Farewell Fibro Majestic: The Journey to Date

Let's start at the beginning...

Our road from A to B has been incredibly long - and, at times, incredibly hard. As much for therapy (haha!) as to document our journey, I thought it best to start with a timeline (blow by blow) of our adventure to date. This commences way back in June 2011 when our ride began...

June – mid September: Made the decision to upsize from our unit to a house (with a yard)! Got our finances in order and started looking at properties.
Late July: Found our dream property - a 1960s red brick on a great street with huge potential. Property was to sell at auction.
Early August: Arranged building & pest inspection + site survey for the above property and prepared for sale day by attending lots of different auctions in the area.
Mid August: Attended auction with our deposit cheque (and our extended families) confident we’d be the highest bidder. Outbid in less than 5 minutes. Devastated.
Late August: Outbid on another property – at least this time it wasn’t at auction.
Early September: Picked ourselves up and back to the drawing board. Also relooked at our numbers and revised our budget (and hence expectations) down by $100K. Ouch. Bye bye brick, hello fibro…
Friday, 16^th September: Saw the Fibro Majestic on the internet. ‘Renovator’s Delight’ is an understatement but a nice sized & level block of land. Busier street, but in our price range. Immediately requested contract from REA.
Saturday, 17^th September: Inspected property with REA. This could be the one. Made our formal offer the same morning. Offer accepted before lunchtime. Hurrah (we think)…
Monday, 19^th September: Contacted REAs re. the sale of our beautiful apartment which we’d just spent two years renovating. Are we mad?!
Monday, 26^th September: Unconditional approval received from the bank on the Fibro Majestic.
Wednesday, 28^th September: Appointed REA to sell our apartment.
First week of October: Apartment listed for sale...
Thursday, 20^th October: Accepted offer on our apartment. Yay!
Early November: We bought a ute. Yes, we bought a ute.
Friday, 18^th November: Settlement on the Fibro Majestic. We’re officially house owners!
Saturday, 19^th November: Let the painting begin – started replacing the gorgeous apricot walls with a much more palatable shade of white and pulling up the 30+ year old carpet & lino. Eeew!
Saturday, 26^th November: Moving day. First night in our new house.
Wednesday, 30^th November: Met with Owner Builder company to discuss how we might go about this approach to our renovations.
Friday, 2^nd December: Settlement on our apartment. Excited but also a little sad to lock the door behind us for the last time.
Tuesday, 6^th December: Arranged for meter box at the Fibro Majestic to be rewired and brought into the 21^st century.
Merry Christmas! Can't wait to see what 2012 brings...

The Ups & Downs of 2012...

So we left 2011 with plans to simply 'spruce up' the Fibro Majestic - mending the leaking roof, replacing the fibro with weatherboard cladding, adding a patio/deck to the front and back and potentially tweaking a couple of internal walls.

Oh how these plans morphed and changed throughout the next 12 months... By mid year we were planning a complete renovation & extension and by year end, after numerous false starts, we came to the (probably long overdue) realisation that the best way forward was to Farewell the Fibro Majestic altogether and welcome a beautiful new home on our lovely patch of land.

On an unrelated but much more more exciting topic, we commenced the year as Mr & Mrs and ended the year as Mum & Dad to our beautiful baby girl. This is how 2012 unfolded:

