We hoped you liked our house - thanks for getting through the 105 photos above!  

Welcome to a short tour on our PCI day.     Smile everyone, we are one step closer.

Join me on a guided walk around of our ALMOST completed house. 6 videos take you on a guided tour of the current state of the house and were we are up to. The videos are 3min long (any longer and they wont up-load correctly.) Has audio commentary. Click on the bottem right icon to... Continue Reading →

Meet the Characters   When we signed our contract on the 1st of November 2017, we thought that 14 months would be more than enough time to build a house and move in. My Dream was to celebrate Christmas in my new home with friends and family from around the world. On the very first... Continue Reading →

I like wardrobes that have built-in mirrored doors, having lived in apartments and had them, I think they are a great way to utilise the space and make your room feel bigger. So when I asked my Sales Consultant if Porter Davis offered them, I was delighted when he said yes, they did. I was not... Continue Reading →

Styles of laundry come and go, but piles of laundry seem to remain Whether you have a Euro laundry, located halfway down your hallway, a washer/dryer all in one unit inserted under the kitchen bench, a washing machine and an old concrete tub sharing the garage space with the car, or stacked appliances and half... Continue Reading →

People say building a house is an exciting experience, when I tell people I’m building a house, nine times out of ten, their reaction is, “Oh my god that must be so exciting”.   I don’t know what it’s like for everyone else, but it’s not the fun, joyful, exciting process I thought it would... Continue Reading →

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home and nothing is truer than in my house. Its where parties are centred around, Sunday roasts are cooked (or would be cooked if I ever had the energy at the end of the weekend) and where the pre-packaged diet food competes with the full-fat milk, butter-laden toast... Continue Reading →

People love light-filled rooms and it's often a real selling point for a house. We added and changed a number of windows in our house and I am surprised at the number of other people that haven't, either they didn't know they could, or didn't know their options and now have gotten too far down the track... Continue Reading →

The question of Hebel vs Brick has been asked in many a discussion board. Everyone seems to have an option. Both building materials have their own pros and cons. When you look at Australian homes, no one can deny that Aussies love their brick houses. Below are some of the key points raised in the... Continue Reading →

During the build, we have found most costs to be reasonable. Sometimes they are a little on the expensive side but the costs are always justified. We have compared 3rd party quotes and other Volume builders prices (Dave made a little comparison spreadsheet up) and are happy to pay for everything in our contract. Everything... Continue Reading →

In our quest for greater knowledge of what furniture is in a display home scheduled to be shut down, we headed out to Aspect in Greenvale one sunny Saturday morning. It's a display village that has recently been shut down and the residents are moving into their new houses. However, this is the only Somerville Porter Davis... Continue Reading →

Preface of incentive At the time when we signed up to Porter Davis, they had an incentive running that 'Paid the stamp duty' for first home buyers, as they didn't want people to hold out a few more months while the new laws came into effect on the 1st July 2017. Instead of taking up the... Continue Reading →

There is nothing worse than getting into a shower and finding that you have to bend your knees just to be able to get your body under the shower head. The Porter Davis standard is to have the shower rose and screen at 1800mm AFL, however in their show homes, so often you find the... Continue Reading →

Bathroom niches come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Building with Porter Davis you have a few options. The way they build a niche is that they insert it into the wall cavity, they are always 90mm deep, this is the width of the wooden framing, ergo its the depth of your internal walls, so your... Continue Reading →

We went to our land this week after work and it looks like all of our piers are done and we have the pipes for our electrical and plumbing.   We had read on Home One that some people had found that they did not have the correct number of piers compared to their plans... Continue Reading →

No, I don't mean building with another builder :-p Porter Davis currently use an "Alternative Solution" for their waterproofing. One would just assume that they waterproof to the Australian Standard, but this is not the case. Most people don't realise until they see the waterproofing and wonder where the rest of it is. "It's not what... Continue Reading →

Electrical is one of the few easy areas to find pricing on. The team at Argus Electrical look after all the Pre-sales for the electrical works and are pretty open about the cost but man can it add up.   Dave and I both come from the Live Events Industry. I have a background in Electrical, Lighting, Audio-Visual... Continue Reading →

