Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Kitchen Appliances

While I was on a roll thought I'd post some picks of the appliances that we've got for the kitchen ...




They are all Zampetti and are part of Metircons appliance selection, we did upgrade to the larger size as part of the promo that we signed up on. 

This Isn't Meant to be Here

We drove past the block over the weekend to find that our neighbour has been slabbed and that there is a HUGE mound of dirt and concrete on OUR block!  I'm pretty sure this is not meant to happen without our consent, strangely enough if they had asked we probably wouldn't have mind.  We're hoping that they remove it in a timely fashion because we don't want it to interfere with our build and cost us money to remove.  So I'm giving them a couple of days and then I'll contact them to find out what's happening.

 
 

Monday, September 24, 2012

Studio M Selections

Today we had our Studio M Selections appointment and through the process we did find a few errors on our plans and preliminary contract.  Things such as we where listed as having tiled roof when we had always said we wanted colourbond and the rendering for the front hadn't been included nor the feature brick portico.  But the plus side was that the changes we'd made at the last appointment had been included, the timber front window, adding eaves and changing the stacker door at the back to a bi-fold.  The front render is an easy fix, but of course at extra cost, and we are waiting to hear back on the roofing but hopefully this change will only slow us down a little.  We shall see.

We where also meant to start the appointment with having our air conditioner appointment first but after 20mins of waiting and numerous phone calls from the receptionist we found out that the guy was sick and this would need to be rescheduled.

So off to our selections ...

Externals ...


Our brick colour is the Boral Chocolate with the Jasper Roof and gutterings and Dune fascia's, down pipes and windows.  Our render (which because we picked last I didn't get a photo with it all together) is slightly darker than our external linings which are slightly darker than the Dune so all the tones are very similar.  The gutters and down pipes are standard, the garage door we upgraded to a timber finish to set of the timber from door and window and we match the stain colour across them all, the stain came up really red in the photo but when compared to the garage door it's pretty similar.

 
 


The Privacy Glass used for Bathrooms
The awning windows which will be double glazed
Door Handles ....
 
 
 
Bathrooms ...
 
 
 
The tapware in the bathroom did require upgrading, I think because we brought a plan over from the Vic designs there was some confusion as to what range it sat under so rather than being showed the Allegra range as our standard we where shown the Lifestyle range.  So as a result the Allegra range is pretty ordinary and because we had already gone to the effort of upgrading to the free standing bath, the frameless shower screens and the squareset basins we wanted nice tapware to match.  We are still waiting on pricing for these but hopefully it's not too ridiculous!
 
Main Bath colours inc tile, cupboards and stone top

Ensuit colours inc tiles, cupboards and stone tops
 
 As far as colours go we've kept them all the same through the kitchens, bathrooms and laundrys.  One because we're a believer of the three colours/textures rule but also because it's only a small home and we didn't want things to look to busy or miss-matched.  Plus they've done this in their display homes and it looks really good.
 
Kitchen ....
 
Many of the kitchen upgrades had already been included, so all the pot drawers, undermount sink and appliances are already upgraded as part of their promotion.  The only thing we had to decide on today was the colours.
 
 
 
 We are having a window splashback so there is a small section that when we went to the tiles selections they said tiles where included for that part, but this never really appealed to me, so to decided to go for a glass splashback instead, in the first photo, we've also upgraded to the two tone cupboards with the darker colour on the bottom and the lighter colour on the top.  We also added an additional stoneslab on one side of the kitchen island and upgraded the pantry shelves to the dark laminate with extra width.  The first picture shows the splashback, stone tops and cupboards and the second shows the cupbaords, stone tops and the floor tile colour.
 
Misc ....
 
Carpets for the Bedrooms/Study along side our tile colour.

Skirtings (second one from bottom) but not in the lovely blue!


Standard internal doors
Feature door for the cavity slider to study, double door to main bedroom and linen.
Laundry Mixer - upgraded to lifestyle range


Laundry sink upbraded to inset with cabnetry which will be the darker of the laminate colours
Paint Colours - the bottom one for ceilings, lightest of the three for skirtings/doorframes
 and the middle one for walls (next to tile colours)
 
 We also upgraded to include locks to the windows ($350), remote for the garage door ($650) and white morter for external bricks ($1000) we thought this was a cheaper option and a good compromise especially for the front portico as the feature brick hadn't been included.
 
We are still waiting on exact pricing for upgrades which we should get later this week, fingers crossed we are within budget ... if not then we will have to do some culling!
 
 
 

Friday, September 21, 2012

TILE SELECTIONS DONE!

Today we had our Tile Selection appointment at Beautmont Tile in Norwood and while I nearly had to go alone thanks to Mike getting an unexpected call into work we still managed to both go and got everything sorted within 90mins!

We are having tiles throughout the main living areas as well as the wet areas, as shown below.

We had allowed for an additional $3,135 in our Preliminary Contract to upgrade to floors from the standard tiles to the porcelain tiles that are shown in their display homes, but what we forgot to account for was that in the bathroom the standard tiling that's included in the build pricing is shower height tiles in the shower, 1.2m around the free standing bath and only a skirting for everywhere else.  So it didn't take long for that extra $3,000 to get swallowed up in tiles!

Our first decision was an easy one ... what floor tiles did we want?


We decided on the Alto Beige as it has a very soft finish to it and a lovely texture throughout.  The following picture is from their display home in Mount Barker and shows it together with the French Nougat stone tops that we are going to choose for the kitchen.



The rest was pretty easy and I was wanting to have the wall tiles in the bathrooms the same as the floor tiles but just jazz it up with a feature wall running along the wall of the shower.  We did have to make a few adjustments when we saw what the final price would be to have floor to ceiling porcelain tiles in both the ensuite and the main bathroom, the final $11,000+ was not in the budget!

So this was our compromise ....

Main Bathroom ...


This was the bathroom we where willing to splash out a bit on especially as we're going to have the free standing bath and frame less showers, we thought spending the extra money on the tiles was certainly worthwhile!  We have the tiles going to shower height with Alto Beige on the floors and three of the walls, the wall that the shower runs along with have the Alto Mocha which has a lovely gloss finish so it's easy to clean but also has a lovely texture within the tile. 

Our Ensuite ...


We didn't mind cutting back in the ensuite as we figure that once we've done the initial house tours people will lot be visiting in there too often.  We kept the Alto Beige for the floors but for the wall tiles we went for their standard range which helped us bring down the costs a lot.  City Beige for most of the walls at a 1.2m height and in the shower alcove we have the Gloss Mocha at shower height.  We still get the look and feel for what we want but at a much more reasonable price.

Laundry and Toilet ...


These areas we weren't too fussed with so we went with the Alto Beige for the flooring and the City Beige for the skirting boards and laundry splash back.

Kitchen ...


Because we have the window splash back in the kitchen there is only a very small portion of tiling that needs doing on the walls.  We kept it very simple with a colour that we can easily match our paint colour to as to not make it more obvious.  So we have the Alto Beige for the flooring throughout the kitchen and the living area, then for the walls we have Alto Eggshell which is a Porcelain tile we figure it's such a small area it was worth having the porcelain to match in with the floors.

Grout Colours ...


Travertine for the tiles that will be near the front door and outside, Havana for the dark feature tils and alabaster for the floors and light wall colours.

And with that our tile selection was complete and we managed to bring the price down from an additional $11k to only $7k which is really only an extra $4k as we'd already budgeted for $3k!