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.

MI2: The Sequel and Bricks....

After few busy weekends, we finally made our way back to our block of land at The Ponds on the weekend.

It has been a while since we last visited the area and it was good to see some progress that has been happening there.  We can see that the kerbs are already in place in our block!  YAY!!

We thought that there will be another delay with the land constructions due to the wet weather as of late.  We are happy to see the progress thus far and looking forward for our tender presentation now.  We still have our finger crossed about getting the land registered on time in December...

Bricks

Before visiting our land, we also made our way to Austral Brick.  The standard inclusions that we got for bricks from Metricon was category 1 and 2 bricks.  So we make sure that we checked them out first.

Our original selection was the Orpheus color from the Whitsunday range.  However after inspecting our brick selection a lot closer, we didn't really like the color very much and instead the Carlisle color looks more appealing.

As we choose a facade that is modern looking, we wanted to have a modern colored theme as well.  After inspecting all the category 1 and 2 ranges, we thought that none of the colors actually matches what we wanted.  Especially when we discovered that the bricks were actually painted and the color does not go through into the bricks.  Photos below:

Orpheus Color	Carlisle Color

Carlisle and Orpheus from afar

After looking and investigating all our options, we are thinking to upgrading our brick selection to category 3.  We thought that one of these bricks would look perfect for our brand new home:

 

Metropolis Series - Topaz color

 

Symmetry Range - Earth

We really like the Earth color as it will suit our color scheme perfectly, however to upgrade to this category will take an extra $7000 for us.... So we are looking if we can squeeze the budget to fit this in.  It's going to be tough...

The Ponds 

Photos from our visit last weekend:

 

Kerbs on Waterfall 9 block and our little inspector on the job

 

What it appears to be the maintenance hole on our block and our little inspector is testing the strength of the cover

Build Variations

I don't realize until today that the only time to do our thinking and work on our project home are at late nights after the kids are gone to bed.  This is really getting a lot more interesting and we are now clearer on what we are up against... some heavy late night sleep!!  I thought I am through with the late nights when I graduated.... I guess I was too early to even think that....  oh wait did I have enough sleep when we had our children... hmm... looks like sleeping isn't a requirement anymore when you reach parenthood. :)

As the time goes on and whilst also waiting anxiously for our tender presentation, we thought that it would be sensible for us to actually start thinking of what our dream home is going to look like.  We never knew that it would literally takes a lot of detailed thinking, readings as well as researching into every corner of the home!

Till today, Metricon hasn't contacted us for any appointments yet.  Our sales consultant advised us that he hasn't been able to order site surveyors to our land as there is no kerb and gutter in place.  The weather factor also comes into play as there has been a lot of rain for the last few weeks.

In the meantime, we have more time to think about some "home improvement" ideas and there are also some changes that are required by The Ponds design panel.

Compulsory changes to the house design:

• 600mm articulation to first floor family sitting room wall to avoid over 14 meters of straigt wall.  We thought it would be sensible to do it on this part of the house as we would love a bigger living space.
• Generally a minimum of 450mm to all part of the house.
• Render to front pillar of the house.

Upgrades/Changes:

• Shower to the powder room
• Microwave tower
• Closing off the study room with 2 cavity sliding door.  We thought it would be a good idea considering that we have two kids and we can't just leave cables lying around and the study room will have plenty of it
• Opening of the wall between the study room and the sitting room.
• Internal access from garage
• Storage room under the stairs
• An extra shower head in the ensuite
• Two sets of pot drawers next to the cooker in the kitchen
• Extra pot drawers in the ensuite
• Higher wardrobes ceiling to 190mm in the master bedroom only
• Daikin ducted air conditioner 15kw (6HP), 12 outlets, 2 zones.

This study room wall opening seems like a good idea and it's quite cheap to do but I wonder how much is the plantation shutter going to cost??

What we get from the Reflection package (worth up to $70,100 of upgrades for $4,888):

• 90mm white ant resistant structural T2 wall and roof framing
• Bi-fold timber door, stained (up to 2400mm)
• Caesar Stone benchtop to kitchen, laundry, ensuite, powder room and bathroom.
• Baumatic Designer Italian stainless steel upright cooker with 5 burner gas cooktop
• Pivot front entry door - WIN6G includes upgraded 'pivot' entry door frame
• Framed mirrored robe doors to wardrobes
• Downlight pack of 20 in addition to the standard no of light points provided
• Upgraded ceiling height to 2550mm first floor
• 2 solid timber doors with translucent glass
• 2340mm high internal passage doors
• Laundry fitout with inset tub, 800mm base and overhead cupboards pluss 400mm broom cupboard
• Upgraded tiling to 2100mm to ensuite only
• Baumatic stainless steel dishwasher
• Contemporary stainless steel balusters (internal staircase)
• Choice of Baumatic stainless steel rangehood 900mm
• Remote-controlled garage door
• Horizontal feature windon to kitchen with square set finish
• Baumatic stainless steel microwave with trim kit
• Stainless steel back to back door handle (Gainsborough Horizon style 750mm)
• Timber stained treads (2 at the bottom of staircase)

To have this horizontal window when cooking seems pretty cool to us! :)

Still to do:

• Floor coverings.  We are thinking of going timber for the wet area and carpet for the first floor
• Driveway
• Landscaping
• Fencing. Brick fencing to the front and mailbox, maybe colorbond fence for sides and the back of the house.
• Timber decking to porch and outdoor room.  A friend of mine has already offered his help to do the work, all I need to do is to get the materials and help him do the job. Oh and dinner for the family :) the last part is not hard at all :)
• Windows coverings
• Security alarm

Generally we are happy with the Tribeca floor plan itself.  So if the tender comes back with a higher price than we expected that we don't mind not having some of the upgrades that we thought about.  We still need some funds to get furnitures don't we?  Although getting the furniture part will probably happen over the period of time but we still need to hold our horses with upgrades!

This is what we have requested our sales consultant to include in the tender.  Once he is able to order the soil test done, we'll be contacted to make our tender presentation appointment.

Until then, it's a waiting game for us...  Rain please quickly go away...