Time for demolition quotes

I had a call from Rania yesterday to officially let me know that the plans had gone off to council. Checked today on the tracking device online & they have been received and entered by Hornsby Council.
Rania also wanted to know if we had submitted our demolition application yet....ummmm, no! Next job on the list of things to do.
Mentioned to Rania that I still hadn't received our quote from DiLorenzo after 2.5 weeks and some followup emails. R said she would followup too from her end - we then had the quote within an hour! We are still waiting on the carpet component of it though.

Personally, I think the way DiLorenzo operate with the builder is a little sneaky. Even though they are up front about the charges for laying tiles that are larger than 250 x 250mm, the tile displays they show you for standard EBH tiles are all larger than 250x250mm. Basically, you need to specifically ask for smaller tiles to avoid charges. Anyway, our tile quote came to the amount we allowed for in our contract as I decided to ask for floor to ceiling tiling in the main & ensuite.
It will be interesting to see the figure for carpets as I would like to upgrade the carpet and the underlay!

Off to Council.....

The exciting news of the day is that our plans have now been sent to council to await the rubber stamp of approval! Yay! A major step closer though a long road still ahead.

I sent an email to EBH management this afternoon regarding my dissatisfaction with the hydraulics PCV. To be completely honest, I wasn't really expecting a reply. Within an hour, I had a call on my mobile from a lovely lady, Bev, who listened, understood & cared though not really solving anything! Bev was great at explaining things that hadn't been discussed with me. Thankyou for your prompt response Eden Brae.

Laundry

Laminex Platinum Micro - long bench

Laminex White - Cupboard underneath and shelving

One side of laundry. Other side to be all cupboards. Love the bench space for folding!

Kitchen

We finally received our Kitchen Culture drawings this afternoon so I will run through the kitchen selections with you. Enjoy!

THE BENCHTOP - CAESARSTONE OSPREY

THE ISLAND BENCH - SMOKEY SAPELLE

THE FRIDGE RUN & COOKTOP RUN - LAMINEX SILK FINISH WHITE

TILED SPLASHBACK IN A WOODGRAIN LOOK (will be narrower 'planks' and in more of a brick pattern)

TILES ON FLOOR IN KITCHEN/MEALS/FAMILY/RUMPUS etc -

PULLOUT BIN A LITTLE LIKE THIS

DRAWER ORGANISERS

AND THE 3D DRAWINGS!

COOKTOP RUN

FRIDGE RUN

Stormy waters

Today was not a good day in EBH land! We received the PCV for the hydraulic system as per the design put together by the external engineer. EBH allowed $8K for this in their professional opionon at our tender presentation. Well, it has come in at $15.5K. How can they get it so wrong? Not happy at all. An email has been sent with a few questions.

Electricals

On a roll today with posts! Tied up electricals from our appointment on Tuesday. Happy with what we did and got everything on the wish list (sort of)

* 5 x Step Lights
* 100 (exactly) LED downlights (at $120 each o-: )
* Provision for 4 pendant lights
* 2 x twin floodlights
* 2 x under cupboard lights
* 2 x Updown lights for facade
* 3 x outdoor sockets
* 14 x single GPO
* 34 x double GPO
* 3 x quad GPO
* 4 x data points
* 1 x phone socket
* 4 x TV points
* 2 x 3 in 1 lamps
* 2 x ceiling fans for alfresco
* 2 x motion sensor lights for pantry & my wardrobe
* 1 x junction box light for pool lighting
* Prewired for surround sound in the theatre
* Prewired for NBN
* Digital TV antenna
* Provision for wall mounted TVs x 2
* Upgrade alarm keypad to touch pad & slimline siren.
* Provide doorbell
* Run HDMI

This was an exhausting 3 hours!

Staircase

Being home with sick family members (again) is allowing me time to get on top on things my end. I just wish I got responses from people on the other end. Genneral Stairs were super quick with both their initial quote and then the amended quote - makes it all so much less stressful. Here is a version of the staircase we have picked.

We will have open timber risers to the bottom flight (12 steps) and then closed timber risers to the top few that wind around to the upper landing (to accommodate Brad's tiny cellar under the stairs!) Semi frameless glass balustrading with stainless steel posts and a timber handrail.

Pools and brokers!

For a while, I have been wondering what to do about the fact that EBH let us put a PA for a pool into our initial contract yet the pool company are not actually a part of EBH. The pool is on a separate contract and paid on a different schedule.
Yesterday, I spoke with our wonderful mortgage broker (Paul Pappas from Mortgage Choice, Pitt St) who advised us to take the pool PA out of the contract and get a separate loan for that. Paul also confirmed there was no hurry to get formal approval for the construction loan - November would be ideal. Phew!!

Eden Brae are proving to be SLOW at the moment

And this is being experienced by a few of my fellow H1 members too. This is more a to-do list for me but these are the things that need following up.
1) Quote for a bulkhead in the laundry 07/08 - not needed according to CSA 16/08.
2) Quote for the change in front doors & rumpus sliding doors to Madison 06/08 - received & accepted
3) Follow through on wardrobe shape in main 02/08 - not needed as will leave as is.
4) Quote for extra aircon vents to the laundry, main bathroom & ensuite 14/08

Also waiting on.....
1) Kitchen, bathroom & laundry 3D drawings from Kitchen Culture 17/07 received 22/08 accepted 22/08
2) Answers from electrical guy to tie that variation up 14/08 (DONE 17/08 - accepted)
3) Details from Di Lorenzo for tiles, carpet & kitchen splashback 14/08
4) Quote from Abbey Blinds though won't hold my breath - someone is still waiting on their quote from NOV 2011!!) 14/08
5) Quote from Genneral Stairs for balustrading 14/08 - received & approved
6) Relocation of gas point from inside to outside 14/08
7) Images of wardrobes from HOG 07/08  Received 24/08
8) Image of standard mirrors from HOG 16/08

And now with a change to the Front door colour

Lucinda, my gorgeous friend, photoshopped the front door colour as I was not loving the Nutbush colour. This is what we came up with.....

