Recommended Blogs for Metricon Constructions

I have found it immensely helpful to review other blogs in the process of selecting Metricon as our builder and when completing our plans and selections with them.

I am sure these sources of first-hand experiences will continue to be of great assistance throughout our build.

If anyone is interested, these blogs have been useful:-

http://ourmetriconphoenix.blogspot.com.au/

http://metriconphoenix38.blogspot.com.au/

http://thespadabuild.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/day-122-plaster-it-up.html

http://themetriconadventure.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/100-days.html

http://ournolan.wordpress.com/2013/03/

http://tim-and-tina.blogspot.com.au/2010_04_01_archive.html

I will continue to add to the list should I come across any further sources.

Exterior Colour Selections

The Phoenix 35 is a double storey home, and we had real difficulties coming to an agreement about the exterior colour scheme for the home, as well as where it would be rendered versus weatherboard versus exposed brick...   In terms of colours, we were certainly against very white exteriors or any sort of brown. We ended up deciding on a combination of blue/grey and white/cream colours with 'woodgrain-look' highlights for the garage and front door giving a bit of an earthy touch.  The palette includes the following:-

The roof has been upgraded, from roof tiles to a colorbond steel corrugated roof.  The colour was matched closely to the downstairs render and we selected Colorbond Ironstone:-

The upstairs level is weatherboard cladding, and the colour selected is Colorbond Surfmist:-

The lower level will be rendered in Dulux Tamed Texan, to match closely with the roof colour, pictured here:-

The remainder of the house is exposed brick (namely the sides and the rear of the house), in Austral Urban One (silver) with a neutral brick mortar:-

We spent the extra and upgraded the double garage door for a 'wood grain' type of finish in Colorbond Caoba:-

We upgraded the front door.  We wanted something solid with some weight behind it and a really satisfying feeling when opening/closing the door.  The door that we selected can be seen here on the Corinthian/Stegbar website and the model number is PMAD106, it has 6 x horizontal panels running downwards.  We also upgraded the door locking mechanism, so there is a nice handle.  The colour of the door is is the Sikkens Walnut (010), which looks like this, a nice match to the garage door:-

The downpipes, gutters and window trimmings etc have been matched to the Colorbond Surfmist cladding and will be in A&L Windows "Surfmist Satin" - this is identical to the weatherboard cladding "Surfmist" noted above.

We really look forward to seeing the exterior of the house coming together and hope it has some real street appeal!  It seemed bold to go for the blue/grey look, but I am hoping it really stands out.

The Changes to the Floor Plan

This is the Floor Plan for the Phoenix 35.  Some of the more major changes we have made include the following:-

- Downstairs powder room had a shower added and is now a third bathroom. We thought this would be useful for the pool, future value of the home generally, and allows us to present the downstairs study as a more realistic bedroom 5/study).  This required a minor compromise on the size of the laundry, shortening of the powder room sink, moving the toilet and adding a small window.  The shower is now to the left of the door.
- Internal fitout of the laundry with benchtop, broom cupboard and under/overbench cupboards.  Metricon includes only a freestanding tub and washing machine provision on their standard inclusions for the laundry and this was wholly insufficient, particularly given the size they are allowing for the laundry.
- Double french doors on the study - to keep children out of the work area, and assist in presenting the room as a possible bedroom 5.
- Removed the rear windows from the back of the lower level and extended the stacker doors.  We wanted to be able to open the back of the home widely for entertaining and maximise light into the back of the house.
- For the same reason, we inserted a window splashback in the kitchen.
- Upstairs the only major change was bedroom 5 becoming a dressing room for the master bedroom.  The door for bedroom 5 was relocated to inside the master bedroom.  The walk-in-wardrobe is thus removed completely, making the master "suite" very large.  This also leads back to the earlier changes to the downstairs powder room and study to make the study seem more realistic as a study OR bedroom 5 to replace the bedroom lost upstairs by our dressing room.
- The traditional facade has been upgraded to another facade (similar to the traditional facade on a Metricon Duxton or Glendale) to give it more of a bold appearance - this is not a balcony facade.  It also extended (further) the size of the master suite behind it.

Our last home ended up being very dark and we were paranoid of making the same mistake given the presence of a retaining wall along the back of the property (same as our previous property), hence the large doors on the back of the house and glass splashback. Our previous master bedroom was also much too small, and we have certainly remedied that issue here!

The pool, outdoor area and landscaping are being done after handover.  Metricon simply do not do, nor will they facilitate, these arrangements.  I must admit this was disappointing to hear after being through all their display homes, which have pools and outdoor decking, then they tell you they won't do any of this and you're on your own.  The pool, ok that's fair enough - but the wooden decking I really wanted to blend well from inside to outside and now it's a handover matter.

The fitouts that are being completed after handover are the overhead kitchen cabinetry (Metricon's standard is underbench only, a point of serious debate in our finalisation of the plans) and the butler's pantry shelving (Metricon do only a benchtop, underbench cupboards and a sink as standard). The fitout for the dressing room is also being done after handover.  There are a few reasons for this, mostly that Metricon's prices for cabinetry are very expensive and we were not even game to ask them to quote the dressing room, so we decided that if the dressing room can wait until after handover, so can the rest of the butler's pantry and kitchen.  On reflection, we could have considered this for the laundry too, but when benchtops are involved I would rather them just go in during construction and deal with pure cabinetry later.  We also might want to consider some further cabinetry in the alcove areas (again, these are not standard inclusions), so again we thought it best to wait to get into the house and see what we need in terms of cabinets throughout the house before committing.

I hope so far this assists anyone considering the Phoenix 35.  The process of blogging/documenting the changes made over 9 months of back and forthing with Metricon is really helping me to solidify the vision of the final home. We cannot wait to see how it all turns out!

About to Break Ground...

We are very excited to have received our site start commencement date with Metricon for the construction of a Phoenix 35 in Upper Kedron, Queensland.  The site start date has been given as 23 December 2014, however, with the Christmas / New Year period, there is unlikely to be any work done prior to 12 January 2015.  This is fine given we would not want work being done that may be ruined from harsh weather over the holiday shut down period, or materials being left on site at risk of theft (and hence delays).

There has been a bit of a delay in getting our site start date with Metricon.  This is no fault of Metricon's.  After paying our initial deposit with Metricon to build for us back in March/April 2014, the block of land we purchased did not register (in a brand new estate) until August 2014.  Our land purchase was completed in September 2014 (after we returned from an overseas trip to Europe in August/September 2014).  After we returned, we were able to complete the plans and colour selections and move towards the start date.  And here we are in December 2014!

We look forward to sharing the experience of building our next home with any readers.  I believe our experience to date with Metricon, and the general building process, may be useful to others.

This is not our first build, having completed a much smaller (and much cheaper) home in 2012.  Our previous home became much too small for us very quickly, and with the addition of a baby to the mix, it was time to move on.  We enjoyed the process of building the first time around, which was with a much smaller building company, and learnt a lot from that process.

This time around, we wanted a bigger company in charge for a much bigger construction and loved the design of the Metricon Phoenix 35 that we signed up for it!  My next blog post will go through some of the major additions / changes we made to the structure of the Phoenix 35.