MainVue Standard Inclusions

I was impressed with the level of standard inclusions with MainVue.  Many of the things that I would have paid for elsewhere are included as standard.  bonus.

 

Some of the things of note included :

 

- timber windows to the façade

- double glazing to windows

- no charge colourbond roof

- most of the splashback colours for the kitchen (except for two) were standard cat 1. 

- 20mm caesarstone benches with shadowline

- the handles I had previously chosen were Cat 1.

- 20mm stone in bathrooms

- towel ladders, towel rails and toilet roll holders

- upgraded tapware, basins and toilets

- upgraded shower rail and hand set for the master ensuite

- shower rails for minor bathrooms

- large choice of cat 1 tiles

- upgraded tapware to laundry

- 2340 internal doors to ground floor

- larger skirts (92mm) as standard

- all WIR and ensuites come with doors already included ;)

- all WIR have a double hanging rail section

- timber treads to first flight and middle landing of staircase

- staining of internal woodwork and entry doors is included

- timber sliding stackers (with keyed deadlocks) to alfresco and matching timber windows in the same area as the stackers

- timbergrain colour to garage sectional door

- three transmitters for garage door

- slimline powerpoints throughout

Introducing The Emporio!

Okay, so we are just on the verge of site scrape so I had better start on pages about the house we are actually going to build!

We have chosen the 44sq.m Emporio by MainVue.  Here is the standard Longbeach façade and floor plans taken from the MainVue website.

The major changes we have made to the plans include :


- deleting the struts from the façade

- increase the height of the window above the staircase so you can see out the front of the house from the upstairs living area


- adding a pivot door (I wanted a 2340 height door but due to the façade we chose we were unable to have this because of the design of the balcony - I was a little devastated). 

- increasing the width of the garage (originally we had a triple garage in but to keep costs down and because the format was double door to the right and single garage door to the left, meant it would be hard to manoeuvre the boat or trailers through to the back)

- blocking off the second entrance to the pantry, creating a double door linen

- I love a stair platform at the bottom of staircases, so have added one in here too.  I love the way there is a massive half-way platform in this house.  Above the half-way platform in the corner is the only place I am putting in a feature light, which I bought in January, will post a pic later. 

- combining the study and theatre to make a room large enough for our oversize pool table, and still leaving enough room for sofas or seating

- we also added in a walkthrough bathroom for beds 2 and 3, and an ensuite for bed 4.  To do this we had to select the ensuite option and then combine ensuites for beds 2 and 3 to make our brady bunch style bathroom.  When you add the ensuite option for this house, the walk in linen is deleted, so we had to also re-add that in which was slightly frustrating.  Bed 2's robe is quite small but love that they all have a section of double hanging rails. 

- I was adamant on having a downstairs study originally but this was proving impossible to find when also trying to make room for the pool table, so have changed the dressing room into a study.  There is plenty of cupboard space was you walk into the master which can be for my husband. 

- We have created another WIR by adding an internal wall in the master bedroom (some master bedrooms in current houses are massive - our last house had a large master also).  This still leaves ample space in the master bedroom. 

Still to come, new colours selections, site layout, kitchen design...

















   

Four months on...!

Wow it has been a long time since I have posted on my blog.  I did not want to post again until I knew for sure that everything was going to work out.  I didn't want to jinx myself. 

 

Anyway,  forget the Pavilion by Carlisle, I cancelled the appointment I had with the sales consultant so never obtained a quotation.  As much as Carlisle build nice homes and have a good reputation, I realised it would be too costly to make the changes required to fit the pool table in, and the layout, whilst adaptable, was not as open from the living areas out to the backyard as we like. 

 

In the meantime I had visited the Henley displays.  A few years ago I would not have given Henley a second thought, but I happened to see the ad in the Home section of the Herald Sun with price crash promo on my break at work, and thought I would give Henley a visit. 

 

My perception of Henley had changed.  I loved the feel of the displays, loved the kitchens and moreover was impressed with the level of inclusions.  I researched all double storey designs and then took the family to Henley displays across Melbourne.  There were a couple of designs that could be adapted, so I obtained pricelists for the options (the great thing about Henley and MainVue is that they have standardised pricing for many different options/upgrades for everyone which is readily available before even obtaining a sales quote). 

 

I went to the MainVue display at Williams Landing (which we had been in before when we were looking the first time deciding on the PD Waldorf).  I remembered the sales consultant in the display telling me originally that the house there (the Aegean) has the option of ensuites for all bedrooms, and that it was comparable to the Waldorf. 

 

The MainVue displays were really impressive, so I researched all of the MainVue houses and the one which would best suit our needs was the Emporio.   I started the whole process over again and am happy to say within a couple of weeks there will be a slab on our block of land (unless the weather turns to crap).  The final valuation came in OVER (yes you read right) on Christmas Eve, unconditional approval has finally come through, and balance of 3% deposit has been paid. 

 

I won't go through the sales/tender/contract process in detail but will say the whole experience thus far with MainVue has been a total contrast to my experience with PD.  There were a couple of little bumps along the way but for the most part, I have been very impressed with the experience.  MainVue's standard inclusions were better, there was more choice within the Cat 1 section (whereas most things with PD were upgrades), and MainVue were flexible with most of the changes I wanted to make outside of the norm, I did not have to go into battle to have our requirements met.  My lovely sales consultant made sure we had most of the changes and (accurate) pricing in the sales quote, so there was not much left to change at tender, and not too many surprises at both tender and contract.  The communication was great, the staff were friendly and actually understand what customer service is (sorry that will be my last dig at PD), and more importantly the pricing seemed competitive (except for the facades of course ;)).  

