Electrical Appointment

This would be a very tricky post as I can't find the pictures of what we have selected.  But hopefully I can give some insights into our selection.

From my earlier post regarding the promotion package and as I have mentioned many times, we are already getting some quality designer products, so there won't be many additions here.  But in case you were wondering, our total upgrade in electrical cost more than internal color selection...

So why does this cost more?

For most part, I am not an electrician and from what I was told by our consultant, only those who have electrician skills and it is what they do for a living, their electrical selection are far lower than our cost.  On average, electrician spend between few hundred to couple thousand dollars at maximum for their upgrade.  This is because for most of the area, they can do it themselves.

I considered a lot of options before going to our electrical appointment but ultimately, anything that is related to electrical, we are better off doing it early while the house is still in it's frame stage.  Doing electrical work after the handover, especially being a double storey house, would cost a lot more than what we are spending right now.

We avoided getting fittings as much as possible but eventually a couple did slipped in to our contract variation quote.

What we did end up getting in our electrical appointment session:

1. Home Networking System - coming from an IT background, the first question that I ask at the appointment was "I like to install the network hub that you've got on the display corner there, can you tell me how much it costs?"  Our consultant just smiled and said that she already guessed that I will ask the question.  I opted to install the Cat 5e networking system as installing Cat 6 would blow our budget by far.  I must admit if this was a single storey house, I might do this work after the handover.  However we are building a double storey house and like I said previously to do this type of work after handover would be a nightmare and ended up costing more.
   
2. Mini cabinet downlight fittings to niche cutout near the dining room.
   
3. Additional air conditioning zone.
   
4. Additional alarm sensor to the master bedroom.

As far as getting some fittings concerned, we are getting this light bar to be installed above the mirror in the ensuite.

Total damage in our electrical appointment was close to $6000.

Combining the total cost for internal and electrical selection, our wallet is about $10k thinner.

Taps, Hardwares/Accessories, Handles, etc.

Well mostly we left everything to what we've got in Metricon's reflection promotion.  Little that we know, the bathroom, kitchen and laundry hardwares that included were exceeding my expectations already.  I was like are you sure that we are getting all these?  Our consultant said, yes, they are part of the promotion that we purchased.  I know that the promotion package has a lot of upgrades in it but I didn't think it would be that good and well worth it.

To this date I have no regret whatsoever with our purchase of the promotion package.

So on to the main topic here are what we are getting:

General choices:

We've added a deadbolt lock to the external door in the laundry room with the model below.

We have also upgraded all the handles for every cabinets that we have in the house.  This also applies to the linen cupboard on the ground floor as well as first floor.  So all cabinets in the kitchen, laundry, powder, bathroom and the ensuite will have this handle with the length and size to suit.  i.e. for longer drawer we will have longer handles.  The handle option below is in fact a standard option so it costs nothing to upgrade to the shorter version of the handle.  The only upgrade is the longer handle which cost us around $15 per handle.








Bathroom choices:

Semi-recessed basin

Above the counter basin

We elected to have the basin above the counter in the powder and bathroom.

The semi-recessed basin will be in the ensuite.  Having the semi-recessed counter require us to extend the caesarstone that we have to act as an apron for the vanity unit.

Moda Duo Rail - Standard Shower Head

Wall mixer for the shower

Star double towel rail

Metza Rectangular Hob 200mm Spout for the bath

Alto basin mixer

Alto Toilet Ring

Alto Soap Holder

Kitchen choices:

Clark Quatro Double End Bowl

There is not much upgrades here as we have already upgraded the entire kitchen upon the tender request.  Our kitchen should look very similar to the one in the display house at The Ponds, Tribeca display.

One thing that we added was the wine rack above the fridge.

Laundry choices:

As part of the promotion package we have already got the 2 cupboards and the broom cupboard as standard but we added another cupboard like the picture above just so that we can have some space whenever we needed to do anything there.

In Studio M product book, this is listed as an upgrade item.  However we are getting this as part of the promotion package.  The only upgrade here is the tap.  Cost around $40.

Apologies for the picture quality as they are scanned.  I've tried to find some pictures for the product but it isn't showing up even on the search engine.

The total damage done for internal colour selection including the accessories is about $4,500.

Internal Color Selection

The moment that we've been waiting for has finally arrived yesterday.

We had our internal color and electrical appointment with Metricon together on the same day.  I will write about our internal color selection experience in this post and I will write about the electrical selection separately.

After leaving the kids with my parents in the morning, we set ourselves to the Metricon head office to sign our lives away yet again... just kidding.

When we got there, we actually had the electrical selection first but that was pretty straight forward and I can still remember everything fresh.  It was the internal color selection that was a bit tricky and before I forgot anything else, let's start from the back of Studio M as that's where our consultant start of first.  I think that part is also the continuation of where we left off with the external color selection anyway.

