Variation 2 - Fit Out

Today, just over a month after we had our pre-start meeting, we received our second variation for our build, this one was the fit out. The fact that it took Stannard nearly a month to pull together should give you a clue as to the sheer volume of variations this one contained. Bearing in mind that this one didnt' contain any structural elements, instead, it covered everything else, from robe rooks to kitchen cupboard layout.

All in, Variation 2 had 160 line items of which about 70 were variations or options for variations. A note for the unitiated about variations, every change you make is a variation. Want a drawer instead of a cupboard? That's a variation. Want to move your towel rail 500mm to the left. Variation. When they first draw up your house, particularly if it's custom design like ours is, they have a stab at where you would want your indoor and outdoor taps, towel rails, appliances, mirrors, door styles, etc. You then go through every single thing in every single room and every change you make is a variation. Honestly, I'm surprised there was only 70 things on it. 

Given Amanda and I were the ones that requested the change when reviewing the details during pre-start, it comes as no surprise that we want most of the variations listed. In addition to things we talked about, Stannard also gave us some options for things we didn't, such as ability to control the garage door via wifi,  whether we wanted to leave provision for a mains pressured reticulation system, whether we wanted a lockable gas/electric meter box. Honestly, the list of customisations is nearly endless. We have a few questions and our client liaison officer is currently taking some well deserved R&R so we're hoping to have this one put to bed early next week. 

I'm hopeful that this will be the end of our choices we have to make with Stannard and we can crack on with moving to demolition. Exciting times indeed!

Variation 1 - Structural

On Friday just gone (11th of February) we received Variation 1, relating to structural changes we made/requested at Pre-Start. While on paper, there were officially 26 variations, amongst them were a few items of "note" which were more informational such as the air conditioning model that that air-con company had advised and the related electrical wiring it needed, the fact that we are getting 28c internal doors, a repositioning of a doorway, etc. Most other items were fairly minor (i.e. add a soakwell for the pool backwash, swap a big window for a little one, reduce the height of the wall behind the BBQ, swap a wooden framed door for a aluminium one, etc) but there were a few big hitters. Our original plan showed a skylight in our master ensuite and two in the kitchen, we changed that at pre-start to be one skylight mounted landscape in the kitchen and dropped the one in the ensuite. This saved us quite a lot of money but two lines later on the variation, we'd spent it all and then some. 

Ever since seeing it in a display home, we loved the idea that our main house flooring and the alfresco flooring would be at the same height. (See pic of what i'm talking about - although ours will be straight, not a corner like as shown). We've even selected the same tile to flow from inside to outside. However, our original plans showed a step down to the alfresco as required by building code.

This can be avoided if you move to a commercial solution that has a sump drain built into the frame of the stacking doors to avoid flooding the house when it rains but obviously that comes with a hefty price tag. Ultimately though, we decided that it would be well worth our investment so ticked this box. I have no doubt the results will be stunning but hat one stings the hip pocket. We removed a few other variations we'd talked about but ultimately decided not to go ahead with and returned our signed variation today, which has now been processed. Next step will be the internal selections variation. I know that one is going to be meatier!

Planning for Demo

With selections out of the way, we were told we need to start to think about booking in demolition. Given we are keeping our existing pool, there' s a few things to consider. We are planning on keeping the pool shell but the rest of it will get a birthday as part of the process. Also, the pool is very close to where the alfresco is being built so we need to make it a working platform.

So as well as organising a demolition contractor for the house, we also need to contract a specialised pool renovator to decommission the pool and equipment, demolish the existing pool apron and also reach out to a scaffolding company to put scaffolding over the pool. We also have to organise our own disconnection of the NBN and also to move the telecommunications pit that sits dead in the middle of where our new driveway is going to go. Not to mention co-ordinating the timing of all these things. 

So this week we've been reaching out to house demolition companies, pool renovation companies and scaffolding comparies. The demo companies have all been really responsive, the pool companies you cannot get hold of for all the tea in China and if you do somehow manage to, some are booked as far out as January 2023!! The scaffold companies are also a bit hit and miss. Our plan of attack is to get the pool decommissioned and apron demolished prior to the house. However, we can't live in the hosue without the pool fence, which will get ripped out when they destroy the apron so i need to get the scaffolding in between pool and house. We also don't know quite when all of this is going to happen. We also don't yet have finance, so we've also had to kick things off with the bank.

Whilst doing all that, we also got thinking about landscaping. There might be things that we need to plan for now so that we can provision prior to the house getting built, like piping to take the reticulation from the front to the back of the house, so no we're also getting quotes for landscape designers. Talk about trying to juggle a tonne of service providers without a timeline! 

I am happy to report though that we did have some wins. We're going to get Preferred Demolition to do our house demo and we're going to get Blue Star Pools to do our pool renovation works. We think we've got a landscaping shortlist and just need to solve the scaffolding problem now. Timing wise, we're looking at the end of March to kick things off with the pool and early to mid April for the main house demo. We essentially planning to be moving out around April 2, 2022! Only two months from now, exciting!