During one of our many visits to WOS, we took some handy photos of the WOS teams pricing guide. I have no qualms about sharing this as the book reads like it should be given to the customer and not the staff member. It has little opening paragraphs explaining to the client what to expect and... Continue Reading →

When building with Porter Davis, if you want your cabinet doors to have a profile then the one of your only option is to paint them in Two Pac paint or "Colourtec", as coined by PD. Apparently you can use category 6 Formwrap as well, however, not all of the profiles are available and because... Continue Reading →

When you walk into a Display Home it's more than the floor plan layout and the theming that they are relying on to sell you a house.   Your sense of smell can play a key role in the decision-making process without you knowing it.  It’s like Feng Shui for the nose, you may not know the philosophy... Continue Reading →

A couple of people have asked me what my notebooks are in the photos I have posted. So this is a blog about how I organised myself for our build and how I kept everything documented throughout our process. I started with 3 notebooks, two are divided up into sections of every room and area... Continue Reading →

We visit A LOT of display homes and I’m the kind of person that likes to open every door and look in every cupboard. Some would call it being nosey, I call it - a thorough investigation of my surroundings. You would be surprised at what I find, putting aside the hordes of un-used styling... Continue Reading →

  World of Style by Porter Davis   Catagory 2 Carpet Early on we looked at getting our carpet through Porter Davis, we liked the look of the below Cat 2 carpets however they were very short piles and the colour was a little dark for my liking. Catagory 1 Carpet. We currently live in... Continue Reading →

Our garage is bulging with items that we have already bought for our new home. Working on the quality triangle where you can only have two out of the three things, cheap, good, fast. We have already started researching, pricing and buying our new whiteware and large ticket items for our home. Two new TV's... Continue Reading →

Everyone is on a Budget, some people may have more in the kitty then others but there comes a point in everyone's building journey when a line has to be drawn and the words "We can't afford that" come out of your mouth. Keeping a track of what you will spend is the key to... Continue Reading →

The staircase design is all about personal preference and budget. It is one of the main non-changeable style items you can have in your house. Some people love the modern day metal and glass look and others prefer the warmth of carpet. The Forsyth has a limited range of staircases and I think this is... Continue Reading →

Porter Davis have this thing called a “Liveability Consultant” it took us a very long time to figure out who they were talking about. All of our questions about insulation, sisalation, heating, noise reducing batts & plaster were directed to the Liveability Consultant located at World of Style. The only thing is – they don’t... Continue Reading →

Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance! We have done  A LOT of planning with this house, hours and hours pouring over plans and investigating. Below is a photo of my 3 notebooks and all my floor plans ready for our World of Style Day one selection. Poter Davis used to give Preparation Guides out,... Continue Reading →

This blog started out covering all 3 types of floor coverings, but its a little long and detailed so it will just cover the Poter Davis provided floor and wall tiles. We have decided to do the timber and carpet floors after the house hand over, this means we will be given our house with... Continue Reading →

**Adding this as a blog post as people using iPads have found it hard to find as a page on the website. Sorry for the double up.   We chose the Forsyth plan before even seeing a display or looking at the price or having a plot of land to put it on. The flow... Continue Reading →

What is it with todays water metre men, they insist on putting the house water metres slap bang in the middle of the path up to the front door.   Every new estate we have driven around we see this happen time and time again, people can’t have nice walk ways leading up to their... Continue Reading →

What makes a Grand Entrance? Is it the height of the door, the width, the type of material its made out of or the colour? How about the design or side panel options and the type of glass that is used... All of these components had been discussed to the nth degree when choosing our front... Continue Reading →

Down one side of our house we would like to put a stepping stone path.   Finding your stride can be hard.   Getting the right size spacing and pavers is over half the battle. After many different display homes,  stepping on A LOT of different paths and even walking with your eyes closed to... Continue Reading →

Finally a sexy looking keyless entry system.   This One does Bluetooth, fingerprints, code, or key to unlock your door. This will give us full control of who can and can't gain access to our house. Because we do AirBNB we give our guest keys and swipes and hope to get them back at the... Continue Reading →

  We have 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms in our house. That's 4 showers, 4 vanities, 4 toilets and 2 baths. Everyone keeps on asking me "Who's going to clean all those bathrooms" Well the answer is ME, I am, myself, the one and only... well Dave might help too (hopefully.) We do AirBNB, so it... Continue Reading →

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