I figured I should get around to making a thread from the start - if I am doing this wrong please let me know!

We are building the Iris 4 - http://www.vic.henley.com.au/pdf/break_ ... iris_4.pdf out in Mernda Villages. Not changing anything from the floor plan, just adding a few electrical things here and there.

We've paid the deposit for the land and the holding deposit for the house, the land is due to settle in Septmber (although when I spoke with Henley her information said October!) but we will not be able to get the finance actually approved until October 27, anyway. It's been pre-approved, but they have their silly genuine savings thing

Our colour appointment is Aug 21 and then we sign the contract late September, we have been to a colour info session and there is so much that we have to pick It's a bit harder because the series is compeletely new and we don't even have a price list yet to find out how much upgrades are! So far we are thinking that we will change the mortar colour to off white rather than standard as we're choosing lighter bricks, but not sure of anything else. I am a little wary of getting the final price!!

Hi Alex88,

Just posted in the intro thread to welcome you! I would start by making a list of all the things you would like to upgrade...
It's definitely worth putting this together so you know how much extra your upgrades could potentially be and also your budget. We missed out on alot of this stuff and I regret not taking the time to do this.
E.g:
Henley may only include plastic toilets, but you might want to upgrade them to porcelain
You might want ceaserstone/QQ benchtops instead of laminate
Overhead cupboards are generally not included, so you'll have to add that in too (Although from looking at your plan they are included.)
Fridge space might not be big enough for the fridge you want, don't forget to add a waterpoint if you want a ice maker fridge...
Your base house price generally only includes tiles for wet areas (kitchen, laundry & bathrooms) but carpet everywhere else. You'll have to budget how much you will want to spend on all your flooring..
Generally wardrobes just have a shelf and poles to hang clothes, but you might want to have built in furniture

Sorry if I am bombarding you with too much info!!

Hi Flagstaff - no you are definitely not bombarding me, definitely better to know this now rather than after signing everything!

We have ceasarstone benchtops to the kitchen, and laminate in the bathroom as standard, and we've got an introductory bonus which includes timber laminate flooring to the rest of the house, so (thankfully) that is sorted. The lady at the colour info session wasn't 100% sure on the overhead cupboards so I will definitely check that out at our appointment, same with the robes etc.

If there any other things I need to keep in mind (I have been trawling the forums for suggestions) that experienced forumgoers have to add I would love to hear!

Walk through as many displays as you can for ideas. Add extra powerpoints, even if you dont think you'll use them. If you have ideas for pendant lights etc, consider where these will go on your electrical plan. (We already have holes patched in the ceiling from poor planning). Positions for light switches, height of towel rails, obscure or clear glass on bathrooms... Oh there's just so many things to consider. Try and decide on as much as possible prior to signing the contract. Dont sign it until you're 100% happy that you wont make any further changes (to avoid the $500 variation fee)...

Oh that's totally awesome!! Hopefully they have many colours for you to pick from!

Obsolutely agree with Erin! Spend big on powerpoints
I shall bombard then!
What do they include as standard for your cooktop and oven? Would you want to upgrade these to something bigger?
You might want to change your ensuite door to a sliding one so that you can free up that wall space... and you might even want to be able to enter the WIR through the ensuite...

These are just tips though... you don't have to take any info I've given you!!

This is the electrical inclusions:

Double Power Points throughout including:
- 2 double power points each to bedroom
2, 3 & 4
- 3 double power points to Bedroom 1
- 3 double power points to Living
- 1 double power point each to Ensuite,
Bathroom & Laundry
- 3 double power points to Kitchen
- 1 double power point each to Dining & Garage
- 1 single power point to dishwasher &
rangehood
- Exhaust fans above all showers & where
required
- 15W fluorescent globes & shades to
batten holders
- 2 TV points to all home designs
- Smoke detectors - as per plan, wired direct

We are upgrading to include downlights in entry and over the kitchen bench, lights over the mirrors in both bathrooms, external powerpoint to alfresco, and flood lights outside laundry and to the backyard.

We are going to get an extra double powerpoint for living area so there are 2 by where we would put the TV. Is there anywhere else that you recommend we get them added?

We have 900mm appliances, from what we've seen at the colours showroom they should be fine. We are also adding in a dishwasher to be installed when they build.

If you plan to have an alarm installed, you'll need an extra powerpoint for that (like in the top of a wardrobe, linen closet or pantry - where the alarm unit will be installed). Possibly extra phone point.

We have 2 double power points at our bed head. But wish we had more! We each have a lamp and a clock plugged in, but will have to use either a double adapter or power board to plug our phone in.

Hmm, will definitely keep that in mind! We've gotten by so far with powerboards which is what I've done for years so that should be okay

I'm heading out to Cosham Interiors again with mum this afternoon (my fiance is still in New Zealand, lucky thing), so will hopefully get a better idea of exactly what I want. Here's hoping tehy at least have the list of which things are included and how much the upgrades are

I am now having finance issues though, grrrr, hopefully this doesn't put in too much of a delay. Finance has to be approved by September 3rd, I'm not all that worried about our land loan (it's the house one that'll be fun but we should be right), however I just emailed our banker and he is still waiting for details of our conveyancer and the copy of contract/S32!?! I emailed these to him about a week ago (which he replied to!) and Stockland emailed out the contract so not quite sure where they went. I'm hoping that it's a one off as he's been excellent with us so far, so have sent a polite email back with the details so fingers crossed it's all sorted now

Definitely get an extra powerpoint in the laundry (opposite to where the washing machine will be for your ironing board/ iron...

