Colour Selection Day (1&2 combined on the same day) - A land speed record

We signed our Building Contract on the 31/07/2014 and paid our 5%.

The next day was colour selection day. I was determined to get it done in record time.
The other half (J) opted to stay home with the kids, and he was going to come up with our youngest after she had had her nap. The older one was going to hang out with Grandma.

I arrived a little early, grabbed a coffee (the cafe has great coffee), and let Josie at reception know I was there for my appointment, and that I was aiming for a record! I popped upstairs and went and had a look at some proper Colorbond samples (instead of just paint samples), and Sarah quickly called me over to begin.

I cannot rate Sarah highly enough. She was fantastic! She started her spiel, and I interrupted her and told her I was fairly organised (well I thought I was), and that I really did want to get through it all quickly,  I had no intention of being there for 7 hours. We started at 9:00am and by 9.05am we were done for externals, our little printout was even done.

Surfmist is definitely not this beigey in real life. It is much more white / grey

Grey paint is the walls, white is the roof

grey is the window frames, and then bricks and colorbond roof

Roof with the brick and driveway

We upgraded doors (approx $1300 for 11 doors - TBC)
Upgraded to Melamine in WIP and Linen Closet - $300ish
We went with the standard Amelia handles in Satin Chrome.
I upgraded to the Gainsborough Horizon 600mm Pull handle (handle on the display at the Drysdale at Kellyville Homeworld) $350ish
Paint - June Fog with the semi gloss version used for architraves and skirting.

 Our door and door handle. 

Ours will be painted in Surfmist though

 I wasn't aware that you had to pick a standard range of options for your kitchen and bathroom, and then you upgrade later. The standards we chose were New Cairo Essastone and Polar White Natural finish for the kitchen, and Pure Calcite square form Laminex tops for the bathroom, with polar white Natural Finish cupboards for the bathrooms. The only item of this that we will actually have are the Polar White Natural Finish Cupboards in the Bathrooms.

Sarah and I were done in no time and she then got my Landscaping appointment changed from 2:00pm to straight away. That also took 5 minutes, as I knew what we wanted. French Grey Colour on, to the kerb. Paving would have been great, but we didn't like any of the colours that PGH had. To upgrade to grey Baines pavers was an extra 2.5k.
To the kerb cost an extra $530

After my quick visit with Landscaping, I popped over to Air-Con and got my zones rearranged - $167 and another 5 minutes later.

Sarah then got Cooks plumbing to reschedule me and they would be ready in about 15 minutes. Insert coffee break :-)

Joanne at Cooks Plumbing was lovely, although not particularly enthusiastic about our meeting. I really felt like she had her mind elsewhere and hope there was nothing too troublesome that was bothering her. We had already extended the length of the bath at Tender stage, and at this appointment we were sure to increase the Shower head height, which was free. To upgrade to Baumatic appliances if $621, which I opted for, then said no, and then opted for, and then said no. I did, however, upgrade the rangehood to the curved glass one, which I think was about $270 (I don't have the quote here). The Husband has no idea why I didn't upgrade the appliances, and that is probably something I will end up doing this week. We stuck with all the standard handles even though I'm not a fan, we can easily change them later on down the track. I got rid of the soap holders and she put that cost into larger towel racks. Final thing I added was a filtered water tap - $170 for separate tap or $380 for the all-in-one unit.

We rearranged another appointment and I met with Isabella to talk kitchens, instead of my much later appointment that was planned with Julie. We really don't think this will be our forever home, so are trying to spend money in places that will appeal to most people, as opposed to just spending money on stuff we want. The kitchen is where it gets hard. Poly cupboards, mirror splashback (ahhh my one desire), 40mm waterfall benches, softclose everything, a gazillion pot drawers, etc, etc, etc, $, $, $. The cost could be astronomical if you allow it to be. Reigning in the cost here was always going to be a fun task, not. Overhead cupboards were included already (EBH error that we jumped on, don't ask), it was then that we had to work out what was a priority and what wasn't. The husband wanted Stone tops in the bathroom, whereas I thought we would be OK with the squareform laminex benchtops (supposed to be a stone look-a-like).
After much, much, much, much, much, deliberately and debating, I chose not to get the waterfall edges or the Mirror or glass tile splashback (sob).
The included stone in our package is New Cairo, which has a beige base. We wanted an all white kitchen so were leaning more towards the New Basmati stone which had the whiter base. I saw Sorbet on the Essastone website and was pretty sure we would go with that. I popped into HOG after our contract signing (the day before colour selection) and we were shown a new colour called Torrone, it's the whitest base and a few grey flecks throughout. It was our winner.
There are lots of grey stones as I originally wanted grey, but realised it would be too hard to try and match our floor tile. The upgarde to Torrone Essastone was $616 (Group 1 colour - colours are grouped and then priced by group)

 Back - New Basmati, Torrone, Carbon

Middle - Sorbet, Basalt, New Cairo (included stone upgrade)

Bottom - Piazza 

The cupbaords in the kitchen will be Polar White. As much as we would have loved to upgrade to Poly cupboards, we just couldn't justify the 3.5k expense. Instead I went with the Satin gloss finish for $1427.

