The home research begins:
We made numerous trips to homeworld, and I spoke to a few private builders, but the builder we ended up settling on was Provincial Homes based in Castle Hill with two display home centres, one in Kellyville and one in Gledswood Hills.
So why did we decide to go with Provincial homes ?
They do a solid concrete raft slab for P class. Not sure if I trust waffle pods just yet.
The standard fitment seems to be of a high level… although I will update this as our build progresses.
The inclusions seem to also be better than most of the other builders. The $5k upgrade package helped tick off all the features we wanted.
The homes we walked through felt like homes.
The sales people were straight and very realistic with us.
Time will tell if we made the right choice, but for the time being we are extremely happy with Provincial and I’ll explain why in a minute
The hiccup
Originally we had intended on doing a double storey home “The Sienna” slightly modified to modernize it a little bit. It ticked all the boxes but circumstances changed and we needed to go to a more affordable home. We started looking at single storey homes, and whilst one other builder had a floor plan we really liked. In fact it was one of the best we had seen, it was just too expensive for what it was with a base price heading into double storey larger home price range.
The sales manager was more than accommodating with our situation, and extremely understanding. It wasn't without a slight financial penalty with new plan fees and a basix certificate but I think this is to be expected. Our sales manager worked with us to accommodate our needs, and with his and her help we ended up with a modified fairlight 31 (with Nu Vogue Façade), which fit our block perfectly, it’s going to be a large single storey home that ticks off all the boxes and meets our requirements. We modified it to include a study/nursery small bedroom by bed 1 but that was it as far as changes.
My feedback on the sales staff overall is nothing but excellent.
Communication was up there with e mails replied to within 24 hours
Getting pricing was extremely easy, and upgrades and changes were never a problem
I guess the most important thing with Provincial was that although the sales staff were busy, they always made you feel like part of the family.
Provincial did a free site inspection for us which helped with the tender process, we made the following changes to the standard which added some cost to the home as well. I'm not happy about some of the additional charges but felt the house needed the changes.
Roof Pitch from 22.5 to 25 degrees. This is the one thing I was a bit annoyed about not being standard, the double storey homes are 25 degree but single are 22.5. You would want the single storey to have a little presence.
2.7 ceiling height, 2.34m internal doors
2.34m high by 1.2m wide front door in stained finish
Stacker doors to the alfresco being 2.34m high
40mm Ceaserstone drop down’s to the kitchen Island
Solid panel of glass to the ensuite bathroom
Added a door to the ensuite…. As I mentioned to the sales guy, my wife loves me, but not that much.
Sound insulation batts to parts of the internal walls
Bowral Murray Grey Bricks to the exterior of the house. A solid quality brick that should stand the test of time. The standard range of bricks is actually quite good. But I am a big fan of the dry pressed bricks.
Our site costs include
85lm of concrete piers
Upgrade the concrete for saline soils.
And a provisional allowance to connect water to the far side of the road. Now I haven’t question this one, but there is a tap in the corner of the lot, so no idea why it’s in there. I think it’s just a buffer to be honest in case they have anything pop up in site costs.
The sales process is pretty trouble free. Once we were happy with the tender we paid our $5k deposit which will be the only payment until the slab is ready to go down/ or may be after the slab goes down… I can’t remember off the top of my head.
After the deposit was paid, we received our plans, did external color selections and once confirmed we went into the castle hill head office to sign the standard HIA contract. I was going to get a lawyer to go over it, but I read through it a few times and didn’t see anything unreasonable or changeable to be honest. I went in and signed contracts with my wife.
Exterior Colour Selections
As our plans were being drawn up, we were sorting out our exterior colour selections. As mentioned the standard brick range is pretty good but we chose a premium dry pressed brick, which had an upgrade price of about $4k which I didn't think was too unreasonable.
So we chose
Bricks: Bowral Murray Grey
Roof Tiles: Boral Contour Gunmetal
Gutters: Ace Gutter Monolith color or a dark greyish/gunmetal color
Facia: Surf Mist
Panellift Garage door: Surf Mist
Downpipes: Dune
Moroka feature on front porch: Dune
