Clarendon Boston 35

So we had our colour studio today;

Ended up upgrading to sydney cornice just for downstairs about $1600.
And yes we also upgrade to Fujitsu and Myair 5. So it appears that we got the last one -1, as others have mentioned (!) as he ran out of the 20kw so had to call his friend at masterton to check and swapped some stock around. also added 2 more zones so $5500 like others said.
To upgrade the kitchen cabinets to gloss finish which btw is included as standard with Masterton is 2-3k!! ridiculous! But not a fan of the standard included ones so prob will have to upgrade.
And thanks LOLZ we ended up going with french tiles.

Also we spent 2k upgrading the internal doors! The standard included ones look so basic and flimsy. To get the door I like with patterns (which also is included as standard with Masterton) and with a core was like $100 each.
Got 2 whirlybirds put in as well.
Upgraded the hand basin for all bathrooms as the included ones looked too small for my liking.
Double glazing to south facing and north facing bedroom windows $1400
And few other things here and there.

So already upto about 13k plus and we haven't had our quotes from the kitchen yet!!

Hi Lozsyd,

I feel your pain re the costs...everything adds up! Agree with the doors, the standard version is a joke. Did the air-con guy say his PA had a baby as well? He also did a swap with the Masterton consultant for us too.

Haha no he didn't tell us that. But told us about how he has Myair 5 and it's great etc.

Have you done your electrical yet? doing tiles tomorrow. Taking out the included tiles in the main floor area and also all of the carpet. I must say that it's such a rip off the inhouse carpet/floor they have. We want timber floors which Clarendon don't offer anyway but decided to get quote for engineered timber floors. Got quoted 35k!!! and we don't even get the 10k credit back for taking out the carpet or tiles! so more like 45k! I can get proper timber floors done for same price!!

Wow - your appointments are very close together! It's taken us nearly a month to do everything (due to scheduling appointments). Our final appointment is tiles which is on 30/8. Electrical is done - we have to sign-off now on this.

The credit for the floors is not great so we decided to upgrade. We grappled with having to do floors separately post handover and the delay that this would be for us and decided it wasn't worth the worry and work for us. We didn't even bother asking about timber floors because we knew anything like this with Clarendon would be expensive. It's $$$ ... but there are some things we cannot not have them do like air-con.

Hi LOLZ

I booked in the appointments ages ago even before we signed the contract hence why we could get them close together!

Had our tiles appointment. FINALLY no upgrades so no extra $$!!

We considered doing alfresco tiles with Clarendon but found out if we were to do it direct with Tiles direct post handover will be cheaper as we will not be paying the builders margin of approx 25%!.

Lesson i'm learning is anything that can be done without too much hassle post handover, we are going with as it's saving the markup Clarendon puts on it. Like the heated light/fan for bathroom they're charging $570, sells for $175 at bunnings. $400 per piece for labour cost? Umm that's like $1200 for 3 of them!! Same for ceiling fans.

Kitchen is the rip off cuz they know we have no choice to do it post handover.
Yes agree with aircon, have no choice. Also apparently downstairs electrical is tricky to play with so will have to fork out money for some of the changes we want downstairs.

Still waiting for the kitchen quote.. pretty slow..

Hi guys

Did out electrical and security. close to 10k added up.

Did any of you get the smart hub option from security? To house all the data points? Not sure if it's necessary or not.
The antennae was such a rip off, but now we are leaning towards the easier option even if few hundred $$ more.

Hi,

I did mine on Friday, yes we got 11K the major cost was upgrading the circuit box to fit 45 poles instead of the standard 21 due to the amount of power points we installed.

I didn't opt for the tin box.

Our electrical and security has been done. We did opt for the smart hub and absolutely agree that the antennae is a rip off but because the wiring goes through the house then better to pay to do it now than later...There is a premium to all items that they know you will need to do...We are just checking the heat lamps for the bathrooms at the moment because this is a big chunk of money - but it's expensive for them to do the pre-wiring...Any thoughts?

You can just add additional power points over sink area and install those new cool looking mirrors with built-in far infrared heaters. You can also/or alternatively consider under tile heating for the floor. Those ugly looking heater lamps are so 90-ies.

Definitely better off paying for prewire. We paid for the pre-wiring for the heat lamps, we found out not only do you have to pay for the pre wire but also its own light circuit so if they short it doesn't short out all the lights in the house. But doing the prewire, circuit and purchasing our own heat lamps will still be cheaper than their one which I think was around $795.
Also I was tempted to purchase their intercom and camera pre-wire but it is very limited in its capabilities. I found a better intercom and camera system called Arlo, its 1/4 of clarendons price and more intuitive. Hope that helps!

We were going to do prewire for the Fans/heaters, but cuz downstairs bathroom is tricky to play around with after decided to do it with them; so all 3 of them.
The downstairs bathroom has to be ducted too so by the time we factored in ducting the fan etc/ cost of electrician and the fan figured easier to go with them. The upstairs we didn't have to vent as have whirlybirds.

We did get the prewire for ceiling fan/light.

The electrical lady said most time the heater/fan combo doesn't need separate circuit but clarendon does it as separate ones in case it does short circuit.

Hkhome how can you install Arlo without prewire? We just opted for the prewire for intercom. no cameras

The Arlo is battery operated and runs on your wireless network so you can access it anywhere in the world. One of my friends has it installed and he gets 3months usage out of his camera before he has to recharge it. Theres also another product called 'Ring' which is sold at JBhifi. This one is also battery rechargeable.

