Last post for 2014 - Post contract variations

We have been busy trying to finalise paperwork before the end of the year.

So after your colour appointments you with receive your post contract variations so they cost any upgrades.

From here we barraged our admin assistant and colour administrator with a wish list of items for them to estimate and cost up!

We ended up choosing the following upgrades.

- upgraded to full Tassie oak stair case with black balusters for $3300 (we felt this was an important upgrade because it is a main feature as you walk into the house) there's nothing wrong with the durian stairs but these just come up nicer.

- two square niches for powder room and main bathroom showers. ($800 for 2)

- security screens upgrades for upstairs instead of the diamond grills. To save money we skimped out of the bathroom windows.

- security screen doors for our timber stackers. 

This was a major contentious issue for me.

We have been through a few houses with stacker/bifold doors - they look amazing and open up the space to alfresco nicely but the major issue are the flies.

Have you ever been to a party with millions of flies swarming around the house sitting on top of your food!!!

• So there are several options that I looked into. The choices are to have a simple sliding aluminium fly screen ($900 for a pair and tracks)
• Pleated retractable screen ($2700) these look great because the hide away nicely and do not obscure your timber doors.
• Security screens ($2800 for a pair and tracks)

We ended up choosing the security screen firstly for their durability (especially with kids and pets), we can leave them open all the time because it's locked up and secure. Cons - may obscure the nice looking feature timber doors but we hope to negate this with using a wood grain look on the frame to help match the doors.

- We also paid to upgrade one of our Windows in the kitchen to full timber ($600) - we wanted to do more but they cost quite a bit and maintaining them can be an issue if exposed to rain and weather.All our timber is under the alfresco which will be ok.

- We also ended up getting our laminate flooring through plantation which costed $7800 for 118m2 which was a bargain compared to Solomon's, choices and carpet court who all quoted greater than $8500-10000!

We ended up choosing parador trendtime 1 black butt (only a $800 upgrade from their classic 1050)

We will still get out tiles done after handover which was much cheaper.

Trendtime 1 - Blackbutt - beautiful matt textured finish, large planks, bevel v grooves.

- Plush cavity door to ensuite ($400) we wanted more feature timber doors to our master but they cost $600 each.

- Extended laundry bench and tiling to suit for $800. We needed the extra bench space because our laundry is quite small.

- Floor the ceiling tiling to the ensuite and floor to shower height tiling to main bathroom.

- We also paid for the lago double under bench sink $800 and two double towel racks for $26

Had to pay extra for non standard grout and $1200 extra feature tile allowance. A note to self during colour selection and placement of your future feature tiles! imagine doing a whole bathhob like its featured in many display homes - That would be costly!!!!! Fortunately all our other tile choices are standard!

In terms of our colour choices we made some changes -
We decided to go for a whiter stone bench top in our kitchen - lunar white, changed all our taps to the radii range, and our grout colour to misty grey instead of olive to give more contrast with our tiles.

Electrical Plans

Here are our finalised electrical plans.

So in total we have to buy 42 downlights, 8 fans , 3 heater/fan/light combos and 4 pendant lights, 6 external light fittings.

The prewiring as above costed $4971 and Hills security 4 sensor system was $1100.

We will be getting our electrician to install Data points x 4 and Cable internet wiring during construction then install all of the above fittings and appliances after hand over.

The only issue I noticed with our signed off plans - The main bathroom loo light switch is behind the door! hope they can sort that out. Also we made changes in our colours appointment to extend the bench top of the laundry and now theres no powerpoint below the bench for the washing machine! - hopefully we can them change without much fuss!

Inspirations and Colour schemes digitalised!

Countless hours searching the web for inspiration on what others have done for their home, copying parts that we liked and trying to put it together! Some of the piccies come from my bloglist...

These guys are using the sublime teak laminate- has a beautiful textured feel, we are just using it on our island

They also opted for the kitchen sink and cooktop to be on the bench side

Sublime teak

Similar coloured mocha tiles and mosaic finger feature tile we are using

Use of timber in the bathroom

Satin heartwood laminate in bathroom

Bolero Europlank - Rustic Nougat flooring (which is a base product for plantation homes) - an alternative to our possible upgrade to parador trendtime 1 black butt - awaiting quotes

Our Wall tile laid brick bond

Our Splashback colour

Our feature niche tiles with the same wall tile

Example of mocha tiles against our white wall tile

I used digital decorator who has all of plantation laminate choices and paints, similar tiles and stone tops.
Comprised it into a baseline image, give a feel of our colour scheme we are trying to achieve in our main areas.

First plantation dramas

We had our first issues with plantation homes.

It mostly surrounds the plans of the home...

My advice check every detail carefully, from which areas are tiled, splashbacks and structural details.

From the initial quotes to our new home proposal plans things simply disappeared .

It was only noticed afterwards what was missing and because we had signed off on the contract plans they made it tough on us.

1. Missing mirrored sliding doors on robes - was noticed in our contract meeting and was requested to be put back in - currently still missing!

2. Tiling along the vanity wall. - only noticed on the lead up to the colour appointment - when we were going to display homes to look at colour schemes my wife asked whether or not we had full tiled walls as displayed. I said yes we do and at the display home it does state pretty much what you see is what you get.

To my surprise when I looked over our plans we had zilch tiling! The only tiling we had in our ensuite was the shower hob and floor - I was pissed. We managed to ask the sales consultant at the display home to print the original ensuite plans and surprise they were there. Despite this our customer service lady wouldn't budge as we signed off on the plans. I brought this up with our colours lady and she managed to get it changed.

