Facade change of heart: From Kingston (Contemporary) to Chateau!

So, we were revising some things on Sunday night, and realised that although we've put many hours into internal options, we sort of just picked the Kingston facade at the first initial appointment with Ainslee. The interesting thing is, in my Metricon big book of plans - I think they put the wrong picture of the facade in. And on their website, the "Kingston" isn't even pictured - but the "Contemporary" is, and it looks the same.

All too confusing? Here's a pic for you;

The lower image is the Kingston (or what is probably now called Contemporary). Remember that the displayed image in the brochures is almost never what you'll actually get - all rendering is OPTIONAL. So, you'd have a brick facade, brick balcony, brick garage. Though in the promotion we've opted for, a feature front render is included which means the balcony projection is rendered.

However, we've decided to change to the Chateau facade pictured on top. It features a weatherboard cladding feature to the facade 1st floor, brick ground and rest of house, and a rendered balcony - so our house should look almost exactly as displayed in the picture!

Of course, all facades incur a cost, and the Chateau base price in 41 squares is $285,200. The Kingston was $283,000, so it's a relatively small $2,200 increase - but gives a much better street view! And for comparison, the cheapest facade is the Traditional at $274,700 - but it looks pretty bland and unattractive.

Ainslee also sent us the Chateau floorplan (the master is slightly larger due to the central projection, which is nice to know) and internally (apart from that) it's virtually identical to the Kingston. The only further change I think I'll bring up with Tina is maybe an additional door to the powder room.

Stay tuned - in the next update I hope to upload a pic of the basic floorplan, then after a bit of photoshopping, mark up all the internal changes we're planning to include!

Metricon - Deposit paid!

Went back to Marriot Waters today for a walkthrough of their Nolan 45. Of course, this house has about $200,000 in options above the standard price - how else would it look this good!

Most of the walkthrough we spent in the kitchen, trying to figure out options here - huge island bench with 100mm stone edges? Tower cabinets? Gloss doors or not? Anyway, over the last month or so we've tied down the major changes to be made.

So, after the walkthrough we got a revised quote - I guess the real unpleasantness was the fact that since we're redeveloping a site, we'll probably have a "P" classification, which in house building terms means "most expensive, Probably". Without more information from the site itself, a basic estimate of $30,000 for site costs is what we're bracing for - wow!

Anyway, paid the $1000 deposit to get the soil samples and site survey done, then went to Metricon's display in Berwick to check out some more display homes to see what standard looks like. They actually had a few standard options on show - the normal L-shape bench is actually pretty good in the kitchen, so we might save ourselves $8500 by not going for the larger island bench! The real hard part is sorting out what colours to put in, so Tina snuck out her camera to snap everything in sight.

Tomorrow we're off to the Home Building & Reno show in the city, to maybe get some ideas.

Oh yeah - Friday night we painted the master room in the old house - wow, it's almost livable now!

A busy Sunday - Studio M and a professional builder's opinion

Busy, busy day - again! I don't reckon we'll get a weekend to ourselves for another year at least!

Went to Studio M today on a tour. I thought it'd be bigger... they did have a selection of bricks, tiles, kitchens etc, but not a fully comprehensive selection. For example, to see all the tiles available you have to go to Beaumont Tiles in Oakleigh. Or look up a full range of kitchen sinks from the manufacturer's website.

Anyway, we spent about an hour and a half on the tour and browsing. Quite a bit from the standard selection was acceptable, though I can see us pretty much upgrading a lot of things. Bigger/better cornices, skirting, architraves, powerpoints, roofs, bricks etc etc.

After that, went to Bourke St Camberwell for a bit of window shopping and overpriced coffee and chocolate based drinks ($10.50 for a mocha and hot chocolate anyone?) before meeting my uncle for an opinion on things so far. My uncle is a custom builder around Melbourne, but generally only high-end projects. He just moved into his own house a couple of weeks ago, 60squares! Got blown away by some of the details - 5 times as much carpet as the average townhouse, four times as much timber, 130 (one hundred and thirty!) truckloads of excavated soil (for the four car underground garage of course), anyway it goes on and on. Got some great advice regarding the Metricon standard quote, inclusions and options. For example, pine is better than hardwood for the frame, eaves are great (as is a Colourbond roof) and other little details too - much appreciated!

Anyway, so far so good for this weekend. Didn't move in as planned, but that's because the house is still unlivable. We've picked up about 7 pots of mismatched paint from our parents, which we'll use to pretty up at least the main bedroom during this week before maybe moving our little bar fridge in next weekend.

Busy day - first Saturday of ownership!

So what we have done so far?

• Vacuumed the place - for about the first time ever, judging from the dirt the Dyson brings up!
• Ripped up the carpet from the main bedroom. Left the underlay and nail boards in place for now, as we'll paint the walls and then remove the underlay (it's our drop sheet for now)
• Brought over a few basics for living - bed frame, mattress, TV, couple of tables and chairs, washing machine. Will bring over either our big fridge or a bar fridge. I think the sooner we start on the new house, the better!

Tomorrow we're visiting Studio M to have a look at the colour range, so that should be quite fun. I've also got to call my uncle to see if he can have a quick look over the plans and give us an opinion on build, quality and prices.

Utilities connected!

Had the electricity and gas connected up today, so we went by the house after work to have a look. Smells a lot better after having the windows open for a day, I must say - and it looks like we're going to rip up all the carpet, after painting a few of the walls first! Nice solid hardwood floors. Hopefully will be able to get the house removed; I must remember to try calling a few places soon!