From the "things we wish we'd known" files

We learned many lessons through the experience of building a home, and over the past three years I've been more than happy to give others advice on how to avoid some similar dramas, inconvenience or cost. I wish someone had done me the same favour....

One thing that we wish we'd known before signing our contract is just how cheap and nasty the appliances are that builders include in their packages. We knew we were getting basic models, but we thought they were a decent quality brand. Ha!

Back in 2001, we renovated our old place and installed a new kitchen. We were on a strict budget so there was no chance of prestige brands. But we ended up with appliances that had plenty of useful functions, looked good and performed really well. 

At around the same time, our neighbours installed a new kitchen too. They had a bigger budget than us and I was envious of their stone benchtops and their Blanco appliances. The dishwasher and oven were so fancy and as far as I'm aware, they've not had a single problem with them.

So when we found that we were getting Blanco appliances as part of our building deal, we thought it was Christmas. Not so.

The dishwasher was so basic that we couldn't fit wine glasses and dinner plates in it at the same time. It didn't really have any functions other than um... wash the dishes. No delay start, no half load, nothing. And it was noisy. Watching TV in the family room while the dishwasher was running meant turning the volume WAY up. Worst of all, the design of the front panel was so bad that it couldn't withstand normal use - after three months of opening and closing, the handle broke off. Impressive.... We had that fixed under warranty, but it soon broke again. *sigh*

We thought the 900mm dual fuel upright cooker was pretty good to begin with. But we soon found that the oven didn't heat evenly. You should not have to turn food in a fan-forced oven to ensure it doesn't burn on one side. And the control knobs are cheap and nasty - the silver finish wore off one within weeks of installation.

The appliances were installed on the 10th December 2008. On Christmas Eve just gone, the dishwasher died. It just gave up the ghost in the middle of a cycle. Great... We took advantage of the Boxing Day sales to replace it with a much better one - and this one is so quiet that for the first few days, I kept checking that it was actually running.

Then the other night while cooking a roast, the oven lost power. All other power and lights were still working, and a quick check at the meter box revealed that its circuit breaker had been tripped. Uh-oh. We reset the switch and power was restored. Only...the oven temperature was dropping rapidly and we realised that the bottom element had blown.

Needless to say, we're unimpressed. We could have the oven fixed, but frankly, it's not that good and we have no confidence that something else won't go wrong in the near future. So it looks like I'm going appliance shopping again.

So my advice to anyone building? Do some online research on appliances before you accept whatever the builder is offering. Go out to a retailer and actually look at the ones in your package deal - open and close them, see what the quality is like. And if they're not up to scratch, DON'T accept them.

A lot of builders won't swap their appliances, but you can buy your own, get the builder to install them for you and leave theirs in the boxes. Then sell them and get some cash towards your (undoubtedly more expensive) purchases.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

PCI done!

PCI (practical completion inspection) took place this afternoon. AND....it went surprisingly well! There are still lots of outstanding things to fix, but the bulk of those are paint and plaster touch-ups. We still had three or four important things on the list that aren't done yet, but we've been assured that they'll be fixed.

The fix carpenter is due back any day to install deadlocks, fix a wonky shelf, adjust doors and do a few other odds and ends, and of course our appliances won't be installed till after handover. But now that all the crap has been removed and a (fairly cursory) clean done, the place is looking good. Apart from all the red dots anyway....

I'm feeling fairly confident that we WILL achieve handover next week. Hallelujah!

Nice to see our shower head finally installed. Although they did manage to damage the plaster in the process:

I love this colour soooooo much!! Can't wait to see it with the floorboards in:

Below are some pics of the place we've been renting for the past year and several months. Does anybody wonder why I DIDN'T choose neutrals for our own house? The lounge:



Kitchen. Beige, white and more beige.*yawn* STUPID layout too. And only one power point. Who builds a kitchen with one power point??



Kids' bathroom (boooooring!):



I'm looking forward to living with some COLOUR. :o)

The Colour Purple...and teal...and green....

For any colour scheme tragics who may be reading (I know you're out there), here's the nitty-gritty:

Kitchen



Cabinets (below bench): Formica Mocha
Cabinets (overhead): Laminex Stipple Hemp
Benchtops: Quantum Quartz Pebble Cove
Main wall colour: Castilian
Ceilings: Bone
Skirtings/trims: Pearly Gates
Splashback: Wall Street (and no, we didn't upgrade to the clear glass, the greeny tinge was fine with our colour choice)
Feature wall - you can see the edge on the right there: Castle Keep

The overhead cabinets actually blend pretty well with the wall colour, so they're unobtrusive, making the space appear larger. The colours in the photo aren't quite right.

We upgraded to the 40mm benchtop edge (I think the 20mm edges look mean) and also upgraded all cabinet handles. I think the rest was pretty standard....apart from the appliance cupboard, microwave space, piano-hinged corner cabinet door, extra pot drawers, over-fridge cabinets with fancy-pants gas lifters, wall niche with glass shelves and a downlight.... Hmm, OK, so we upgraded just a few things.

Bathrooms





We went for the same basic scheme in both bathrooms. We paid a silly price to have the walls painted in a different colour to the rest of the house, but it was worth it. The colour is Fortune and it's a pale green.