3. After that we checked and double checked from the modified plans - our splashbacks were nicely trimmed down too. This was also requested to be reinstated to its proper height

Our plan should have shown - Floor to ceiling tiling on our ensuite wall. This plan only has tile skirts.

Colour Selections

We finally got around to the colour selections.

To prepare we have been to cosham studios twice, we have been to 3 display villages esp the latest one at Springfield lakes.

However we notice planation homes was very BROWN in terms of their olour scheme... not our taste...

We have chosen to go a "Scandinavian" feel - so timbers, greys and whites...

We hope in the end this doesnt date too quickly and give the home a light, open feeling...

Our colour selection lady was extremely helpful and gave us sound advice with all our selections

Bathroom selections - Snow White Matt rectangle tiles for walls, Odessa Mocha porcelain tile for floors and bathtub, Strip of Grey Matt fingers as a feature (will fill our niche in the ensuite), Satin Heartwood Laminate for vanity unit, Polar Quantum Quartz bench tops

Kitchen - We are using the timber laminate (sublime teak - Riven finished) all around our island bench and cupboards on top of the fridge. White gloss laminate for the main kitchen bench, russian toffee glass splash back, New Diamond White Bench Tops

Metal Grey roof, white weather (white duck quarter) board/Cladding, Gutter - Basalt, surf mist garage door, moon dust with off white raked mortar

Another shot of the main bath without the feature tile

Laundry 

Rush series taps

The main issue at this stage is our stair case and top floor laminate choice.... We arnt quite sold yet on our current flooring choice (Parador 1050 Spotted Gum), we went to see it in the show room on a larger scale and due to the details of the knots and grains it looked really fake. With laminates the images are repeated across the floor and can look pretty horrible/fake

We seem to like the Parador Trendtime 1 Blackbutt instead and getting quotes for this upgrade with plantation homes so will see how much they charge and compare it to Solomon's flooring/Carpet Call.

We are also waiting to be quoted on a Tassie Oak staircase upgrade like this... Apparently the durian timber stair case when stained clear or lighter turns out very yellow and doesnt look very good. 

This is what I didn't know - plantation display homes stairs if stained clear are all Tassie oak which is an upgrade - like below. 

If they are carpeted which is what the kiara originally has included its just plywood. If it is in the plantation dark chocolate stained it's a durian timber.

Tassie Oak Stair case at the yarrabilla display village

The only example of a durian stair case from a fellow plantation home blogger!

Each home has a set of inclusions and vary from home to home - from tiling, to stair cases, doors/windows etc...... It's worthwhile getting all the actual printed plans to see what is included and you can see the bathroom layout in 4 views

Electrical Appointment and Flooring

We had our electrical appointment through Your Home Consulting a week ago.

We had only initially budgeted $4000 for electrical additions ... eekkk

We basically wanted LED downlights everywhere, ceiling fans in all living spaces and rooms...

Luckily we have a good friend who is a sparky who can help us install our fixtures and fittings at a reasonable price.

Its actually quite fun doing the electrical plans, you need to imagine how much light you need for the space. You dont want to overdo it either and make it uncomfortably bright!

The main thing is to get the downstairs lighting right... Because after rough in and plastering you ain't gonna fit a electrician in between floors!

Also need to be mindful of two way switches... Fortunately plantation do give you two of these in the home...

The basic electrical inclusions have a  basic light fitting in each space, 2 x double power point in each room and three tv points. Rest is an additional cost.

All up im hoping to keep the electrical budget to around $9000. 

Other big decisions we have made is our flooring! Our plan is do laminate flooring for the entire upstairs and all rooms and large gloss porcelain tiles for the downstairs.

Plantation quoted us for their most basic tile range and timber laminate nearly 13k.

Went to a few tiling shops to and we came across CTM at springwood! it had tiles and is affiliated with solomon flooring too. A one stop shop.

Crystal White - Has small detailed quartz stones 600x600mm gloss porcelain tile

Classic 1050 Parador Spotted oak Laminate

Overall we made some great savings going through CTM flooring and with better tile options which will help compensate for our electrical blowout. I even went to other stores for quotes and CTM couldnt be beaten...

New Home Proposal Meeting

So after all the site assessments are done, the you no longer see your sales consultant, you have a meeting at Plantation homes offices at Springwood with the contracts presenter.

I think this is where the main $$$ goes to especially if you are doing a knock down and rebuild! Our site and slab costs came up just under $40000.

This also included allowances for unexpected things that may arise in excavations. The bulk of costs are due to the following 

• Cut and Fill 3.6k
• Reinforced Waffle Concrete Slab H1-P 6k
• Piering for Slab Footings $10500
• Retaining Walls 9.3k
• Drop Edge beam for garage wall on boundary line 1k
• Zero lot brick veneer $450
• Small lot code slab extension (Slab has to be a certain % of block and integrated) $3300
• Garage Step Down $750
• Power supply and pole - $2000

Building Provisions

• Rock Removal - $500
• Soil Removal $1350
• Access Charges - $1000

Building in pre-planned estates would much likely have been cheaper!

Other things we did were to addition to previous post

• Remove tecknika Oven (-$1020), Microwave (-$350) and diswasher (-$660)options
• We opted to buy a bosch 60mm oven HBA63S451A
• We also managed to get an upgrade to the black glass top 90mm gas stove for free! H950STBGPRO
• Dishwasher pending

•  We also increase the height of the timber stacker doors to 2400mm
• Added a few extra windows.
• Removed all the over head cupboards to the kitchen and increased the height of the window splash back as a feature.
• We opted to do all our flooring and driveway concreting externally.

Overall, despite the increased in costs we were happy to proceed and go into the next steps for electrical and colour appointments.

Here are the initial sketches of the house done. There has been changes but I will post the final sketch later on...