Can you get your mortgage "subject to finance"?? That's what we did

Make sure if you have a double vanity in the ensuite that you put in a second powerpoint in so there is one either side of the vanity. One thing I am spewing we didn't do! Oh and also spewing we didnt put in a light down the blind sideway! Colours are going to depend on what your preferences are ie - we wanted neutral colours so we could decorate and re decorate without re painting etc... Try going to the display homes and looking at what colour matches you like in them! All our overhead cupboards were included. If you want a double fridge then you may need to change your fridge space size as ours will only fit a single door fridge. Good luck with it all!

Thanks - we have someone giving us a fridge so will have to get that measured and give it to the builder!

I wish we were having a double vanity but we can't due to the size of the ensuite, its one of the few things but I love the house overall so can compromise on this one.

The land contract was signed subject to finance, I've already told the builders that I can't have finance approved until October 27 due to the genuine savings clause the banks have (joy!!) so will make 100% sure that our building contract is signed subject to finance.

Good news though, I gave our banker the contract on a disc (turns out it was bouncing due to the size) and he has left me a message saying they don't require anything more, and that he's put our loan application in which should give us plenty of time for the Septmeber 3rd deadline. Yay!! One less thing to worry about.

We also put off our colour appointment til September 1st as my partner was in NZ this past week, and we wanted time to properly look around the displays. I went back out to the showroom and we have MOST of our colours sorted though, just got a few more and undecided on the external colours apart from bricks so far. We STILL don't have the upgrades pricelist for our range though Apparently they are able to check and see how much each thing is, but not a list, which is not ideal, so hopefully they have it sorted out by the colour appointment.

We have unconditional approval (for our land)!!! Got the call from our banker today. SUCH a relief, one less thing to worry about

Congrats Alex!!! That's awesome news!!

If you can figure out where your TV is going, it's better to get a "powertainment" power point put in. It's got 6 powerpoints, plus cable point and antenna point. We didn't think we needed it, but when we counted up all the attachments to the TV, realised it was a good thing to have.

Also, I put in twice as many double powerpoints in each room as I thought we needed. You shouldn't need to use powerboards in a new house.

A powerpoint (we have a quad) on the end of the kitchen bench is very handy, especially for charging phones and stuff.

Judie

Judie - I've never heard of these! Will have to look into them further, as we are 95% sure where we want the TV to be going. We've got the TV, TiVo, DVD player, and a couple of gaming consoles so it will definitely be used, haha!

Went and signed the land loan documentation on Monday, DONE! Just got to send some stuff off to the solicitors, and now play the waiting game of hurry the hell up and release my land Although we were told September so I'm not allowed to get cranky about it yet

We are going to go out to some more display homes tomorrow, as we are still undecided on the external colours but have most of the internal sorted, is it best to stick with our builder or look at all of the ones out in Mernda? I just don't want to be all "I want that one!" and then find out that it can't be done...

Look at everyone to get ideas!!! And take lots of pics of what you like, so when you are at your colour selection appointment your consultant 'understands' what you like. Even if you see something from another builder, they can always make suggestions!

Have fun!!!!!!!!

Our colour appointment is tomorrow! I'm looking forward to it, but not about having to decide EVERYTHING since I still don't know exactly which things (handles etc) are 'standard' with my house since its so new.

We did really like some of the handles they had a Cosham, however given they were an upgrade for the other ranges I'm 95% certain they'll be an upgrade for us... how hard is it to purchase those handles later and change them after handover? I would really love to keep all the extras down to a minimum, and if necessary add or do up stuff after handover, I'm thinking we might do a feature wall after handover, but at least for all that stuff we can save up.

Have fun tomorrow Alex! Don't forgot to take pics for us piggies!

Door handles are a hard one... there are some nice handles at Bunnings... But I prefer the "exclusive" ones that PD had... and well... they were expensive! Worth it though!!! Has made my kitchen look awesome If I went for the basic handles I wouldn't have been as pleased with my kitchen.

Maybe pick the ones you like and see what the price is to figure out whether or not it's worth it.

Hi Alex88,
I think the door handles will be relatively easy to change over afterwards so long as the new ones are the same length/size as the ones you get put in- (so that the holes line up).

We are building our house with Henley too and we were going to get Henley to paint our feature walls until we saw at tender that they were going to charge about $200-250 per wall In the end we decided that we would paint our own feature walls!

Good luck at colour selection tomorrow And just a tip- once you've chosen your colours- stop looking! I know I kept second guessing my colour choices to the point where I couldn't sleep at night because I lay awake wondering if I made the right choices

Thanks Flagstaff - Our main issue is that we don't want the cost to blow out as we've already added a fair bit already (move in package which was 10k) to our initial price, which will put the overall deposit owing to them up and with the whole genuine savings the bank has means there's more we have to save in the next month as cotnract signing is at the end of Sept. And then of course it'll put our home loan up as well and it was pretty much at 90% already, so we'll probably have to make a further contribution - argh money is so frustrating! I'm sure it'll all work out in the end

Donski - wow, that's heaps! Much rather wait and do it after handover, I'm sure I can bribe Glenn (my fiance) and his mates to help out with projects with a few beers and pizza! Excellent to hear about the door handles though, if I can keep those out and replace I'll be much happier.

Will take lots of pics - camera is going in bag now!