We chose the same Mocha colour for our vanity cabinets, and Formica Amaretto Stone for the benchtops. And here's where we got tripped up: the displays we saw had vanities with standard, square-edged 20mm benchtops. The documents we got specified Shadowline vanities - but nobody told us that a shadowline vanity was different to those we'd seen. Grrr. When I saw the finished product, I was extremely disappointed - the contrasting benchtop looked CRAP. If I'd known, I'd have either upgraded to a different style benchtop, or made the benchtop and cabinets the same dark colour. Live and learn....

Anyway, with the basins, tiles and mirrors installed and the painting done, they look OK, so I've (almost) stopped bitching about them.

The tile selection looked like it was going to get expensive, because like most people, our first impressions of the Category 1 range was "Ugh. Don't like any of them." A closer look revealed that it was really only the feature tiles that were boring, old-fashioned and generally made me want to run screaming from the room. No way was I having those in MY bathrooms!

So we took another look at the main tiles, um-ed and ah-ed a bit and came up with:

Floors and shower walls (also laundry and toilet floor): Don't ask me the name, I can't remember and I'm sick of looking through my file. They were a large square greyish-brown anyway. These were discontinued at some point and we were told they were unavailable two days before the tiler was due to start. Aargh! The suggested replacement though, Kimberley Smoke, was fine. Phew. So since we'd not spent anything extra at all on the main areas, we (I) decided we could be a bit extravagant about feature tiles.

I had my heart set on pebbles, so chose Pebble Tan for a vertical strip in each shower.




For the ensuite splashback, we loved these (they're called something-or-other Stix). The display home had similar tiles, but in a woodgrain finish that we both hated. These, we loved - and although they look like lots of little tiles, they're actually large, so we only needed a few.



We thought we'd differentiate the kids' bathroom just a little with different splashback tiles, so we picked a super-expensive glass tile in pale green. Same deal as the Stix, they're large tiles that look like lots of small ones. And no, the icy pole sticks aren't a feature...



We held our breath waiting for the final tally on tile upgrades, and it came out to.... $500. Oh. That's all? Gee, I could have upgraded the door handles after all *ignores husband's evil glare*

There was one further upgrade later on, when I requested that the vanity plinths be tiled to match the floor. I wanted floating vanities, but they wouldn't let me have them *mutter, mutter* so this was the closest I could get. You don't even see the plinth, it just blends, which was the idea.

Laundry

Ideally, I'd have liked to do the walls in here in the same green, but hey - it's a LAUNDRY. I didn't care enough to spend extra on another paint upgrade. There were lots more things to spend up big on. :o)

So, walls, ceiling and trims are the same as the main part of the house. Again we went for Mocha cabinets and Amaretto Stone benchtops. For the overheads, I picked a neutral - Laminex Moleskin. I wasn't prepared to pay extra for tiles here either, so found a nice bland cream one amongst the Category 1 range. It's not exciting, but it's neat and functional.



The only upgrades in here were the stainless sink instead of the standard crappy white one, and a ducted heating vent. I had an indoor clothesline in our old house, for drying clothes in winter, but it was always FREEZING in there and took days for anything to dry. So we always seemed to have the good old clothes horse in the lounge. Not happening in my nice new house!

Oh, we did upgrade the taps too. Those standard laundry ones are HIDEOUS.

If anyone's still reading, I'm sure I've bored you enough now....There are a couple more feature walls though, and pics are here.

The current situation

I'm starting at the (almost) end, but here's where we're at now.....

We're booked for our pre-completion inspection in two days' time, although there are MANY items still outstanding. Whatever. We're used to taking a nice long list to our appointments by now. Handover is set for Friday 28th November and we're pushing hard to make sure that happens.

After a "guaranteed" 20-week construction process that's actually taken 38 weeks and 2 days so far (but who's counting), we are desperately hoping to actually get to live in our house soon. I have so much more to say about that, but I can feel my blood pressure rising, so some other time.

And now for a pictorial interlude:

Facade - almost, but not quite finished. The portico beam has now been repainted in CB Ironstone to match the garage door and spouting, as has the metal capping along the top of the beam, pillar and parapet wall. Having a hissy fit works wonders sometimes:

Amongst all the beige, cream and grey houses in the street, our purple palace is sure to stand out. ;o)

Al fresco room. Those solar panels for the hot water service cost us a BOMB. Over $4000, (including the larger tank and gas booster) to be precise. I calculated that it will take about 24 years to recoup the cost in energy savings.... oh well, think of the environmental benefits:

Ensuite, taken a couple of days ago. Paint not finished, no shower head, and I swear that feature niche is NOT square, but you get the idea... Hmm, must find some feature wall lights.

Blogger isn't behaving very well tonight, so no more photos for now.

I'll be back with details of the frustrating, stressful and tedious story when I get a chance.

Oh Lordy! Not ANOTHER blog?!

To prevent my fitness/life blog from becoming a whiney, woe-is-me, house-building blog, I thought I'd create a new one where I can rant, grizzle, post photos and generally drone on about stuff that probably bores the pants off most people. You know, like colour schemes, appliances, landscaping and so on...

***************

So -why did we decide to sell our home of 21 years and embark on the insanity of building? Uh... two parents, three sons, a business, umpteen hobbies, over 2 decades of accumulated crap - and a 12-square house. Doesn't quite add up, does it?

We investigated extending, buying a bigger existing house, extending, (did I mention extending?), but couldn't quite find the perfect solution.

So after years of procrastinating and a fair bit of renovating, we (oh, alright - I) fell in love with the Bridgeport 35 and the rollercoaster ride began....