The Plans mmm

As mentioned we have opted for a modified enlarged Phoenix 38 design. This incorporates a third garage which modified into a huge room with windows and translates into a 6.4 metre x 4.4 metre space which could be a home theatre, a dungeon, a storeroom, an office whatever. This change brings the design up to around 42 squares - sweet!. The house incorporates 5 bedrooms and we have placed a bulkhead opening from the Master Bedroom that makes it massive room / retreat.

The Phoenix has a massive upstairs Lounge / Leisure room. Upstairs There is a 2nd full sized bathroom with additional bathroom, and the Oakpark balcony will be super cool with french doors.

visit: http://www.metricon.com.au/melbourne/homes/phoenix/floor-plans/38


Downstairs has a grand entrance, good sized Sitting Room / Theatre Room and Study. Powder Room. Laundry. walk in Pantry and a Massive Kitchen, Dinning and Lounge Space - both the kitchen and Pantry have massive bench line windows.

Bye Bye House - Demolition Day

On the way back from a meeting, I did the usual drive by detour and surprise, surprise the Terminator crew had arrived and already crushed most of the house - a whole one day earlier than they said. So much for getting the cool door in the kitchen before hand. It's now gone to god. Must say its a somewhat strange feeling to see the house you have lived in for many years transformed into a pile of twisted rubble.

But the termination of the house was a massive "sign" saying to us that it is actually happening. One massive surprise was how huge the land looked without the house and they haven't even finished taking the trees or the studio down. We are expecting flat earth within 3 days.

It will be interesting to see the level of the site once the site is clear and levelled. We may opt for some clean fill on the site to ensure the house is not below the natural contour of the land and set to low. I'll need some professional advise on this. You'll notice that Metricon display homes all seem to be on a elevated position probably for marketing and street presence purposes. May have to get some clean fill in to address this.

A couple of lessons in the demolition process:
(1) if you choose to allow Metricon the arrange demolition you will pay a lot more (but you will do a lot less)
(2) Get three quotes and ensure that they know what they are doing (ours did)
(3) Arrange the Council asset protection permit yourself it will save about $1K in metricon fee's
(4) Arrange temporary site and tree protection yourself this can be star posts and mesh fencing (about $80) all up
(5) Abolish all services Gas, Electric, Telephone and internet Cable, Water has to stay on as they need it for demolition and construction (But disconnect the main pipe going to the house and cap the supply so there is still water at the front tap. I did this my self, dug the hole and cut the pipe and capped it off. Plumber would have charged around $180, I did it with a shovel and a $18 wrench and $2 cap form Bunnings)
(6) Cash is king, quotes varied by $5000.

Three days later the house is history, Think I saw my missing USB drive crushed into the soil - I wonder of it will still work?


Metricon have been advised so Thunderbirds are go.

Surprise Saturday

Sold the Malvern Picket Fence and Chris From Tacoma rocked up this morning and we spend 4 hours pulling / cutting it down. Then surprise surprise the Lebanse Destruction pre-crew rocked up and told us they where pulling the "rook" tiles off in prep for next tuesday. 5 hours later, no fence, no roof and we had assembled the temporary fences at the rear AND front of the house - can I go to bed now.

The Metricon Adventure: let the games begin

The Metricon Adventure: let the games begin: This site is about the trials, excitement, stress, joy, expense, choices and the journey of building a Metricon McMansion in Melbourne in SE...

Demolition Day

Demolition Day (sounds like Judgement Day) well I guess its similar to a Terminator Movie. The big crush is scheduled for May 29. I have my 5D Camera set to record the event and this blog will eventually feature a time lapse of D Day right through to Key Day some 7 or eight months later. Watch out for for the YouTube Link on the site. Plan is to aggregate maybe 800 shots into a time lapse movie that will make a very long process last maybe 90 seconds. Stay tuned!

Why Metricon

This blog is about a journey in building a Metricon Home in Melbourne, It's about the planning, the  stress, the fun, the mistakes and triumphs on starting and completing a knock down rebuild in Melbourne SE suburbs. So why Metricon? We explored all the builders, Carlisle Homes (which did a great job for my Uncle), Henley, Porter Davis, Simmons, AV Jennings, Dennis Family Homes, Hotondo, we name it.
When it comes right down to it, it's all about design (and Quality). Where Metricon Excel in their design and marketing. Being in Marketing I appreciate a brand that stands out, gets me enticed and wraps it all up in sirupy goodness. Metricon design and presentation is a cut above the competition, The web site, their information, their product packaging is just plain cool.

If you were to read sites like Product Review, you would probably end up stabbing yourself - mostly the posts are all about venting and whilst some of the stories are pure evil, I'm a firm believer that you need to research the bejesus out of the product, project plans and expectations and suddenly most things look after themselves. It's fair to say that blogs have been a godsend for us in the planing and education process.

We decided to go double story, and choose the Phoenix and we have modified it by adding a third garage (massive store room or games room) brings it up to around 42 squares and adding the Oak Park Facade like the imperial in Balwyn with similar bricks(tawny heritage) and Dune render on the columns. Expect to add 110K plus to the base price to get it up to display home standard. orce We have gone for higher ceilings (upstairs and down stairs), eaves all around, Oakpark Facade, the biggest island bench in the word that can be seen from space (i'm told)

Square cut ceilings down stairs, caesar stone everywhere, upgrading heating. about 70 led down lights, timber stacker doors across the rear. We have opted for merging the master bedroom with bedroom 5 via a bulkhead walk through, sort of like a upstairs retreat. The Phoenix have a huge upstairs leisure room which is cool.

We went for the "Mother " of all island benches, Metricon said that this bench can be viewed from space. So we are booking a photo session with the Hubble Telescope to see if this claim is in fact true.

The chosen bricks and render on the Oak Park facade are essentially verbatim to the the picture shown, We went for Dune render and Tawny Heritage 50m (thin) bricks for the entire facade.

We will deploy a similar entrance tile treatment once we are in.

Please note Metricon does not allow you to take photo's inside their display homes - so of course these were taken by someone else - I can't say who.












We have some pretty cool stuff, (we think it is) sort of an eclectic mix of old, antique, deco and your classic stuff like deep leather lounges, antique fans and cool old world Asian through to high tech stuff so "we" think it will fit right into the Phoenix

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let the games begin

This site is about the trials, excitement, stress, joy, expense, choices and the journey of building a Metricon McMansion in Melbourne in SE suburbs. The old house has been rickety for some time, it develops leaks, the floor level is how you say not so good. So it time to say goodbye to and old friend and as the name of the new Metricon home suggests let the Phoenix rise. The plan is to go from this...To this...

Metricon Goodness