Welcome!

Hello and welcome to our little blog!

We are a Sydney family who are thrilled to be building a new house with Metricon. We chose the Laguna 36 after looking at LOTS of display homes, and almost extended our old home before deciding to knock down the home we had lived in for 5 years and build our dream home.

We embarked on this crazy ride back in December 2009, when we paid our initial deposit with Metricon. Of course over the Christmas break nothing much happens so it took a few months until we progressed to the next step. However when we were *this* close to having our Tender presentation Metricon urged us to have a Pre-Lodgement meeting with our council (Parramatta) to discuss some issues that would make our development of the non-complying variety..

So, after a short delay we were able to meet with council to discuss some issues. The major one worrying me was the rear setback. Council regs state that new builds must be set 9m or 30% of the length of the block from the rear boundary. As our block is some 30m long this equated to 11metres! Eek!

To fit the Laguna on our block (650sqm), and to comply with front setback, we would need to place the house 9.5m from the rear boundary, which, thankfully, Council stated wouldn't be a problem. Mostly because directly behind us is the grounds of a club (no dwellings) and beside us on one side is a public path/walkway. Phew!

Council did at the time mention that front setback *may* be an issue in obtaining approval due to the houses on the right side of us being set back quite far. They prefer you to stay in line with existing houses. On the other side of us however, is a large block of townhouses that are set back only a metre or two from the street. Of course that is a different story and didn't help our case!

We took our chances and lodged plans with the house situated the minimum distance from the street as possible..

A week or so after our plans were lodged Metricon heard from Council - they specify that the finished floor level cannot be over 800mm from ground level and the front of our house (and garage) was over that limit. To rectify the situation Metricon had to lower the front of the house and garage which meant we end up with a step up into the back part of the house - AND we saved about $6000! WIN! This saving came from needing less fill and various other bits & pieces.

Once that was sorted out the plans were approved on July 2nd and it was all stations go!!

We moved out 10 days later and started the demolition process.

After MANY emails, phone calls and variations, we FINALLY were able to sign off on our final construction drawings on August 27th (Friday), and out file was handed to Construction the same day. From then Metricon had 20 days to be on site. TWO business days later they had excavated our site!! That made it NINE months, to the day from initial deposit to site start.

On Monday this week we met our Site Supervisor onsite, and on Tuesday (September 7th) our slab was poured!

Needless to say we are thrilled with the no mucking around approach so far from the Construction team and look forward to the frame starting next Tuesday.

Over the next week I will post some pics and talk more about the process so far and our selections.

Thanks for making it this far!