Has anyone here built a kit home?

As we have just brought 26 acres

Land

My mum has built a kit home.

It was harder than they thought - they ended up getting a builder to put parts of it together for them. and it took a bit longer than expected (when they were trying to do it themselves).

but it turned out really really well.

(sorry - just noticed - not I'm tassie.)

thats it I'm moving to tassie! beautiful land and a good price!
congrats!

No worries

We have a lot of family and friends that are in the builing trade and they are more than happy to help us out



We got it for $78,500

we are looking at kit homes - www.prebuilt.com.au. They are environmentally friendly, low carbon footprint, and they can construct them so you can live off the grid! Good luck - it's SO exciting, buying a new home!

We built a PAAL kit home about 15 years ago. We purchased the house then paid a builder to project manage it because we were building out of Sydney.

No complaints, great house, the only thing is that because it was hardiplank I wouldn't build in a noisy area as the noise insulation wasn't as great as brick.

Sorry just realised this was a Tassie thread but it might help you anyway.

We went in to Kit Homes in Hobart and we like this one

House

Congratulations!

That's a lovely place, our friends live out that way. Just showed my DH, and it's lucky for you that you have already purchased it, lol, he's having a fit at the pure awesomeness of it!

I'd love a big parcel of land like that, split it up and make it into a non-hippy commune.

It's good you have help to built it - because that is the hardest part.
We didn't do it in the end as we have no background knowledge in the area of 'assembling' it....

Had a look at your linl...
Congrats!
The view & fresh air!!!
Lucky you

Colonel Jess I love love love Prebuilt. We always admired their homes from afar though, as they are a Victorian company and shipping out here is just not worth the cost.

There are 2 OK companies that do prebuilt homes that you can get done to any stage of completion. OP, before you go too far, just keep in mind your financial situation and whether a bank you like will lend you money. Our bank, that is quite a low interest loan, would not touch us if we were building a kit home or we were owner builders. They would only lend money if we signed for a fixed price house. Still in the process ATM, with a few issues, so not too keen to divulge too much more but we are doing a prebuilt house (not the one linked above.)

A friend of DP is building with Statewide Constructions. I think they are doing most of it, but the friend and family will paint and fit out where possible...

How exciting, goodluck!

We are going to have some working bees on the weekends and get our family and friends from school, church to help us out

We are considering Statewide Constructions but will get a builder to build it for us. We need to go in there & have a chat to them but one of their designs suits our block really well. We are waiting until we have sold our house though as I don't want to get my heart set on building if we have no money to do it!!

OP - That's a great house! Lot's of space, and I have to say I am a sucker for Charcoal Grey - we're going to do Charcoal for the external colour of our house if we ever get around to actually rendering it! I know Prebuilt do installation for you - will that not be the case with this house?

Christine - We're in Melbourne, so I guess that does make it easier with Prebuilt! However we have been to their display centre in Kylsith - the homes are a bit smaller than we thought they would be. Still great designs though. DH is keen on the Mod, however I am concerned that it will date too quickly. Anyway, we've got this house to get up to scratch first before we even THINK about really doing the prefab thing!

Good luck with your plans girls - hope it all comes together for you!

Colonel Jess We too used to live in Melbourne and thought the same thing about Prebuilt, in that they looked a bit small for the money. We loved Modscape though and have based our design on the house we're getting here (in Tas) with lots of charcoal vertical boards and horizontal windows, but much cheaper.

Christine - you got taste girl! LOVE LOVE LOVE modscape. I love the idea of being able to open an entire wall of your bedroom or loungeroom, as per the image gallery for those guys. Please remember to put some images up of your project when it's done - I can't get enough of this sort of stuff!

We're doing up our house in Chelsea. We've done a lot of painting, changing lighting etc. We're doing kitchen and floors in August - about time. I told DH that was a must before we have kids. Can I ask what you think of the floorboards in the kitchen in this gallery ? We've got baltic pine boards. We did them dark chocolate high gloss when we bought the house. huge mistake. They are beautiful, but impossible to keep looking good. We really want a natural look without going blonde, orange or red.... So we're biting the bullet and changing them now in one go. Expensive mistake, big learning curve.

We're going to have basic white cabinets with black stone benchtops and splashbacks in the kitchen, and we'll put in a servery window. What do you think?

OP - sorry if I have taken over your topic here! Am interested in everyone else's thoughts here too!

Sorry OP, we are going to hijack this thread about house designs now. Colonel Jess, we too loved that open feel about Modscape so I will post a photo of our stacker door tonight. Hopefullywe'll be able to afford the deck that it opens out to! And if OP is interested I'll let you know who built our house soon as we are in Hobart (very reluctant to recommend them at this point, but hopefully will be able to when some issues sorted.)

I love your floorboards. I'm a bit worried about our floor as DH picked out a supershiny one. Yeah, he's not the one who'll be cleaning it. Husbands, what can you do.

