Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Electrical Appointment

We had our electrical appointment today. Our guide was Elle, she officially works for Argus Technologies who Boutique use for all their electrical work however is contracted out by Boutique for the consultations. She was excellent to deal with. Very knowledgeable, very friendly and the whole experience was a pleasure!

Lighting plan below.

Sorry, I don't have a digital copy yet.
We went into the plan with a $5,000 electrical allowance and $1,800 optic fibre allowance however I knew this wouldn't be enough for what I wanted to do so I planned for a $10,000 budget after the allowance was removed.

For most people what you see above will be overkill however we currently live in a property with a similar LED lighting plan and really love it so we decided to add extra and just place dimmers if we were worried about too much light.

On a side note, Boutique use Beacon lighting as their supplier, so anything that Beacon carry, Boutique can install!

Some of our notable lighting selections are below. Sorry for the excess text. There isn't much to take photos of!

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51 LED 12W cool light down-lights. We could have gotten away with 30 or less however really wanted a bright house. We also upgraded the fittings so they will look a lot better and the globes are also replaceable instead of having to replace the whole fitting. We spent aover $7k on this and it was nearly half our electrical spend.

44 double power points throughout the home. I went in with a plan already drawn up showing where I think we might need or place lamps or other powered items. In the end I would rather a power point I don't use than have the trouble of a space where I should have placed one.

We added 2 under cupboard down-lights to the overhead cabinets in the kitchen.

We have 2 feature up/down lights on the front facade either side of the porch.

Our porch light is linked to a sensor so it turns on as people step onto the porch.

As we have a third garage we have 2 sensor flood lights covering the driveway. We have 3 more on each side of the house and 1 on the back facing the yard.

We added 3 dimmer switch locations throughout the home. Main Bedroom, Living and Alfresco

We have the provision for 3 pendant lights above the kitchen island and 1 in the dining room. Just have to choose the lights now. We are thinking below for the island bench and need ideas for the dining room.

Possible kitchen Island pendant lights.
They have a rough concrete finish to match our tiles

We added 2 power points either side of the main bedroom bed position which have USB charger points already included. This way we have a more slimline way to charge our phones 

2 wall mounted feature lights to be installed either side of the ensuite mirror. They look like the below.

Wall mounted feature lights either side of ensuite mirror
We upgrade our smoke detectors to a more slimline look.

We opted for a wired door bell so we don't have to worry about batteries in the future.

We added a sound and entertainment package which includes wall mounted TV, Data, PayTV and HDMI all running to a plate behind where our TVs will be wall mounted. They are recessed into the wall. We have this in the Theater and Living room walls.

We added a Honeywell Alarm system which has 3 motion sensor points. The benefit with the Honeywell system is that in the future we can add home automation in the future. This would include remote powering on and off of lights in connection with the alarm being triggered or just if we want to turn them on. Controlling appliances or cooling from your smart phone etc.

We have added the provision for two fans in the alfresco to be installed after handover. We also added 3 ceiling mounted points in the alfresco. One for our Sonos speaker to play music outside and two for roof mounted heating which will heat the space in winter (similar to what you would see in a Cafe).

We also added TV and Data plates to be installed in the alfresco so we can really create the indoor/outdoor area we are looking for.

We added extra power and the provision for light switches to be available for use with the pool. This included upgrade power box inside the garage to allow for extra circuits to be connected to the home without having to adjust anything in the future.

Lastly, after looking at our electrical plan we have decided to upgrade our home to 3 phase power. This will ensure that the pool, cooling and lighting will all run at the same time with no issues, with room to spare.

In the end we came in at a total of $19,000. After the allowances came off we ended up at $13,000 $3,000 more than I wanted to spend however we still left happy.

Now we just have to wait for the final sign offs for the colour and electrical appointments as we have asked for clarification on a few things. Once that happens we will finalise our pool quote and take all quotes/invoices to our broker for our final loan approval.

What a fun day!

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Colour Appointment!!

Last Wednesday we went to our colour appointment. As we were so prepared and had done so much research we managed to smash through it in only a couple of hours! Tegan was our consultant and was a great help. She has a lot of good ideas and has obviously been doing this for some time. 

Our plans and geo-siting. Still some minor adjustments and variations to come (man hole locations etc) however nothing major to change.



