled our land. In fact, settlement has been postponed twice, and is now due in July 2015. To say that we are getting impatient is something of an understatement, but we can’t do much about it. As previously mentioned there is not a lot of land left out our way and the only other option is to buy an established home, which would be easier but we really want to build the home we want, not what someone else wanted.

We visit the estate fairly regularly to see how everyone’s builds in Stage 1 are going and the estate is looking great. I visited in early December and noted that it appeared that our block was nearly ready – this doesn’t mean much though until the rest of the stage is ready, the roads are in, etc.

Our dirt!

I have been a bit naughty though and have bought a few things for the new house – a set of stools (three) and two pendant lights for the kitchen. The stools were on ebay and I got them for just under $180.00 – $60.00 each – pretty good. I am undecided whether to leave them as is or sand the seats back and stain them or whitewash them. I will wait until we are in the house and see how they look/work with everything before we make any decisions (Paul is not so keen on them).

The pendant lights I bought on line and couldn’t resist. They took ages to be delivered but was very happy with them when they arrived. Everything is currently in one of our spare rooms in our tiny rental property – not much more room so I am banned on buying anything else!