Who would they be?

You can PM if you like

Statewide Constructions & Rainbow Building do houses that they can deliver to your block. They don't go big enough for us.
Actually Park Homes at Cambridge do them too. MIL & FIL are currently getting one built & when finished will be delivered on a back of a truck. I have promised my little man that we will go for a drive to see it on the day it get delivered!

The photo I had of the stacker doors is actually on my phone, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to get it off. But anyway, on the external photo you can see where the big stacker doors go to the right of the photo under the plastic sheet, and the photo inside the factory, one hole is the door and the other hole joins through to the 2nd module. You can get an idea of the size when seeing my 3 year old daughter in the front. The openings are about 6 metres wide, and in summer the doors will completely stack back to open it right up. And we have killer views, but so does everyone it Tassie!

Christine - Wow Wow and Wow! That's looking fantastic! Can't wait to see the finished product. It's going to be amazing in Summer to kick back with the open walls and relax while the kids run around outside enjoying themselves!

I also tried to upload a photo of my dark floors from phone, but couldn't figure it out (though having said that, I didn't really give it a good crack as I have a killer cold and fuzzbrain). Here is a LINK to the photos on my FB, maybe that will work - this was when our floors were first done and looked amazing. Furniture etc has changed now!

With your floors, I am sure you have had all sorts of advice, but this is something I can tell you in no uncertain terms... Dark boards and high gloss require either sweeping / vaccuming daily or you need to be prepared to work on dirty boards.My DH is a landscaper, so there is ALWAYS sand and dirt on our floors. I know it would be there anyway, however the high gloss means it is the first thing I see when I walk in the front door every day. It is tiresome, to say the least, hence changing them 2 years later!

Good luck everyone with your projects - so exciting!

We have chosen your house plans

Which house plans have you chosen? Did you go to the same builders as us, or with Kitome?

ColenelJess, I don't have FB (I know, I'm a freak) so can't view your photos. It took me ages to figure out how to post photos here, but you can do it by uploading photos to photobucket.com. If you got sick of dirty floors with just you and DH, imagine my super shiny floors with DH, 2 x kids and in the bush on a dirt road? I knew I should have put my foot down when picking the floors. There is just so much to think about when planning an entire house that you just end up going "Yeah, that'll do" without really thinking about every little detail as its so overwhelming.

These are our footings, this is what our open wall opens to. Can't wait to wake up to this.

Ohhh so jealous! That is gorgeous!

Party of five - that's great! The ball is well and truly rolling for you now! What's the next step?

Christine - You're not a freak at all for not having FB. Actually I took myself off for 6 months and only just went back on to see my friend in London's wedding pics! Look, don't worry too much about the floors. At least yours aren't dark! My recommendation is a good vacume cleaner with a soft brush, and an Enjo mop - we've got one specifically for high gloss floors, which polishes aswell as cleans. The view from your property is AMAZING by the way! What made you want to make the move to Tas?

I'm so envious of you girls, getting to wake up to those amazing views every day.

We would love to move somewhere like this - probably around the Yea area, here in Vic. I am worried about getting enough work for our landscaping business though...

We used to live in the Dandenongs and were considering Kinglake or Healesville when we needed a bigger house (only 1 bed in Dandenongs!)and wanted something more rural. We too were worried about still working in Melbourne and driving ridiculous distances to get to work. We didn't really like any rural towns in Vic, so thought Hobart had everything going for it. It takes us 25 minutes to drive to the city centre from our bush block. 20 acres, and all for less than the average price of a Melbourne home.

Thanks for the cleaning advice, I was thinking of getting a steam mop. Is that much different from the Enjo?

I'm not 100% sure abuot the steam mops, as I must admit I haven't actually tried one. I know the Enjo mop heads are interchangeable - we have a sweeping one and a polishing one. we make the polishing one slightly damp, and then just run it over the floors and they shine. The steam mops do look really good though, could be worth a shot?

I think you girls are wise moving to tassie. It's BEAUTIFUL there. I have suggested this to DH, as eventually we would like to open a rural B&B - the number one rule is undulating hills, much like your view! DH has never been to Tassie, but somehow has managed to convince himself that when we have kids we need to be near a big hospitals - I don't think he realises that there are hospitals in TAS! Ah men, hey....

Oh well, for the meantime I am happy in our "beachhouse" (named because my friends think I live so far out of the city it might aswell be a holiday house) for a little while.

Will try photobucket.com, Christine, thanks for the heads up. Can't wait for the kitchen to start in a fe weeks - will put some before and after's on here for you! Have a good night ladies... xo

coloneljess are you from Chelsea too?! I was just looking up kit home stuff and came across a forum post on EB and you said you lived near Chelsea!
wow small world and yes the beach is nice down here and most people say that its pretty far out of the city I dont think so though!
just trying to find prices for concrete slabs at the moment... any recommendations?