Waiting for site costs quote

We are (im)patiently waiting for the results of our soil tests from Henley to get a quote on our site costs. We are now looking at building the 'Palladian' with Henley, after a bit of a hiccup with another builder. As luck would have it, the day we had our tender appointment with another builder and got quoted what we felt were 'exhorbitant' amounts for our site costs, Henley started a promotion where they reduced their 'base' price by $30,000 on their double storey houses. It felt like fate! We just hope we have made the right decision! Only time will tell. What we love about Henley is that most things that other builders call luxury upgrades (stone bench tops, tiled showers etc) are actually standard inclusions.

Our block requires a two storey house, and the Palladian is a wide house, that doesn't go very deep into the block which suits ours perfectly (18.3m wide x 31m deep with 6.5m front setback). We have a north facing backyard, so we have chosen the 'Grand Alfresco' option and hope that we will be able to make the most of our good sized backyard. In order to meet one of the covenents, we must have a porch of 10m2 minimum, so we are chosing the 'Urban' facade which has a big balcony. This sort of facade is quite common with many of the other houses in the estate, so will have to choose a snazzy colour scheme to make ours stand out a bit!

Rachel is only in Melbourne for a couple of more weeks before she is heading back to Perth to finish the last couple of months of her degree, so we are madly trying to work out our colour selections etc. so our building process isn't held up unnecessarily. We will be heading out to some of the brick manufacturers display centres, and into Henley's 'Cosham Interiors' gallery over the weekend to try to nut everything out prior to our colours appointment.

I hope to upload some photographs of our block and the bricks and colours that we have chosen in the near future. Will also keep you informed on the progress with our site costs. Fingers crossed!

Jason & Rachel