I think it's time that I start my own thread as I've been hijacking lots of other people's
We've asked to go ahead with drawing up contracts with Sekisui House so it's very likely to happen now
We're building the Sade 280 but with modifications to the floor plan so that we get a dedicated Home Theatre by combining two of the bedrooms (so its officially only a 3 bedroom house with lots of living areas!)
We got our pricing back today after starting the process back in October 2013. Hopefully things will move a bit quicker now?
The biggest sticker shock for us was the Bearers and Joist construction costs as we wanted to stay on one level and we have a sloping block. However I don't think we'd want the house if it stepped down (because we have a bit of a view to the rear of the block). It was an additional $64k And this is on a base house price of under $200k. And we still have substantial site costs. Anyway we'll have to stretch a bit but it does mean a lot of the extra things we wanted are being parked... but what we have still included are things we feel we can't change easily ourselves or are no-brainers. Like higher ceilings, bigger doors/windows/openings, wider than standard garage. We've given up things like 3 coats of paint (we can do that ourselves), the double vanity in the ensuite (we have never had one and seriously don't need one...).
Yikes! I'm looking back at the $64k... and thinking that all our upgrades we ever wanted would probably not have reached that number *sigh* It's just the price we have to pay I suppose... I keep telling myself that it will not mean as much 5+ years down the track!
We still need to finalise colours but are planning to go with PGH Gravel brick, Colorbond roof (colour TBD), Black colonial bar windows. Kitchen was going to be shaker style but due to above budget cuts we're going to DIY shaker style kitchen doors a few years down the track. So now I'll have to find a laminate I like. We have an upgrade pack that includes Caesarstone and a glass splashback as well as upgraded appliances. Any ideas on a good laminate that will be good with a Caesarstone colour and be able to handle being changed to shaker style kitchen doors down the track are welcome