I must admit this was quite a fun experience.  Well maybe it's because this is our first experience for us both.  We didn't go crazy or overboard in the internal color selection, although we did add a little extra here and there but I'm quite proud that we were able to contain ourselves.

Skirting board  profile - double pencil round.

Walls/Skirting/Architraves - Dulux - Natural white

Ceiling/Cornices - Dulux - Vivid white

Powder room/Laundry/Kitchen/Bathroom/Ensuite - Benchtops - Quartz CaesarStone - Osprey - thickness 20mm

Powder room/Laundry/Kitchen/Bathroom/Ensuite - all Cupboards - WilsonArt - Concept Oak

Kitchen/Laundry - Kicker - Satin Stainless

Powder room/Bathroom/Ensuite - Kicker - Tiles

We chose to have tiled kicker as oppose to leaving it standard with the laminate cover.  The wife and I thought that as we will only be paying $70 extra per room anyway so might as well upgrade it.

We added another set cupboard in the laundry room.  The price for the extra cupboard doesn't include the caesarstone that needs to be installed along with the cupboard.  The caesarstone in the laundry was part of the promotion that we purchased when signing the contract.  It may look weird if we leave a little part of the benchtop in laminate.

We also added a door to the overhead cabinet above the refrigerator section.

I guess everyone else is right when they say, it's the little things that adds up to the total amount.  Although the total amount is not as big as the electrical upgrades but if we add it all up we are about $10K poorer.

I admit that this is quite a simple selection on our part, simply because if we can do some of the upgrades ourselves then we'll leave it until then.

This is our internal color selection, next up is the furniture selection.

Final Tender Acceptance

After a few correspondence with our tender presenter, we finally accepted our tender today.  We made some minor changes to the original tender that was given to us.

We took out the Metricon complete package that includes:

• Site cost allowance 
• BASIX
• Floor covering for the entire house
• Concrete slab to outdoor room  
• Paved driveway and entry
• Roof sarking
• Security alarm

The list above is in fact very enticing to us.  For a price, the complete package would allow us to move in to our brand new home immediately upon building completion.  However we need to be completely happy with everything that we are getting as part of the package.

We went to Di Lorenzo to inspect the category 1 carpet and tiles that we will be getting, should we go with this package.  The tiles collection at Di Lorenzo was amazing, however being category 1, our selection is quite limited.  The lady that guide us when we get to the store, said that we are allowed to select anything from the store but there will be an additional charge, if we are to select anything that is over our allowance limit and depending on our selection there may also be an extra labour charge as well as under lay charge.

In a perfect world where we have lots of money to spend, this may be fine with us as their collection of the tiles were very good.  So we considered a number of scenario if we were to go with the complete package.

In the end, we decided to have solid timber for our ground floor and carpet for the stairs, initially, and the first floor.  As Di Lorenzo doesn't have that many selection with the timber, we decided to take the Metricon complete package out.

As a result, we will then need to pay separately for the site cost.  BASIX is not applicable to us as we are in the recycled water area, so in the tender this was actually a credit to us.  It was quite considerably a huge amount too!  How I will miss seeing this credit item in the tender :).

For the final changes of the tender we, here is what we decided to keep:

• Site cost
• Concrete slab to outdoor room
• Roof sarking
• Security alarm
• Paved driveway
• Increased aluminium stacker door height to match the height of timber bi-fold door

We were advised that we could have the security alarm from an external provider.  However as the nature of the product is electrical and anything that run inside the structure of the house, I'd rather to have this done by the builder.  I believe installing this at a later stage could end up costing us a lot more.  For example air conditioner, which I will post another entry on the subject.

So there it is, one more step to having our dream home.

Tender Presentation - Part 1

We had our tender presentation this morning and as we expected the grand total (not including color upgrades) was a bit more.  Not that we were surprised by that at all.  We already expected it when we submitted our variations list, including changes due to the covenant and design guideline.

We were hoping to take some of the variations out and see if we can do some of the improvements ourselves.

The tender presentation went really well.  This is our first time doing a project home and our presenter was really good, professional and thorough when explaining things that we didn't understand.  For one, there was a lot of building terms in the document but our presenter explained it really well.  We were impressed and learned a lot about building from the session.

There were one consideration that we had to make with the design plan of the house.  As part of the Reflection promotion package that we mentioned in my previous post, we receive a Bi-Fold solid timber door up to 2400mm, which is a three Bi-Fold solid timber door.  We initially thought that this door was to replace the aluminium stacker door leading to the outdoor room from the dining.  To our surprise this is another door that we need to consider it's placement.  In the plan, it is placed on the side of the Rumpus room, which in a way ruins our plan to have an enclosed Rumpus room.

This might be something that we have to live with.  The other issue that we have was the height gap between the two doors are actually quite noticeable looking from the outside.  Hopefully our presenter can find a solution for that one.

