Internal Colour Selections

Internal Selections

We actually did our electrical and colour selections on the same day, but wanted to let the choices we made percolate for a while before blogging about them. We have officially signed the forms and posted them back this week. So unless Neuman can bring the forms back we are locked in for our internal colour selections.

You get 3 hours at this stage to go through internal selections but we only needed an hour and a half. It helps when your budget has a limit and you are worried about site costs popping up.

Our colour consultant was pretty helpful, and made the experience quite pleasant for us. We are trying to keep things simple so we didn’t fuss too much over wall covers. We did fuss over the kitchen colours quite a bit as the ceaserstone and cabinet colours in the kitchen and bathroom will be the same, unless of course you want to pay extra to have them painted different colors. We just didn’t have the budget for it, and we were happy to go with neutral colors.

No complaints at internals, prices for upgrades seemed to be pretty reasonable. But we were pretty cautious.

Internal colors are as follows

·         Front door                                          - Clear Stained Corinthian Merbau

·         Splashback                                        - Dulux Chocolate Glimmer in starphire glass

·         40mm Ceaserstone                           - Osprey

·         Ceiling                                               - White

·         Doors                                                 - White

·         Trim                                                   - White

·         Walls                                                 - Taubmans Smooth Pebble

·         Polyurethane Cabinets                      - Taubmans Struan Grey. Very very light greyish/yellowish/white

Flooring

One of the biggest items we debated on was flooring, flooring is quite subjective and we did visit a few stores to get quotes on different types of flooring. In the end I found that quality tiles, carpet, and wood all cost around the same price. It seems to be one of those areas in “you get what you pay for”. I don’t trust bamboo flooring nor did I like the look of pre-finished floorboards, it had that spray paint sheen to it which I hated.

We decided to stick with Provincials supplier for flooring for the following reasons.

·         The price difference between Provincial and the cheapest quote was about $2,500 but once you factor in that the flooring quote has contingencies built in for levelling of the slab etc, it didn’t seem like it was worth it.

·         In addition we would have had to pay Provincial a $760 fee for tacked on skirting.

·         Doing flooring after handover would have meant that the flooring would have been done around the kitchen island drop downs instead of under it. We really hated the look of flooring around kitchen islands. Most builders seem to do this and they put skirting around the island. Really detracts from the looks of the floors and the island.

·         We visited the flooring installer, and he seemed to be extremely professional. He gave us comfort in the end product.

Flooring ended up coming in at a hefty $17k for solid select grade 80mm black butt with a modified oil based finish on battens to all the living areas excluding the lounge and bedrooms. It was a large amount, but hopefully it pays off.

That's a picture of blackbutt from another supplier, but it should look similar.

The standard level of inclusions is actually already pretty good, having said that we did make a few upgrades.

Kitchen

·         Bevelled Edge (includes bathrooms) to the cabinetry which negated the need for handles. The larger handles run $20 each which would have started to add up, and with the kitchen of a single storey home a big focal point, we liked the smooth clean look it gave. Some of the standard handles were nice too, but on large drawers we preferred a largish handle.

·     40mm ceaserstone drop downs to the kitchen island, probably could have gone without this one, but it does look really nice in the kitchen, and we had included it in the tender

·     Custom colour splashback. We chose Dulux chocolate Glimmer in starphire glass.

·     Increase the fridge height by 10cm to 1870mm, with the standard size being 1770mm most fridges would barely fit in when you factor in for hardwood flooring (maybe 2cm of clearance). Whilst I was hesitant to spend this amount of money on making a cupboard smaller, I figured it would be best to future proof for any fridge that we would need in the future.

Our kitchen should look very similar to the display, except visualise it with the Osprey Ceaserstone and Metallic Brown Backsplash, along with more whiteish/grey polyurethan cupboards. So completely different to the photo ;)

Osprey Ceaserstone looks like this

 

 And a photo I found of a kitchen that has actually used the dulux chocolate glimmer splashback.

Bathroom

·         Bevelled Edge for cabinets in the bathrooms, this was included in the one price.

·         Single glass panel to the ensuite shower (included at tender stage)

·         Added a door to the ensuite bathroom as well (included at tender stage)

External Selections

                As mentioned previously in this blog we had chosen with the biggest change at this stage was the inclusion of a woodgrain finish on the garage door. Whilst we didn’t change the color from surfmist we were given the option of finish which I found pretty impressive.

·         Bowral Murray Grey Bricks

·         Boral gunmetal Contour Roof tiles

·         Surmist Facia, eaves, windows, garage doors

·         Natural Stained 2.43mx1.2m Corinthian 8 panel Merbau front door.

·         Added a trilock Omni … going all out on the front door so may as well finish it off.

Miscellaneous Internal Selections – All standard/part of the upgrade package

·         Stainless Steel range hood (fisher & Paykel) as per the display, ducted to outside air J. We had the option of glass or stainless, and thought glass would just get too dirty/greasy

·         Stainless steel fisher&paykel dishwasher

·         900mm elba by fisher & paykel freestanding cooker

·         Double round sink as per the display…. Although we did see a black sink at masters and dreamt how good it would look…. Maybe later

·         Semi frameless shower in the main bathroom in bright chrome finish

·         Chrome flickmixer taps everwhere

·         Round bathroom sinks as per display

·         Corinthian Motive 3D internal doors (paid extra for 2.34m doors, the normal doors are flat profile)

·         Gainsborough bright chrome Liana levers throughout, with privacy locks on bathrooms and main bedroom as standard

That’s pretty much it for internals. The wish list for the future will include.

·         Changing a few internal/ laundry doors to the hume Lin1 style doors maybe in a stained finish

·         Few mirros in the niches

·         Adding carpet, dead bolts

·         And maybe that black Franke sink we saw… who knows if it’s even possible.

I have used pictures in this post that are not mine, if anyone has any concerns or issues, please leave a comment and I will delete them.

What’s next…… CDC approval and then finance