We ended up adding $12k during our colour appointment however 90% of this was the cost to our floor tiles. The tiles were not in Boutique's standard range and were listed as POA (price on application). We tired looking for a different tile during the appointment that we would like however couldn't find one we were happy with so decided to spend big.

Overall we found we didn't have to add a lot of upgrades as we were very happy with what comes standard. This would have changed recently since Boutique changed their pricing structures however we believe Boutique's standard is still better than most builders.

*Please note that as we signed our PWC before Feb 1 the prices and categories may have changed*
Here are some of our selections below.

EXTERNAL
Colours all together. With Grey Pebble Render,
Monument colour gutters, facias, downpipes
and a dark stained Front Door.

Modern Facade 

Austral Settler Pepperwood Bricks (Category 3)

Macquarie Twilight Roof Tiles (Category 1)
Colorbond Garage Door - Monument
Front Door - Hume XLR160 2040 X 1020
Dark Stain to match Monument Garage Door Colour

































INTERNAL

Paint Colours
Ceiling Colour - Boutique Builders White
Wall Colour - Floral White (2 coats)
Media Room Colour - Charcoal (3 coats)

Carpentry
Square set cornices - Entry, Hallways, Home Theatre, Home Office, Kitchen, Dining and Living

Carpet
Carpet to Bedrooms, Office and Theatre only. Upgraded to tiles in passageway in front of bedrooms 2, 3 and 4.

Carpet - Twist Again Pile - 790 Sky (Cat 2)
Underlay - Stepco (Cat 2 - 4)
Twist Again Pile - 790 (Cat 2)

Laundry
Floor Tiles - Galileo Disk Grey Glazed Porcelain 600X600
Wall Tiles - Matt White 100X300 (Cat 1)
Bench - Laminate Polytec Benchtop in Astral Talc Matt
Cupboards - Malamine Square Edge Char Oak
Our laundry Setup. Colours will be different
Tiles and Cupboard colours together.  Went for a white grout

Cupboard colour and handle selection (Handle is Cat 4














Kitchen
Floor Tiles - Galileo Disk Grey Glazed Porcelain 600X600
Wall Tiles - Clear Glass White Splashback (Cat 2)
Bench - Caesarstone 40mm Fresh Concrete (Cat 2) - Waterfalls both ends
Cupboards/drawers - Evolution Ravine Square Edge Char Oak. Overheads have shadow line finish

Exactly how our kitchen will look.
Floor Tiles, Cupboard Colour and Bench are all exactly the same.
Ensuite
Floor Tiles - Dolomite Ash 300X600 (Cat 2)
Wall Tiles Shower - Dolomite Ash 300X600 (Cat 2)
Wall Tiles Splashback- 18mm Grey Lady Hexagon Honed vanity splashback (Cat 3)
Bench - Caesarstone 20mm Raw Concrete (Cat 2)
Cupboards/drawers - Melamine Matt Square Edge Char Oak.

Ensuite Colour Scheme. 

Bathroom
Floor Tiles - Galileo Disk Grey Glazed Porcelain 600X600
Wall Tiles/Bath Hob - Galileo Disk Grey Glazed Porcelain 300X600
Bench - Caesarstone 40mm Fresh Concrete (Cat 2)
Cupboards/drawers - Melamine Matt Square Edge Char Oak.

Bathroom colours
Powder Room
Floor Tiles - Galileo Disk Grey Glazed Porcelain 600X600

Powder Room Sink (Selected from Caroma website)




All our colour selections together. Looking nice!

OTHER SELECTIONS
Door Handle Style - Used in all areas (Cat 4)
Sink used in Ensuite and Bathroom


900mm Shower Rail
200mm Towel Rail instead of Ring

Clarke Pete Evans Sink and Dorf Mixer

Westinghouse Stove and Oven (We received a credit for taking out the Ilve

- Upgraded to Dorf Bliss Rail Shower
- Added upgraded locks to all external access doors
- Upgraded toilets to Banksia Wall Faced Close Coupled Toilet
- Upgraded to Caroma Cosmo Chrome 600mm double Towel Rail
- Added extra 900mm Caroma Cosmo chrome towel rail to be positions vertically above the other.
- Upgraded to Cosmo 200mm Towel Rail instead of Towel Ring
- Relocated Man Hole location to Garage

Electrical Appointment booked this Wednesday!