On another note, in relation to upgrades.  We have added a few more wishlist to the house variations:

• Upgrade the entire kitchen to look exactly like the one in the display house at The Ponds;
• Driveway as part of the landscape;
• Security alarm; and
• Roof sarking

We can't have the storage room under the stairs anymore as the articulation to the wall affected that area.  So we'll need to come up with another storage solution but looking at the proposed floor plan, I think we should be fine.

I don't think this is the final list.  Hopefully by color selection appointment time, we have better control over ourselves.

This is my house!!!

On this day, we finally decided that we are going to put some deposit money as well as signing our lives away with Metricon to build our dream home.

It was the Tribeca 36 with Metro facade that we are going with.

The House

The Floor Plan

We made our appointment with one of Metricon's sales consultant at Kellyville Ridge display center but we were late getting there as my son had a stomach bug and was throwing up during the trip.

After nearly 1 hour late for our appointment, we finally arrived.  We verified all the standard inclusion list again; did a walkthrough of the house as we didn't do that the first time; and finally we also wanted to confirm that we are getting an extension to our tender expiry period as our land is not going to be registered until December 2010.

Our sales consultant made a call to his manager to confirm the availability of the manager sale and confirmed that we'll definitely secure our tender price for 240 days.  The default tender expiry period is 150 days and that will only get us until October of this year in which it will not work for us.  So having 240 days for the tender expiry days will help us quite a lot as Metricon charges 0.5% of the total value of contract price per month if we don't go into construction within 150 days.

Some may think, why did we sign the request for tender on this day and not wait until at least our land is registered?  Well the answer is, Metricon will have their prices increased by at least $10k on the Monday 24th May.  By putting in the deposit on this day, it will guarantee us today's price and not having to deal with the price increase.  Also one of their promotion package which is called the Reflection Package, and this package will get us most of the stuff that we wanted, was going to finish at the end of the month.  The promotion was the main factor that we decided to sign up on this day really.

Maybe they tricked us into it or it could probably be a sales pitch to put some pressure on us.  Having said that and knowing the facts, at the end of the day, we were quite happy with our decision. :)

One step closer to owning a brand new home!

House House House... - The Dream Home

So now that we know that we are going to get a double storey house, the question is which one?

After countless number of trips to The Ponds builder display village and Homeworld that seemed like to go on forever, we were finally able to shortlist a number of house design that we like.

1.  Metricon: Riva 34 - Metro Facade
The design gives a lot of private open space area and it covers only about 28% of the total area.  We didn't really like the facade of the house but, in general principle, it's really the floor plan that we really liked.  From what we can see from the geosite image, it would appear that the house won't go anywhere near the manholes as well.

We were a bit disappointed when we discovered that the rumpus room at the back of the house that is on display at their Kellyville Ridge center was actually an upgrade.  In order to "add" that room it will cost us around $25k.

Our sales consultant was very patient with us throughout the questioning session :).

2.  AV Jennings: Atrium 285 - Capri Facade
I must say that the house that is on display at The Ponds builder village is really nice and a very lovely home.  The consultant also advised us that the display home was full of upgrades in it.  The only concern I have about Atrium was that the house was originally design for a corner block.  So if we wanted this house, we'll need to make some modifications such as moving the entrance to the study room whilst also extending the study room so that we can actually have one.

Comparing to the Riva from Metricon, we like the facade of Atrium better.  It feels more homey.  However there will be extra costs depending on which facade that we choose.  The only problem in this is we will not choose the traditional facade.

The price for the standard range would also fit our budget perfectly and way under.



3.  Metricon: Tribeca 36 - Metro Facade
This comes in at the very last minute.  After spending most part of the day with one of Metricon's sales consultant, we thought that we have what we have come  for and all of the informations that we need to make our decision.  However we can't help but to have a last sneak peek at the Tribeca.

Maybe it's because we have spent most of the days going through all of the display house at Metricon in great details that we were finally able to spot that the Tribeca isn't very much different to the Riva.  I mean it has the same elements of floor plan but Tribeca have an extra study room and rumpus room.  All others are pretty much the same.

So we made an inquiry about the price for Tribeca 36 (the smaller version from the display center) with Metro facade and the difference was the cost of building the rumpus room for the Riva.

Tribeca 40 - Coastal Facade on display at Metricon display centre at The Ponds

Which house did we choose? Based on the above, it is not a secret that we will be going for the Tribeca 36 with Metro facade.  We did seriously consider of going with AV Jennings with their Atrium 285 design and also Metricon was a bit pricey and we will be stretching our budget.  However at the end of the day, after considering factors such as the standard inclusion list, promotion package and the quality of all the wares that we are going to get, it was Metricon's that we like the best.

And there it is, after a good 3 months of researching and looking at the display centers, we finally found our dream home...