 

Cosham Interiors is a little dated, the kitchen section was being upgraded whilst I was there, but it does the job.  It was so easy to stay with mostly Cat 1, and certain changes/options I made did not cost anything whereas with other builders you are charged (for example for multiple cabinet colours in the kitchen - no charge!).  I opted to have my colour selection appointment at the display which was so easy, with all the samples there and one on one with the colour consultant. Tender was not signed at the tender appointment, but completed soon after via email (due to a few surprises re: site costs and energy star rating requirements).  Contract and plans are actually sent out to you before your appointment so you have time to review them, with pricing being accurate for most things from as early as the sales stage, which was such a revelation compared to the PD process. 

 

Enough about the process, lets talk about the house!

 

Where to from here? Build Vs Established

The low val. forced us to rethink what we needed from our new house.  My husband was pushing to buy established, we found some houses which were semi-suitable, but we have so much stuff to fit into a house and whatever we found there was always going to be some compromises regarding space, storage, colours, kitchen etc. 

Our main needs were :

- larger garage with rear access for the boat/jetski/trailer
- 4 bedrooms with a study (study preferably downstairs)
- preferably three bathrooms and powder room
- swimming pool, or room to put a pool in
- rumpus room downstairs with enough space for our oversized pool table
- my husband wants a balcony

I persisted in researching practically every builder out there looking for a plan that could be slightly modified as cost effectively as possible to suit our needs. 

I literally went through every double storey design with all the builders, visited many more display homes. 

On the shortlist were Hotondo, Carlisle, Orbit and Henley. 

We got in touch with Hotondo after a recommendation from a friend.  They are a franchise builder and will fully customise or modify their plans to suit.  We absolutely loved the façade on one of their designs, love a good skillion roof, so I set about modifying the internal layouts to suit - needed a fair bit of modifications.  The base price seemed reasonable however when I looked at the inclusions brochure the inclusions seemed very budget and basic.  I could easily see the dollars mounting up to way above our newly revised budget. 



Hotondo Seaspray Façade

Whilst waiting to go through my changes (the builder was away so had to wait till they were back) I continued in my search.  Went to local displays and was not going to go in one display as I had a pre-conceived opinion of this builder being more budget, but my opinion was soon changed.  Enter the Orbit Aspire. 

This design ticked all the boxes, could be modified to fit a pool table (combine media & study), upstairs could be customised to include a study, two bedrooms with walk-through/shared bathroom, and one bedroom with an ensuite (as well as the master and upstairs living), and I could bring in my own appliances.  The display styling was similar to what I would attempt myself with regard to colours and furnishings. 

What I was also blown away by was the level of inclusions as compared to the Waldorf, such as 40mm stone, higher internal doors, larger skirtings, to name a few. 

My favourite part of this house was the lounge right next to the stairs, and how there was a sloping bulkhead under the staircase, gave the living area some character, and the large platform at the bottom of the stairs as displayed was a great feature as well. 

The base price was quite reasonable however once we started making our changes it soon became evident that we would have to make too many compromises to make this house work, as there were still things I wanted to add to the quote.  One of the things I have been finding in my new quest that some builders charge a premium for most of their facades, makes PD façade price list seem not so bad.  I was offered a reasonable discount, but after being told floor coverings were not included (even though I had a copy of inclusions saying the contrary), I pointed this out and was then I was offered the discount or floor coverings?

 

The sales person was quite helpful and considering our situation I was allowed to go to head office to see the selection centre beforehand if I wished, to see how colour selections would affect our budget. 

Still maintaining my research on our shortlist of suitable plans, another house on which was the Pavillion by Carlisle... tbc.

Something happened on the way to the Waldorf...

Okay, so it has been a long time since my last blog post, I had so many more posts planned with further colours pics, electrical details etc. 

We hit a bit of a roadblock - all was going according to plan.  We had signed the contracts and were waiting to get our mortgage documents to sign to get everything started, unfortunately the bank valued our build at $120K less than cost, which would mean we would have to put in a further $100K+ for the house to go ahead.  All the while that this was going on I was in a dispute with my current landlord over the rental house we moved into while our house was built.  Too long a story to go into but two VCAT hearings later, and six months after we moved in we finally received compensation of one months rent.   

Anyhou back to the story, we challenged the valuation but the bank took six weeks to get back to us, and they did not lower the valuation at all, our broker shopped around with other banks but it was still going to cost too much to continue.  So, after nine months of going through the PD processes, and investing so much time and effort on this house, we decided to terminate our contract (this itself took a few frustrating weeks) with Porter Davis, losing $9K in the process.  We did not want to put everything we had into building this house, and risk having nothing in reserve to complete it, and to complete the pool, and in case we need something to fall back on. 

I may have a seizure every time I drive past a PD billboard, but apart from that it is all good, we have found another house to build which meets our requirements, and more importantly will be much better of financially than if we did build the Waldorf. 

Suprise Alcove! (Contract Drawings)

When I received the first look at our house specific plans at electrical I discovered an extra alcove near the front entrance.  This alcove was created due to the facade we have chosen.  

My husband suggested that we should have turned it into a cupboard, but it might be a good place for a hall stand or hall table?  Or maybe even a mirror. 

I had never noticed the label for the "gallery" until just now!

The downside to the Kingsford facade is having a smaller balcony in comparison to the Hyde Park display.

The Hub of the Home (kitchen, galley & laundry plans)

if you squint while looking at this picture it gives you an idea of the kitchen colours and how they will look in the kitchen/galley!

kitchen & galley colour samples

laundry colour samples