Signed Off and Officially Starting

We had our first major meeting with Adenbrook Homes. We have to say that it was a pleasant experience, for us being first time builders, the staff at Adenbrook have been very supportive and thorough. We feel that our hand was being guided through our choices and the contract explanation. As they explained to us, we want to remain friends as we go through the whole process.

As we are buying on an almost packaged arrangement, the contract process is greatly accelerated and we have to move quickly. This is with reasonable margin for settlement so we are still comfortable with the pace. They are also giving us sufficient time if delays occur (e.g., we need to keep them up to date in the event of a delay with solicitors or bank inspections if it will go over the 7 day limit). 

We have our building contract package and plans as our builder will be starting with the structure soon. As per arrangement, we cannot change much on the structure of the home so we are rushing to get most of these settled. The main issue at the moment is to do with the double-glazing of all windows (sliding doors we have chosen to do later as their supplier does not do these.) Our builder gave us a preliminary quote and it seems quite reasonable for our budget so we have opted to include this in our building. 

Everything else about the structure seems to be in order. We have also upgraded the insulation grade (roof from 3.0 to 4.0 and walls from 1.5 to 2.5 hopefully enough for Penrith weather). They have already included a physical termite barrier with the original price and we have asked them to upgrade to the termite treated wood for the beams. 

We still have some flexibility with the internals as these can be changed without much trouble with the council. So far, with ballpark figures, all our desired variations are still within budget. We hope that it stays this way so we can still afford to finish our landscaping, border fencing, other internal improvements, and additional electrical wiring and accessories.