Friday, 13th January: Our first of many skip bin deliveries and working bees. Preceded by weeks of pulling apart the concrete jungle that was our backyard + the nearly 60 years of junk (terracotta pipes, termite ridden timbers, rusted tools and more) that the previous owner had accumulated and left behind for us under & around the house.
Thursday, 19th January: Department of Lands completes registration of our ownership on the title. The Fibro Majestic is formally ours… ok, well some of it. The bank still owns most of it.
Late January: Cut & cleared our way through the tangle of trees & debris behind the huge asbestos workshop on our block (it fits four cars!) and removed all matter of junk including countless slabs of daggy marble offcut. Very random.
Monday, 13th February: Removal of asbestos on the workshop & laundry commences. The men in their special suits & masks make light work of it. All done in just a few days.
Mid - late February: The carport and frame for the workshop is pulled down. We do it ourselves with the help of a hire scaffold and lots of ropes. Vertigo suffering hubby more than pleased that it’s a one-off job but the fact that we’ve just reclaimed 150sqm of our block definitely makes it worthwhile. Still need to destroy the huge slab under the workshop – a job for another day... or two or three…
Thursday, 1st March: Time to put the house plans aside for a minute… we’re having a baby! Best news ever! Now, how to keep it a secret from everyone for the next 8 weeks?
Monday, 5th March: Arborist engaged to report on the trees on our site. They’re mostly weeds. So that means it’s easy to get rid of them right?!
Tuesday, 6th March: Contacted roofing companies re. re-pointing and spraying our concrete tiled roof + replacing the lean-to extension so that it no longer leaks during the rain & we can stop the mould growing in our back rooms.
Sunday, 11th March: Working bee at the Fibro Majestic to dispose of the workshop slab. More skip bins.
Friday, 16th March: Dating scan for baby. We’re due in early November. So excited... so much to do between then and now.
Late March: Laid slab for new garden shed. Slab looks great and built to supplier’s dimensions (as quoted on their website).
Early April: Flatpack garden shed arrives. It’s bigger than the quoted dimensions – argh! Let’s make that slab a bit bigger then...
Mid April: Contacted builders re. smaller renovation plans + suppliers direct re. supply of specific materials including new windows, etc.
Monday, 23rd April: We can finally tell everyone our happy news!
End April: Garden shed finally erected. Took three of us nearly three weekends to get there. Crack open the beers (& non-alcoholic wine)!
Mid May: First builder & architect engaged.
Thursday, 31st May: New boundary fences (all three sides) complete. They look fantastic!
Thursday, 14th June: First site survey completed.
Wednesday, 20th June: First plans received from architect.
Late June: To & fro with first builder/architect re. plan amends.
End June: Decide to part ways with first builder & architect…
Early July: Knocked our external laundry & old outhouse down. Very satisfying. More backyard reclaimed! Another slab we need to break apart and dispose of…
Tuesday, 3rd July: Engaged new drafting company.
Monday, 23rd July: Removal of asbestos sheet from our bathroom walls.
Late July - Early August: Interim DIY refurb of bathroom including new shower & sink, removal of bathtub, new floor & wall tiling + installation of washing machine taps. Yay – we can finally wash our clothes inside!
Friday, 3rd August: Concept drawings received from drafting company. Looking good.
Tuesday, 14th August: We have a flood control lot. This isn’t news to us, but the more we learn about it the more challenging our renovation plans seem to be. We request flood information (for a fee) from council to work out where the floor level for the new extension needs to sit. Discover we need to build about 1-1.2m above the existing ground level.
Monday, 3rd September: Two month countdown to baby's arrival. Action plans for nursery preparation and general DIY house spruce up - gardens, lacquering all our raw floorboards, etc - developed and put into action.
Wednesday, 5th September: Final concept drawings received from drafting company. We research a selection of builders to talk to and prepare a tender for each of them.
Thursday, 6th September: We also decide to explore the cost for a new build. We figure we should keep our options open in case the renovation/extension is not feasible. (In hindsight, very glad we followed our gut instinct to do this!). Visited Rawson Homes displays (amongst others). Introduced to the Kempsey design… quite nice...
From mid September - mid October: Meetings with builders (and pool companies) regarding renovation & extension plans. Find some great partners but all building quotes come in at approx. $360,000 - much more than we’d originally budgeted + the renovated portion of the old house will still sit below the new flood level. Not ideal and definitely no good for resale. Pool plans also proving too costly and difficult. Resign ourselves to the fact that neither a pool nor the renovation/extension plans are feasible. Frustrated and tired. After all this time, could we really be going back to the drawing board again...
Monday, 22nd October: We’re going to be parents in approx. 12 days. And we're going to re-build. Decision made.
Tuesday, 23rd October: Contacted mortgage broker to get construction loan pre-approval in order.
Tuesday, 13th November: Our beautiful baby girl arrives. Welcome to the world sunshine!
Early December: Review & compare project home plans of various builders online. Decide that the Clarendon Waterside design is best suited to our block. Visit their Head Office to review the display home and get things started. Tender presentation requested & dollars paid. We’re finally on our way. Yay (or so we think)…
Friday, 14th December: Conditional construction pre-approval received from the bank. Just in time for Christmas...

Lucky 2013...

We entered this year full of renewed vigour and excitement about our impending (so we thought) house build. We might even be living in our new home before Christmas. What an exciting prospect but, sadly, what a wrong one...

But every cloud does have its silver lining and, despite the challenges we faced (again!) during early 2013, the year is well and truly looking up.

Could it be third year lucky? Here are the events of 2013 to date as we sit (oh so eagerly) on the cusp of our long awaited house build:

Friday, 11^th January: Tender & preliminary plans received. Changes requested & tender approved. Tender acceptance fee paid. We are advised that the next stage will involve receipt of our draft plans and building contract for approval.
Late January: Contacted demolition companies to source quotes for knock down of the Fibro Majestic.
Monday, 4^th February: Researched independent building & construction lawyers regarding review of impending building contract. Engaged preferred partner.
Wednesday, 6^th February: Received draft building agreement (contract) and immediately took agreement to building & construction lawyers for their review & comments.
Friday, 8th February: The ute's been great but now that we've made the decision to rebuild, we're won't have a need for it for at least 12 months. It sells quickly.
Saturday & Sunday, 9^th & 10^th February: Proactively visited Clarendon’s flooring companies (carpet, floorboards & tiles) to look at available options. Think we're going to have to factor in a lot of upgrades...
Thursday, 21^st February: Legal feedback on contract received.
Friday, 22^nd February: Preferred demolition company engaged.
Saturday, 23^rd February: Rawson Homes’ Kempsey display home opens at Minto (not relevant to us right now, but soon it will be)…
Sunday, 24^th February: We work through the 30-ish pages of very comprehensive legal feedback and collate this into a succinct letter for Clarendon’s review and feedback.
Monday, 11^th March: Formal feedback received in response to our requests. Clarendon ‘does not agree’ to all key points. Incredibly frustrating and feeling very dejected.
Tuesday, 12^th March: Make the very difficult decision to walk away from Clarendon. We can’t believe this is happening again. Are we actually ever going to move forward?
Tuesday, 19^th March: One week of feeling sorry for ourselves is enough. We approach Rawson Homes and use all of the knowledge we’ve gained over the last 18 months to cover off all of our key questions up front. Feeling very comfortable with all the answers and information they provide us.
Thursday, 21st March: Complying development application for demolition of the Fibro Majestic lodged with council.
Friday, 22^nd March: Formal meeting with Rawson Homes. We review the Edge & Balmoral display homes. Both look great.
Saturday, 23^rd March: We visit the Kempsey display home. Also looks great… a bit smaller in size to the Edge & Balmoral (and what we were originally looking to build), but that means it’s also more cost effective. Means we could actually splurge on a few upgrades. Hmmm, could this be the one?
Sunday 24^th March: Revisit both display locations to do another review and compare of the three homes. Still not sure which one is right for us.
Tuesday, 26th March: Revisit both display locations again (yes, for the third time in less than a week). Decide upon the Kempsey.
Thursday, 28^th March: We discuss our preferred upgrade / layout tweaks with Rawson Homes. All achievable. Tender presentation requested & fee paid.
Tuesday, 2nd April: Council approval received for demolition of the Fibro Majestic.
Wednesday, 3rd April: Rawson do a 'drive by' to 100% confirm that they can work with our site. All good, thank goodness.
Friday, 5th April & Monday, 22nd April: Soil tests & site survey conducted by Rawson partners at the Fibro Majestic to assist with tender development.
Tuesday, 30^th April: Tender presentation at Rawson Head Office. We review the tender in detail following the meeting and email through our consolidated changes.
Saturday, 4^th May: Revised tender received. Looks great.
Monday, 6^th May: Tender approved & acceptance fee paid. We request the external colours for the Kempsey display home.
From 6^th May: To & fro with Rawson Homes to answer our queries about external colour selections, brick choices, structural changes and engineering requirements to satisfy our council requirements regarding flooding.
Wednesday, 22nd May: Hydraulic engineer engaged to review flood related development controls.
Thursday, 23^rd May: We receive the (expected) variation covering the cost to raise the house to the required flood level (via drop edge beams). Variation signed and immediately returned. Too easy.
End May: We love the bricks on the display home but they’re an expensive upgrade. Maybe we can find a more cost effective alternative? We visit the brickyards to review our options. Find there are no suitable ‘non slurry’ options in a similar colour. Decide to bite the bullet and pay for the upgrade.
Thursday, 6^th June: Meeting at Rawson Head Office to receive first stage Application Plans.
Monday, 10^th June: We provide our consolidated feedback + a list of questions in relation to the Application Plans.
From Tuesday, 11^th June: To & fro with Rawson Homes regarding our Application Plan feedback.
Wednesday, 26^th June: Variation 2 to cover our Application Plan feedback received. Some further changes required.
Friday, 28^th June: We sign the revised Variation 2.
Monday, 1^st July: We re-visit the display home and identify some further late changes we'd like to make to the Application Plans. Changes are requested.
Monday, 8^th July: To keep the ball rolling, Rawson Homes have requested a Complying Development check on our nearly finalised Application Plans. Everything is generally looking good. Certifiers provide feedback regarding tweaks to side setback and privacy screens are required on western side of house.
Friday, 12^th July: Our final changes + the certifier's requirements are summarised in Variation 3. This is signed and returned. We’re now ready to move to the next stage.
Thursday, 8^th August: Submission plans received… oh my goodness, this is the furthest we’ve ever been. We're now officially in unchartered territory. We review the plans in detail and notice some of our requested changes have been missed. Not a problem for these to be rectified.
Tuesday, 20^th August: We approve the revised Submission Plans and pay the associated fee.
