R U down wid at?

Doncha hate it when you've been looking at your plans for like...months...and then you suddenly notice something REALLY ugly and get that sick in the gut feeling?

My moment of realisation came over...of all things...our downpipes.

Has anyone ever noticed that none of the displays have downpipes visible on the facade? And that the cute little line drawings or representations of facade options don't come with visible downpipes? Even the front elevation on your plans doesn't have them. But when you look at the actual floorplan, sure enough, there's a tiny little dp included in a most unflattering location. Ours is prominently featured to the immediate left of our entry. Right bang, smack between the first window and our portico. And I can't believe that I've only just noticed. The worst thing is that we have selected Jasper (brown) as our downpipe colour...so on a pale render they're going to resemble a pasty swimsuit model in need of a wax!

These are our 2 render colours; Beige Royal and Oriental Spice. Note the very well hidden downpipe in the display.

This is also our render colour, but with the Jasper downpipe somewhere behind the forest.  Wax anyone???

You can bank on that

Our mortgage broker, Paul, God love him, is trying his darndest to eliminate our need for mortgage insurance at the moment, with limited success.  Trouble is, Cranbourne North is such a new suburb that there's very few previous sales for the experts to base their valuations on.  The system is flawed, but really, we just have to work within their guidelines rather than completely stressing ourselves out.  Paul has contacted Carlisle and asked them to provide him with data on recent sales in the area - as in the value of builds in progress in our estate, in the hope of convincing our bank to value our build to at least its cost to us.  I'm a little disappointed to say that they weren't forthcoming with this info, and Paul has had to really push the point.  They actually questioned what it had to do with them. Hmmm.  Mind you, we have just lost our fantastic customer service chicky, and the new one.... we'll just wait and see before passing judgment.
Anyway - I digress.  If Paul can bump the value up a little, and in turn decrease the mortgage insurance payable, we'll release the pause button and start on the build.  Besides, when we then sell our current house and the equity is released, we can start our landscaping, pool, window coverings without having to re-borrow!  I know - naughty.  But we just wanna get in there already...

Compare the pair

Here's our facade as submitted to the developer for approval (cept our garage is wider with the door centered).

The developer has rejected our plan as we are deemed to have more than a double garage which is against the estate covenant.  I'd like to challenge them on exactly how wide a double garage is, but in the meantime, I've thrown this together...

...and it looks better than I thought it would. Maybe duplicating the narrow window on the left of the stack stone projection would look more balanced? We'd have to change our electrical plan as there would no longer be space for an uplight on either side of the garage door.  Perhaps just one on the portico?  After this one I may well be compromised out.  Lets get this thing started so nothing else can be changed!!

The Avenue fa-mi-ly

We had the pleasure of meeting some more neighbors today, the lovely Deb and John.  Fellow Carlisle builders.  Fellow spoilt fluffy fur-kid owners.  Fellow non-first-home owners.
Through the beauty of social media, it was like we'd all known each other for years.  We could have talked for hours!  In fact, I think we did!! 

When we bought this land, we never imagined the feelings of community that would be rolled into the package.  All of the people we've met so far are great, really great actually.  The Avenue will be quite a special place to live. I CAN'T WAIT!!!