I was tempted to get the upper level exhaust ducted into ceiling but im worried about mould in the roof space so will purchase it afterwards and install it.

Also check Eufycam, no storage subscription fee and the battery runs through for a year before requiring recharge.

We also went with them for the fans and heaters in the end for the very same reasons

Yeah, initially we were more budget conscious and was going to do lot more stuff post handover, but now we just want to minimise the hassle over saving few hundred dollars so going with Clarendon for most stuff; Thinking of stuff to do post handover is already stressing me out and we haven't even started the build!

eg; we were going to install downlights for upstair leisure area post handover as its $100 per downlights with Clarendon.
But then when we looked into it getting electrician in post handover etc, will only really save like $40 per light, and we only want to install about 5 lights so really not saving huge amount. plus if we go through with Clarendon will be covered by their warranty etc.

Oh the 'Ring' product was what was recommended to us at our home smart appt.
He did say we don't need prewire for the battery option, but it was only like $100 or so cheaper than hardwired one. Also we figured more options if we get intercom prewired and can choose later.

The fascade lights for the front I know is a rip off, but no option to do prewire anymore so had to cough up close to $200 per light for that one.

re the heated floor, looked into that option briefly but decided against it as apparently it chews through lot of electricity.

Our kitchen quote came through about 15k. Still feel rorted by the cost to upgrade to gloss finish cabinets which were 3k!

Re Tile selection; we decided to do our alfresco tiles post handover as we can save on the builders margin of 25% if we did it with tiles direct. But then I haven't heard great things about Tiles direct so not sure if I'll use them if i had a choice.

Hi lozsyd,

Does your kitchen quote include the cost of the butlers pantry and walk in pantry fitouts? Also the gloss finish cabinets - is this polyurethane? We have tile selection tomorrow...We have decided not to do blinds with Clarendon because we would be saving a few thousand to do these with someone else so we will just need to negotiate with the supervisor to do measurements during the build.

There must be different prices and promotions between the states.
Did you install lighting or prewire for under cabinet lights. I was tempted to put them in then pulled out last minute. Our kitchen upgrade came close to 10k. We didn't opt for the gloss, we went with a Contemporaryt/Scandinavian touch.

Would be great to see your builds when they start. I'm still waiting on my land to register for title which has now gone over 2 months than anticipated.

[quote="lozsyd":3hp8nfy6]Yeah, initially we were more budget conscious and was going to do lot more stuff post handover, but now we just want to minimise the hassle over saving few hundred dollars so going with Clarendon for most stuff; Thinking of stuff to do post handover is already stressing me out and we haven't even started the build!

eg; we were going to install downlights for upstair leisure area post handover as its $100 per downlights with Clarendon.
But then when we looked into it getting electrician in post handover etc, will only really save like $40 per light, and we only want to install about 5 lights so really not saving huge amount. plus if we go through with Clarendon will be covered by their warranty etc.

Oh the 'Ring' product was what was recommended to us at our home smart appt.
He did say we don't need prewire for the battery option, but it was only like $100 or so cheaper than hardwired one. Also we figured more options if we get intercom prewired and can choose later.

The fascade lights for the front I know is a rip off, but no option to do prewire anymore so had to cough up close to $200 per light for that one.

re the heated floor, looked into that option briefly but decided against it as apparently it chews through lot of electricity.

Our kitchen quote came through about 15k. Still feel rorted by the cost to upgrade to gloss finish cabinets which were 3k!

Re Tile selection; we decided to do our alfresco tiles post handover as we can save on the builders margin of 25% if we did it with tiles direct. But then I haven't heard great things about Tiles direct so not sure if I'll use them if i had a choice.[/quote:3hp8nfy6]




I feel your pain....

We fell in love with the Beaumont Vintage series timber look floor tile. Clarendon and Beaumont quoted us 25k for a 110m2 area. WTF!?

The tiles were $85m2 retail, with no discount so they we trying to charge retail plus $140m2 to lay!?!? WTF?

Naturally we decided to do it post handover. Labour quotes came in at $6k and we got the tiles on sale at Beaumont for $53m2.

A difference in saving of almost $15k

Crazy.

Yes, we have put in butler's pantry; no sink thou just the quartz stonebench top and cabinets. The gloss finish is polytec Createc new ultra white gloss if that helps? (About 5k for those)
We also upgraded the kitchen island bench top overhang to 300mm; about $2k for that.

Oh no way we would do blinds or anything like that with clarendon. We are doing floors post handover too. Can get proper Timber floors for the price Clarendon is quoting me for engineered floors. The floor guy at carpet call at clarendon tried to tell me engineered floor is better than timber, and the timber guy just laughed when I told him.

Which state are you in HKhome?
Yup sounds like definitely difference between states. Found out that the black quartz stone for the kitchen island is included as standard in sapphire range in QLD, whereas in NSW it's an upgrade.

I only got vanity lights for the ensuite bathroom. Did not get lighting for under cabinets lights (assume you mean the kitchen cabinets? ) Got 3 downlights above the kitchen island and also figured rangehood lights should be enough for the cooking.

I'm waiting for my CDC to be submitted. I'm hoping we can get the slab down b4 xmas!!