The Variations Have Come

After what seemed like a long wait the variations arrived yesterday afternoon. I opened the e-mail attachments with baited breath and trepidation as we were about to find out if we'd gone totally bonkers at Studio M. Phew after a quick read through it looks like we won't have to sell a kidney or send our 4 year old out to work to fund the project.

What's the damage then?



Essentially we spent $650 on tiles, an additional $6200 on electricals ($16,200 in total but we had a $10k provision in our contract), $3200 on carpet and roughly $7000 at Studio M. Giving a grand total of...........$17,000 extra on the contract price. We had estimated more like $20-22k so we feel we have done really well.

After getting some rough quotes for concreting the driveway, portico area and some pathways we have decided to go with Metricon as they were only going to charge a couple of thousand dollars more. Our reasoning for justifying paying the higher price is that it will all be completed without the need for us to wait until the house is finished, we don't have to organise it and Metricon will be responsible for any problems or issues that may arise. Sometimes the easier option makes more sense to us than the cheaper one.

OK so what is the build going to cost? We had budgeted/estimated that we would need $485k just for the house and the final contract price comes in at $472k which with the inclusion of the driveway/concrete totals $489k.
We are pleased to be so close to our initial figure which we came up with after much guess work. There were a few things that we had overlooked in our budget calculations plus some additional doors and upgrades which we put in along the way so we were relieved to have actually spent less than the budget on the house and not blown the overspend out more than this by opting for Metricon to do the driveway.

There will be further costs for the swimming pool $30k, hard landscaping $12k, fencing $16k (includes glass pool fences) and lawns $10k - estimate an additional $70 to $75k. I had originally factored a cost of $100k for all this including driveway and concreting so hopefully we can bring the completed house and garden in under what we were prepared to spend. Hmm might be able to buy some new furniture after all (wishfull thinking!?).

Metricon have suggested that we may hear about a tentative start date today!!

What Happens Next?

Selection appointments are all done, so what happens now? Firstly we have to wait for the variations to be generated so we can sign off on them. Then we have to provide proof that we own the land e.g title or rates bill. Show Metricon the money....once we have all our figures for costings it's back to the bank to finalise the construction loan and send that in so they can see we can pay. And also give details of who will be doing our pool. Oh yes and pay the rest of our deposit!!
We are busy getting everything quoted so we can include as much as we can in the construction loan as possible but it still feels like we are now some how holding up the process! Our house plans have gone through the certifier and are in with Council so we could have approval any time now.
Once Metricon are satisfied with all the information and have double checked the contracts and drawings again then when they have the nod from council we will be provided with a start date.
Better get some phone calls done today so we can complete the things we need to do.

P.S We have another new CSC - that is now our third one.