What a busy week! On Tuesday we made the trip down to Port Melbourne again to officially select all our colours etc. The best part about this was finally getting an exact price on all our upgrades so we could see how much we had blown the budget by…
We began at 9am for our colour selection appointment with Jozica at Hopetoun interiors. She was friendly and knowlegable, and as we had been into hopetoun 3 times prior, we already knew almost everything we wanted and were in and out in an hour and a half, rather than the 4 hours allocated. We were also pleasantly surprised that a couple of the upgrades cost a bit less than expected. We ended up upgrading the following:
All sinks to The Kado Arc Square ($13 each)
All taps to mixer taps ($55 each)
The front door to PMAD104 ($245)
The front door handle to Nexion Vision Element L3 Lever ($168)
The bathtub to the Decina Uno 1700 ($92)
A second Posh Domain Square Dumper and additional mixer tap to ensuite (Approx $300)
Addition of deadlocks to laundry/garage doors and privacy locks to Bathrooms. ($183)
The carpet underlay to level 3 ($272)
After handover we will be replacing all of the Kitchen and bathroom handles, the mixer taps to the vanities ourselves due to budget.
Next we were on our way to the electrical appointment. We had a tight budget of $4000, But had managed to spend a full $900 less than expected at Colour selection so were prepared to go slightly over. Amy helped us out and was really good. She was quick and knowledgeable.
We upgraded to downlights (White) throughout main living areas but kept batons in the bedrooms
IXL in the ensuite
Exhaust fan in the laundry
Doubled the powerpoints throughout the house.
Added an extra data point for our NBN pack
Fluro in the Garage
Additional batons for pendants above the island
A junction box for future porch light
And the total cost came in at just $4274, and took less than an hour (We had already planned our powerpoint locations). Happy Days.
We took an hour break at this stage to grab a bit to eat before heading to national tiles.
The budget came into play again so we stuck to category 1 tiles. We had already selected the 400×400 mocha floor tile and 300×100 mocha wall tile to be used throughout the whole house. Splashbacks and laundry included. As you can see we are pretty plain boring people.
We decided to splurge (With our tiny budget, every dollar is a splurge!) a little though, and extended the tiling in the ensuite shower to the ceiling at a cost of $133, and also chose to have all the 300×100 tiles laid in a subway pattern rather than straight which is an extra $5 per metre.
We spent a grand total of $209 at tiles and were out in 40 minutes.
So we managed to get all of our appointments done pretty painlessly, and got most of the upgrades we wanted. We were on our way home by 2.30pm and were overall really happy with the people helping us and what we managed to afford.
Next Blog… CONTRACT SIGNING….
Building in Ballarat 