It has been quite an exhausting but productive week for us both! We completed our main appointments already, which is great and means no more thinking about colours and upgrades after this. We took 2 days off work to get these done ASAP:
- Electrical (Clipspec, North Ryde)
- Flooring (Di Lorenzo, Bella Vista)
- Kitchen (Timpelle Kitchens, Prestons)
- Air Conditioning (Ultra Air, Minchinbury)
I think we may still need to do a staircase appointment, but the only thing I need to confirm is the colour of the woodwork, as we won't be changing the design from the standard.
We have already received quotes to sign off from Di Lorenzo, Electrical and Air Conditioning we signed off on the day and we will get the Kitchen upgrades quoted up within 5 days. We also got our colours and quotes back from Wisdom this week, and we need to sign off on the extra upgrades from there.
This is the run down of the week!
Wisdom Colours
- Final price for our Brick Upgrade to Boral Escura Velour Pearl Grey (main) and Boral Escura Velour Brown to front portico piers - came back a lot less than the original estimate which was great!!
- Final price for second paint colour (for woodwork i.e. doors, architraves, etc)
- Final price for clear timber stain to balcony door
- Final price for privacy adapters to 5 internal doors
- Final price for powder coat to balcony rail - we decided to not take this, and stick with "Surfmist" as our balcony railing colour to go with the windows
Electrical
The electrical appointment was interesting, I thought I was decently prepared for it, as we had drawn our ideal plan about a dozen times, but there were still things that we started thinking about on the day. Also choosing between builder's range items and Clipsal items was a bit more challenging than we thought! We signed the plan off on the day, but I wish I had more time to ponder and make changes now.
We were a little frustrated because we had been waiting to get the cost to pre-wire the theatre, and we were told we had to go back to Wisdom! Also, the same deal with pre-wire for the intercom!
These are some of things I can remember that we added in addition
- Provisioned for downlights in main living areas
- Up/Down exterior lights to front facade x4
- 3 data points - office/theatre/leisure (easier to run data points to upstairs later if we wanted to)
- Extra set double powerpoints to each room
- Square LED staircase lights (we went with Clipsal over the builders range as they were halogen) - theatre room x2 (for podium step) and main staircase x4
- We upgraded our light switches to the 'Impress' push button range with blue LED
- Extra outdoor light on blindside/laundry side of house
- Double motion sensor external light for the backyard
Flooring
This was a really difficult appointment! We had made about half a dozen trips here and had our list of tiles and were ready to go, but there's so much more involved in flooring than just selecting the tiles you want! It's particularly hard to visualise what they are explaining as well, we were a little exhausted toward the end!
A lot more here to upgrade than we realised we would need to be doing. The people at Di Lorenzo really go through with detail exactly what you are getting in each and every room, and were very helpful!
- Upgraded Laundry tile
- Upgraded the shower wall with niche to all feature tiles (I am in love love love with this tile!)
- Tiled to ceiling all of shower and bath recess only
- Upgraded ensuite shower wall with niche to all feature tiles
- Tiled ensuite shower to ceiling all of shower recess only
- Upgraded powder room feature wall to all feature tiles
- Upgraded floor wastes (except laundry) to the feature tile chrome wastes
We got quotes for the following and are still deciding whether we proceed with them or not (they ended up costing a little more than what we had expected/hoped for)
- Extended tiling to underneath the staircase
- Tiling to alfresco
Kitchen
Kitchen appointment at Timpelle was great, our customer service rep explained in detail and with drawings exactly what we were getting and recommended changes. A couple of things again we had been waiting for our kitchen appointment, only to be told we had to go back to Wisdom to get quotes on: Veg Spray tapware and space provisioning for a wine fridge in the pantry.
We are awaiting quotes on the following upgrades:
- Second set of pot drawers to match opposite side of oven
- Microwave provision with cupboards in kitchen niche
- Set of pigeon door cupboards for VOID space underneath waterfall
- Laminate pantry doors to match
- Add set of drawers to main bathroom (instead of just pigeon doors)
Air Conditioning
This appointment the guy at Ultra Air ran us through his product, what we were getting, and how it works. We are staying with a two zone (Upper and Lower floors) and one command point. The upgrades are basically adding extra zones, and upgrading to the horizontal grills, which we didn't do either. Also he said we had the option to add zones later anyway, it's just a little more difficult but it can be done.
Pretty exciting I think, to finally have these all completed now.
The only things I'm worried about are the Theatre pre-wire, and the Intercom pre-wire which we have to get quoted back from Wisdom.
We also have not yet submitted our plans to the Developer for approval, as changes to our drawings had to be made because of our landscaping decisions e.g. remove laundry steps, change driveway shape (5 days).
Plan for the week:
We are hoping to hear back from Wisdom some time this week and have them submit to the Developer.
Cx