From Wednesday, 21^st August: Supporting reports required for Complying Development application ordered by Rawson. These should all be in within 3-4 weeks.
Tuesday, 3^rd September: We submit our external selections + complete and sign the required Private Certifier forms to support our Complying Development application. We also request to upgrade the included coloured concrete driveway to aggregate (similar to the display home).
Wednesday, 4^th – Friday, 6^th September: Meetings locked in with the relevant Rawson suppliers for our electricals, internal colours/fixtures/fittings and tile selections. Everything should be decided by lunchtime on Friday, 20^th September.
Saturday, 7th September: Visited display home to help prepare for our impending selection appointments. Bring them on!
Thursday, 12th September: Electricals selection appointment at Your Home Consulting. Poor hubby's been working on the detail for weeks so we're not surprised when the girls tell us that our plan is one of the more complicated they've seen. Good to have this (& the associated incremental costs locked away).
Friday, 13th & Saturday, 14th September: More trips to the display homes (Kellyville this time) to check out all the fixture and fitting options in advance of our selection appointments. Keen to double check that our planned colours (in particular) will work in real life vs. the tiny swatches we have on hand. Very pleased we did this. Feeling much more confident.
Wednesday, 19th September: Tile pre-selection appointment at Tile Direct. We were really impressed with their range. Plenty of colour choice within the included options which was nice to see.
Thursday, 19th September: Internal colours, fixtures & fittings appointment at Raw Interiors. Great session - so good to see everything in real life, especially our front door. Confident we chose well!
Friday, 20th September: Variation 6 covering fixed costs for our stormwater and sewer connection signed off (that means no more provisional allowances in our tender). Tile selection appointment at Tile Direct.
Saturday, 21st September: Started checking out rental accommodation options. We also finalised our tile selections at Tile Direct. Forgot we needed to select a front door sill tile yesterday so we returned with a sample of our brick today to help select a suitable colour.
Sunday, 22nd September: Applied for one of the rental properties we saw yesterday.
Monday, 23rd September: Missed out on the rental property we applied for, but we were fortunate to meet another resident of the same block who is looking to list their apartment within the next couple of weeks. We arrange a private inspection in advance of the formal listing.
Wednesday, 25th September: The apartment is stunning! Where do we sign?
Friday, 27th September: Our rental application is accepted. We get the keys on 25th October. Time to start organising our move.
Saturday, 28th September: Fence around our backyard shed is erected. Another job off the list.
Monday, 30th September: Final Submission Plans and completed Complying Development application submitted to the certifier. We should have building approval in 10 working days!
Wednesday, 16th October: Final internal selections (Variation 9) signed off. Bit of to and fro but we got there in the end. Now we're finally in a position to get the building contract.
Friday, 18th October: Contract received. Bit of light reading for the weekend ahead!
Monday, 21st October: CDC approval received. Hurrah!
Tuesday, 22nd October: Land valuation to take place.
Friday, 25th October: Pick up the keys to our rental. Planning to spend the day cleaning and moving the first boxes into our new (interim) home.
Saturday, 26th October: Moving day!
Monday, 28th October: Meeting with our mortgage broker to complete all the application forms required to secure our formal construction loan approval. Tentative on completion valuation of our new home will also be scheduled.
Thursday, 7th November: Conditional finance approval received.
Friday, 8th November: Contract signed and returned. Demolition company contacted to lock in demo date.
Tuesday, 12th November: Demolition commencement date for the Fibro Majestic confirmed - Monday, 9th December 2013. Weather permitting, all should be complete within the week - approx. 2 days for the handwork (i.e. asbestos and tile removal) and a further 2 days for the machine work (i.e. knocking down/removing everything else and giving the site a scrape).
Thursday, 14th November: Notification of Intent to Commence Work form lodged with council for demolition of the Fibro Majestic.
Friday, 15th November: Verbal tentative on completion valuation received. It's much better than we were hoping. What a great way to start the weekend!
Wednesday, 20th November: Distributed letters to each neighbour within 20m of our site advising them of the demolition date and contractor's details. Ironically, received a similar note from our neighbours across the road - looks like we'll both be re-building at the same time.
Friday, 22nd November: Mortgage documents received, signed and returned. Just waiting on the Authority to Commence letter from the bank and we're good to go!
Friday, 28th November: Formal unconditional loan approval received from the bank.
Thursday, 5th December: Formal 'Authority to Commence Construction' (ACC) letter received from the bank. Our demolisher also advised that the knockdown work will start next Tuesday 10th / Wednesday 11th December as the horrible weather we had a week or so ago has unfortunately pushed out all of their jobs).
Friday, 6th December: Great news! Now that we've been able to supply Rawson with our ACC letter, our file has finally moved out of the admin phase and is now with our Site Supervisor. It's all starting to happen - hurrah!
Sunday, 8th December: Our last visit to the Fibro Majestic before demolition commences...

That completes the (long winded) back story. Now we can finally move on to the bit we've been eagerly awaiting - commencing our demolition and re-build posts... just in time for Christmas!