Much better...and I think we may even go a tad darker & greyer.

Facade colours

Found this mob on the web yesterday who will put your colours together for you...for a small fee. A great idea for visual people, like myself!

What do you think?

Fiddly bits and followups

It has been a while since I have posted an update. Nothing major has happened just loads more research on the forums to see what others are doing and going back through emails to see if there is any item that seems to have fallen through the cracks.

1) The pool contract is here for some light bedtime reading. Hmmmm, I just love reading all that fine print. I also need to talk to the mortgage broker soon to see if we need to take the pool allowance out of the EBH contract as Concept Pools are not related in any way to EBH. (This is more a little note to myself than of any great interest to anyone!)

2) Waiting to hear back from the estimators on the Madison front door and door to rumpus room as pictured below.

3) Still waiting to hear about the shape of our Bed 1 robes - the plan has them as Ushaped but the design of the fitout from Wardrobe World is named L-shaped. Don't want 2/3 of the robes not shelved!

4) Not being au fait with reading plans, I have been a little in the dark about measurements of certain things in my house. This has been highlighted when planing the luxuriously large laundry. No-one has told me what sort of material the laundry cupboards will be made of - laminex? No, gyprock inside, architraves and flush doors. No heights, depths etc. Discovered the height of them which does not go to the ceiling. Now I am waiting on estimating to get back to me on a quote for a bulkhead over these cupboards - I really do not want an open space above the cupboards for dust and lint to collect (or for me to dump stuff!) I am guessing that the picture below, from a display home, are the standard height.

 

5) Caught EBH out on a little error this week too. Reading through a PCV for me to sign there was an extra charge for $494 to install 2 upgraded freestanding baths. Pretty sure that the baths I selected were not freestanding (don't want them) and even if I did, there was no mention of this when I signed the Cooks Plumbing quote. A quick apology was made when I pointed this out to them. I reckon some clients might just sign away without checking too carefully.

6) Finished all my variations (I hope) with Kitchen Culture for the kitchen (obviously), bathroom vanities and the laundry benches. Waiting on my 3D drawings and plans which will take approximately another 2 weeks.
I really wish EBH used more than one company for their fittings etc (kitchen, electricals, flooring etc) These companies know that we are 'stuck' with using them so there is no competitive pricing at all and customer service could be better.
Whilst I am on suggestions for EBH, I will note here for future reference (mine) that my idea would be to have another level of inclusions called Platinum (or the like) for clients like me who seem to want all the upgrades. They could include things like, but not limited to, glass splashback, stone tops in kitchen & bathrooms, wallfaced toilets, raised ceilings/doors, softclose drawers, pot drawers, 2 DPOs per room, more TV points, more data points, overhead cupboards in kitchen & laundry, higher category of carpet & tiles.......
Anyone else on my wavelength?

Ramble over now. Excited about Tuesday's appointment - electrical, window coverings, staircase and floor coverings. I am sure there will be a big post on Tuesday or Wednesday!

A great start to the weekend

I have just received an email from EBH to confirm that we can use the fill from the pool excavation on the house construction. In our house contract, we were paying $4300 for additional fill and in our pool contract we were paying $6000 for fill removal! I spotted this last week and saw $$$$$ (savings/more spending!) We will need more fill than the excavation provides but I have just saved us $8K. Happy dance....

Mainly shelves today

Today I spent a fair bit of time following up on loose ends because I received replies to emails that I had been busy sending.
1) Questioned the shape of our wardrobe fitout as it is listed as Lshape whereas our robes are more U-shaped. I would prefer for the whole robe to be done not 2/3s of it. HOG is checking this out with both EBH and Wardrobe World who are doing the job. I can see more $$$$ coming! In looking at this, I began to think about how we already had shelving/hanging rod in the 5 robes and we had not been given a credit for it. Sent an email to EBH who told me that I wasn't entitled to a credit as we were upgrading from the standard wire shelves. This didn't make any sense to me nor my cohort on H1 forum. I copied some of the credit examples they gave me to EBH and voila (!) the estimating team are working out what I am owed!
2) After I signed my 'final' Kitchen Culture variation, I realised that there were colour items missing from there. We decided to upgrade to a white silk finish on the main bathroom vanity and that had not been quoted or recorded and one of our standard choices for the ensuite was not recorded either.
The really big oopsie on my part was that we are having a large bench run the length of the laundry with a shelf underneath it where we can put some baskets for bits n pieces. Didn't really think about the washer and dryer that will need to fit under that shelf - well, it won't (!) so we will need to cut the shelf short!
3) It seems strange but we have never actually seen an image of the large feature front doors that we have agreed to pay nearly $2K for. I think I just trusted the lovely sales person when he said that I would want to upgrade to a nice feature door. I have never been able to find this particular door on the web. Finally today, HOG have been able to produce a picture and I am not sure I like it :-(

This is THE door but we have 2 of them with sidelights and a highlight - too much glass and not enough door in my eyes. Agree?!

I prefer something more along these lines......

 

I think my next project is to research more front doors.

And more.....

It didn't like my post earlier and I couldn't add anything more to it hence my subsequent post.
So these are some of the wet area combinations they suggest. There would have been about 50-60 suggestions.

I took some photos of some tiles that I might be able to use for a splashback in the kitchen.

And finally the carpet - not a great range. Same colours but slightly different pattern/textures. Pretty rough to touch. I ended up just taking a photo of the few that were at HOG.