About
Welcome to Retreat In Style.
Within these pages we will document the progress of our build with Clarendon Homes on the Gold Coast, Queensland.
It has been a slow start with more than enough hurdles to jump but we have managed to get over them all so far.
My name is Paul, I have a beautiful partner Lisa and two amazingly gorgeous daughters Sonja and Taylor. I met Lisa while living in Sandgate on the north side of Brisbane. Work commitments seen us move back to the south side where I had spent all of my younger years. I look back and laugh a little as I always had the opinion that I would NEVER move to the Gold Coast. Too many snobs and far too expensive. That was until my mother moved to Coombabah and we went to visit over Christmas one year. After realising that it wasn’t actually all snobs, and it was in fact a fantastic location, we moved!.
Now after spending the last 15 years here we have decided it’s time to add our first home to the list of life experiences.
After looking and looking at pre-loved homes we found that finances just wouldn’t stretch that far. They WOULD however, stretch above and beyond if we gave up on pre-loved and went with a new home. Got to shake my head at our countries leader for making it easier to buy new then it is to buy second hand. One day that’s going to become a very real problem for current home owners.
Anyhow.. Enough of my rambling. I hope you enjoy the journey we will take you on through our build and I hope that we might be able to inspire, educate and entertain you as so many others have done for us.
Please feel free to leave us a comment or three (I think I have set this blog up correct to do that haha) and constructive criticism is more than welcome.
Cheers
Paul, Lisa, Sonja & Taylor.
Retreat In Style 
Welcome to wordpress. I’m hooked on it. I find it much easier to follow others and comment in this forum. Plus, the blogs look so good too. Thanks for maintaining the 2015 blog list on HomeOne.
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Is a little more complex than Blogger, but as you said, much nicer. I think if I can work it right, the updates will follow on a lot better.
Thanks for the compliment. Just need to get the Admins on Homeone to make that post a sticky now lol.
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Hi Paul
I have found your blog via the homeone forums and it’s great to read someone’s experience with PH and then see that they have gone to Clarendon.
We are in the process of signing up with Clarendon for a parkhill and I wondered if you might have any 3D models of the parkhill you might be willing to share with me for my own personal use of visualising the end result?
Cheers
Ryan
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Hi Ryan,
PH do some fantastic designs but I just couldn’t stay with a company I couldn’t trust.
Clarendon are still a project builder with all the hidden extras so be careful. That said, their dollar per square meter rate is a lot lower than most.
I only have a couple of renders at the moment but happy to share 🙂
Also have a couple of internal renders that you can find in “The Rubbish Tip”
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Hi Paul,
They look great!
I’m actually looking to set the house on my lot in sketchup (or similar) so I can see the affects of sun etc, any chance I could get the model file of the home itself?
It’s interesting that you mention the hidden extras; I have been trying to get a feeling on how much over base price we are going to end up with but have been having some trouble.
Currently I *think* we are looking about about 50k on top of base price with flooring and driveway etc for a Parkhill 32 (same as 36 except without the rumpus and extended alfresco)… what are your thoughts and experience?
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I’ll upload the 3D files when I get back home. On my way to Sydney tonight and back home Wednesday morning. Not sure if they will help though as they were created in a program called Chief Architect. 😉
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Hey Paul,
Any chance of that 3d file upload? 🙂
Cheers
Ryan
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Hi Ryan
Try the following link:
Not sure how well my program exports these so let me know if it works 🙂
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Thanks very much!
Maybe it can spit out a format that other programs can read if not i’m sure I can find a way regardless.
Looking forward to seeing some more updates of your build!
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Hi Paul
That model works great for sketchup.
Any chance I could get the chief architect model?
Cheers
Ryan
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Hi Ryan,
There is no actual 3D model from Chief Architect as such. It’s part of the full plan and I just call the plan up into 3D View.
You would need Chief Architect to be able to use it.
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I understand if you don’t want to give me the chief architect files but if you don’t mind giving them it would be much appreciated!
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Hey,
Yep aware of that… I actually have it 🙂
Cheers
Ryan
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