Signed

The final contract is signed!! We went over the plans and contract with a fine tooth comb before initialling and signing in the relevant places, all in all it took around two and a half hours of checking and scribbling. There were a couple of mistakes but nothing that couldn't be rectified like the gym/garage area was still showing a store room with tiled floor and the wardrobe doors were down as vinyl and not mirrored. We also decided we would like to add a set of doors between the family room and hallway so this area can be closed off when we have the air con on rather than trying to cool and heat such a massive space. Easy to draw on the plan but it means revised drawings will need to be issued so I hope we don't get charged admin and redrawing fees as it will make the doors a very expensive addition!

At final contract you get more detailed plans and drawings and even cabinetry designs for kitchen, laundry, bathrooms etc, seeing them really starts to bring the house alive in our imagination. Sandy was very pleased to see that they had the kitchen drawn exactly as requested, it looks really smart and will have heaps of storage. Finally it's starting to dawn on us that this house is huge, so much for our original plans of down sizing!

Metricon ask for a 5% deposit plus evidence of your ability to pay like a letter of finance from your lender. We had neither of these as until the house in finalised we can't set up the building loan, however our SC explained that it was OK just to sign a form explaining we were awaiting settlement of the house prior to finance, cool another signature so that part was easy. For the deposit we had two choices either pay nothing today and Metricon will just accept the contract but do nothing with it until the cash appears or put down another $2,500 and the process will keep moving forward as we are showing a commitment. No brainer, pay the $2,500 and keep the build process moving. The next stage is the plans will go to Council for building approval and knowing Council this could take some time and we don't want to be living in the studio apartment for any longer than we need to.

Metricon will contact us soon to organise colour selections and electrical appointment, how exciting.

OK so how is the budget looking? I have to say not bad at all, we are getting really good at guessing how much things cost so it didn't come as a surprise to see that we have now spent $85K over the base price. We have already factored in the brick and roof tile selections, air con, upgraded stairs and lots of additional doors, floor to ceiling tiles in bathroom, en suite and powder room and brick infills over all ground floor windows and garage.
For those of you agonising over whether to go for brick infills it cost us an extra $1,800 which we felt was good value when you consider how big the house is and how much smarter it will look once built.

So we are doing our sums as there will be a few extras once we get to studio M but not many as we have put so much of what we would have added at colour selection into the final contract like bricks and roof tiles, upgraded wardrobe doors, extra tiles, upgraded doors and stairs and so on.
Additional upgrades still to come will include:
carpet and underlay approx $3,500
bigger handle on pivot front door hmm guessing $300
round down pipes not the standard square box type, no idea of price
diamond gloss finish to some cabinets in kitchen, no idea of price
silver kickers for kitchen, again no idea
bigger architraves, no idea
render to portico area, approx $2,000
may be down grade the cantilever stairs, saving approx $3,000
electricals hopefully we can stick to the $10K provision in the contract!

We are thinking we can keep the studio M extra extras under $10K (optimistic?!).
If anyone knows how much the silver kickers or diamond gloss finish costs we'd love to hear from you.

Glad to have the final contract signed as we head off on a much needed and probably last holiday in a long time on Thursday prior to moving house the week we get back!