Colour Selection Day 1 - Home Options Gallery

This was a big day...... a six hour appointment that covered the following. I had done a lot of research with multiple visits to the Home Options Gallery to look, touch, choose and ask questions. I was advised by many that until your appointment day there would be nobody to answer questions or give information but I didn't find this to be the case. I may have just been lucky by going on weekdays that people were happy to speak with me. They didn't however offer up any information with regard to prices of anything and I must admit to finding this frustrating. As with most people there is a budget to stick to and I was wanting to make sure I spent the money on what mattered to us. I also knew that I wanted to have as much of the additions I chose added in to the contract so that we could get the full amount from the bank, rathe than have to add extra items after completion as I know that when that time comes I will be poor. This of course means you pay a premium but I want this house as finished as possible when we move in.


Cooks Plumbing
This appointment included all tap fittings, toilets, baths, hand rails, oven, cooktop, range hood, microwave etc

• upgrading our appliance from Venini to Baumatic                    $620.00
• longer length bath in both bathrooms                                         $670.00
• closed couplet toilets in both bathrooms                                     $374.00 + $75 inst.
• double towel rail in main bathroom instead of single                  $25.50
• increasing the height of the shower head slightly                      no charge

The toilets were my Mum's only request for the new house as she does most of the cleaning and lets face it, who wants to get down and clean behind them if you don't have to.

Colour Consultant

This was lengthy and involved choices of lots of areas o the home including brick, mortar, gutter, fascia, flyscreens, security doors, garage door, downpipes, doors, entry frames, hinges, handles, locks, cornices, woodworks, moroka, paint colours, skirting, architraves, water tank


I had once again done lots of research with a visit to PGH bricks. We had a BAL 19 regulation on a small part of our home and 12.5 on the rest so flyscreens were mandatory on all windows and doors. We would have wanted them anyway.


My colour consultant was great and that helped a lot. Apparently me being organised also helped the process. I knew what I wanted and had a detailed list with the names, samples, colours and also the codes of the products I intended to choose.


This appointment had no huge shocks except with brick colour. The brick I wanted "mocha" was approved in an earlier land release in my estate but not mine and so in the en we went with "gravel". I didn't feel the need to spend extra money on bricks but was given no choise as Gravel was th only one I liked and it was $881 more


Our Choices


Brick - Gravel
Mortar - raked natural
Roof - Monument colorbond
Gutter- monument
Fascia - Surfmist
Windows and Stacker doors - surfmist
Moroka- surfmist
Eaves- surfmist
Downpipes- on moroka - surfmist, on bricks- monument
Front Door - Surmist
Garage Door- surfmist

 Apologies for the crooked pic - we went with a classic round in Monument

This is our brick butted up again our chosen paver


Internal paint colour Winter Ice
Architraves , ceilings, skirtings - crisp white

 This is the skirting we chose

 The door handle for our front door

We chose the flatline garage door

We added

• dead bolt lock to internal garage door access                                            $ 153
• door lock to main bathroom and toilet                                                       $  66
• matching handle to pantry door as other doors                                          $  25
• clear mesh supascreen doors to meals, rumpus and from door                  $3677
• additional cold water tap to fridge space (for a water/ice fridge)               $ 136
• melamine shelving to pantry instead of included wire racking                  $616
• sliding door instead of opening standard door to bedroom 2 wardrobe     $417

I have a particular dislike of the criss cross mesh scren doors that were include with our bushfire attack level hence the superscreen however I decided to save myself $923 and leave the laundry standard ( as nobody will see it). Mum thinks I am mad for spending so much on screen doors.

Abbey Blinds and Shutters


For the house I chose a variety of blinds and shutter. I am very aware we could get it cheaper after completion but I didn't think $7617 to do the entire house was too bad and they would be installed at completion or very shortly after as Abbey have access o measure well before any other company would.


We chose


Plantation shutters in white study, main bedroom, children's retreat, rumpus and both bathrooms

Sunscreen blinds in white - both sets of sliding doors to alfresco, formal living,

The blind on the left is the sunscreen chosen because we can see out during the day when they are down



Block out blinds in white to bedrooms 2,3 and 4.

Outback Landscaping


Here we chose our pavers for our driveway and also any additional paving or cement work. We added a small section next to our garage for our bins . Total cost $318




Electrical


I was well prepared for this knowing where I wanted my power points, what lights and fans and where I wanted them all. We chose a standard fan with light for the three bedrooms that we will use everyday, additional power points to most rooms, one under the island bench top in the kitchen as well as adding data USB points in most common areas and bedrooms.


My fathers main request was for fluorescent lights in the garage and we also added 5 additional television points in various places and both front and back outdoor lights and lighting to the alfresco and front porch.


We only added 3 down lights above the kitchen bench as they are $115 each and we don't yet know where we want them. A friend is a sparky and he will do those for me later.
$4281 was our total which I didn't think was too bad.



Air Conditioning

The air conditioning included in our $1 ducted air upgrade is expensive to run so we agreed to the more efficient $4234 upgrade. With power prices always on the ride it seemed a sensible idea as I know we won't want to feel unable to use our air con because of cost.
We chose three zones which we separated as

• main bedroom / ensuite / hall
• living areas
• bedrooms 2-4 and rear hall area and children's retreat

The day ran much to time and there was a break in the middle to grab something to eat which was much needed given that it was a brain overload kind of day. I shudder to think how people who haven't done any research cope.
I was surprised though that people didn't try to give me more alternatives or suggestions particularly with electrical. I love to shop and I like gadgets and nice things so if a suggestion of some great product was made I probably would have taken it. There was no mention of upgrading the alarm or any other optional extras and to be honest, I was a little disappointed. That said, I didn't feel like I was unable to have any option I wanted, it just came at a price.