Softclose to the drawers (600mm) $340

 
I got a price of approx $941 for edge side for a waterfall edge in Torrone, but didnt go ahead on the day. However, about half an hour ago (2 days after Colour Selection Day) I just sent them an email telling them to add the waterfall edges, The benchtops and edges are only 20mm though, instead of the desired 40mm. But I had to sacrifice somewhere (insert very very happy face).
 
When I saw the squareform Laminex tops in the showroom I immediately scrapped that idea and Hubby got his stone tops in the bathroom. He wants wall to ceiling tiling in there as well, so they aren't exactly money saving rooms!
Stone in Main - $539
Stone in Ensuite - $847
Again we are going with the Polar White cupboards, but this time they will just be Natural Finish. If it isn't great we can upgrade at a later date.

We were given a few different prices for things (which we will include on an Upgrade page), but ultimately, that was all we did in the kitchen.

I was lucky enough to get a quick stop off with the very helpful Malinda at electrical (actually a day 2 appointment).
The cost there was $730.
I upgraded the alarm system to have a streamline siren, a much smaller and better looking extrernal strobe, and a computerised panel. $224
We added anther sensor inside  - $159
And most importantly (to J), a heat and motion sensor for the garage, called a dual tech sensor - $189
Extra double powerpoints were $79
Singles were $76.00

After our electrical appointment Sarah and Josie both tried to get me into tiles and carpet that day. no luck. First it was going to be 2 weeks away, then 10 days was the best they could do. Well, being sneaky, I rang their contact direct and asked nicely, BEGGED and pleaded with her to get me in earlier. I told her I was completely decided on everything we wanted and literally just needed to write it down with a consultant. I told her that if she had any cancellations to let me know. I said that if she had a cancellation in an hour to let me know and I would be there. She said she would see what she could do and get back to me. I nearly died when she rang back 5 minutes later and told me to come in at 1:30pm, providing I really was decided and I was happy to wait until the consultant was finished with her appointment. SCORE!

I popped in to see Abbey blinds and gave them my requirements and asked them to quote me. And then I was DONE. 11.30am and I was done. I went home for lunch with J and the kids and then we headed out to DiLorenzo for the 400th time, 5th time, and waited for Courtney to see us.

Tiles had been a particularly difficult decision for us. We easily picked a lovely Charcoal Matt ceramic tile on our first visit that was 450x450. We ordered and paid for a sample box ($36) and laid them out in the kitchen at home. blerk. very, very dark. We put them in the bathroom and they practically looked black.
We went back again and picked a Cement coloured 450x450 tile that was a mid range grey. I got a sample box of that and when we put that down it was horrid. The pattern through it actually made it look really dirty.

 Failed tiles

L: Charcoal  R:Cement

Failed tiles with lights on

L: Charcoal  R:Cement

After reading through another Eden Brae blog (that I later learnt was in the same estate as us), I found out that there was another Di Lorenzo tiles at Redfern you could visit. I also secretly coveted the feature tile they had chosen, but wanted it for our floors (way too expensive!!)

So one Saturday morning, in the drizzly rain, we packed the girls into the car and headed down to have a look. We picked the exact same tile as the ones on the blog, but in a darker shade (or so we thought, turns out that Redfern store has their tiles marked as the wrong colour - so we actually picked the same tile). It was only $42 m2, so it was definitely on our consideration list.
We tossed the idea of this tile around for a few days. We will be doing the matching external tile to the Porch and the large Alfresco area, so tiling isn't going to be cheap. By choosing a non-standard porcelain tile, we are adding an additional cost. Using these in the bathroom is classified as a non-standard sze and is another additional charge. The tile we chose for all of our flooring, inside and out is The Everstone Durastone 300 x 600 Steel grey in Matt finish.


We did end up going with them in 300x600. We put it with a 300x500 white tile called Temp Ice for the bathroom, a grey and clear mosaic for the niches, and then I gave up my mirrored splashback and went for a 3D white tile to be laid horizintally.

We wont get our quote for tiles for about 2 weeks (they are backlogged)

 Bottom is the internal tile, top is the rougher external

Kitchen splashback (in lieu of the mirrored splashback :-( )

(I didnt end up getting these, Onfound a really clever idea in someone elses blog and have gone for that. Stay tuned!)

Carpet was simple, upgrade the underlay as the standard is something ridiculous like 1mm. As we have two small kids we are going to stick with builders range of carpet for now. We will upgrade in a few years when the carpet is a little safer!

Minster Carpet

California Gully

Colour Gravel

 TBC...... two sick kiddies and the littlest one has just woken up.