Masterton Homes - santorini porcelin tiles?

Hi
We are building the Symphony MBTF with Masterton and did our colours, tiles, etc appointment last week. I was wondering whether anyone has completed their house with the current YES package inclusions of the 500mm x 500mm porcelin tiles by Santorini? Any photos of actually laid would be great as its hard to tell in the tile display shop with just 4 tiles. I have asked but none of the display homes currently have them laid, which would have been good.
Thanks

Hi Speddos

We are bullding the same house with some variations. I am also keen to find out about the tiles. The standard range isn't massive and I was thinking to upgrade.

How have you found masterton so far? We have our plans and a meeting scheduled for next Wednesday to go over them. Of course they aren't perfect and will need to be reviewed. We have selected our external colours so I guess the interior is our next step.

Have you spent much on upgrades?

Regards
Ally

Hi ally

Thanks for your post!

Where are you building? We are Sydney's northern beaches.

We have found masterton quite good so far. Was pleased with internal choices, really not much we needed to upgrade, was expecting a lot worse, though we might not be too fussy as well!. We spent extra $1000 in kitchen for under mount sink and pot drawer and extra $1200 in bathrooms for extra tiling up wall and feature wall tiles above standard range. Bit extra on pantry door and fancy door handle on front door ( daughter loved it on display homes). We are probably going to pay bit extra for bamboo wooden flooring throughout instead of santorini tiles as its hard to tell what they will look like if there are not on display anywhere. We also spent $700 on tall aerial bit more wiring at tv cabling appt. not sure whether to include any extras with the blind/ screen company or wait and source this myself after house complete?

We only have electrical appt to go, where I am expecting will add a fair bit of money to the total cost as we want some down lights.

Good luck with your colours appointments!

Sally

Hi speddos, looks like we are at the exact same stage of admin. We have our electrical appointment booked for Wednesday and are armed with the upgrades, additions and approximate number of downlights required so hopefully won't be too shocked with the grand total figure. When are you booked in for electrical?

In regards to the porcelain tiles, we have opted to go with the included porcelein tile 500 x 500 in Gris. Guess its only a matter of time before we find out how it looks laid since they are not in any display homes anywhere

Hi there, we haven't actually been booked into electrical yet as we delayed signing off on colours a couple of weeks while we worked out whether we wanted to go with bamboo flooring instead. The Gris is the nicest colour in the 4 choices, I am sure it will look great throughout! I would love to hear how you go after your electrical appointment?! Has yours been approved through council yet or CDC?

I will definitely let you know how we go tomorrow, it was good timing as we are heading off overseas on Thursday so wanted to finalize everything before we left.

Our file was sent off for CDC approval last week. The approval usually takes up to 10 days so we should hopefully hear something by next week.

Hi Speddos, just wanted to provide you with an update on our electrical appointment. All went smoothly and all I can recommend is to be as prepared as possible in regards to how many additional powerpoints you wish to add and what lighting you want where. When you book in your electrical appointment you will receive a price list which will help you prepare and budget for your appointment.

Its an expensive excercise but we decided to bite the bullet and get all the lighting that we wanted done through M to save the headaches of having to organise it ourselves after handover. It's a more convenient process but more expensive.

Oh and we also received CDC approval today so peg out should happen shortly. Where abouts are you building?

Hi again, thanks for the update. Yes think I agree - it is very convenient to get it done through them. Great news about CDC approval! Wish we could have gone that route, our DA should come out of council this week. We are building on Sydney's northern beaches. Knock down rebuild, so need to coordinate tenants and demolition as well! Where are you building?

You will have your approval before you know it..I'm not Sure if you have stumbled across the Masterton thread "Masterton Homes - The next thread 4.0" but there are also a couple of Symphony builders on there.. It's a lot of work isnt it, all we can do is try and see the light at the end of the tunnel..our brand new homes!! My partner and I are building in one of the new estates in Mt Annan

Hi Sally,

Sorry for the delay in replying, our progress has stalled because I became unsure about the changes we made to the floor plan, so I postponed our appointment for a fortnight.

We are building at Pitt Town.

Did you decide to go with the Bamboo flooring and did they give you an upgrade price? We are starting to think we should stick to the Santorini tiles.... I have been told they won't give much of a credit back, and the plank vinyl flooring (timber look alike) is about $110 per square metre! I am calculating it will cost over $10,000.

I would love to see these tiles laid also? I am a suspicious type and wonder if there is something wrong with these tiles? Are they seconds or something? If they are good quality, how come they haven't been used in any of their displays?

Ally

Hi ally, yeah we opted for the bamboo flooring in the end for a bit extra cost - I could more easily imagine what the the bamboo flooring would look like. I think they are meant to be pretty good tiles though and they are installing them in the new Warwick farm display home being built ( perhaps only garage though?) apparently. I was told they didn't want to put in a display home in case they went out of production plus they are very new. We had them in for the flooring in the bathroom, powder and laundry..the whitest one (Bianco) in powder and laundry and Gris ( 2nd darkest) in ensuite.

Hope you enjoy your upcoming colours appointments!

Hi Speddos,

We have been told that we can exchange the porcelain tiles to bamboo flooring free of charge. I'm just wondering how much you were hit up for and if you were told it was no charge at first too?

Oh wow, that's interesting... What stage of the process are you up to though? We changed our mind at colours selection appointment so quite late but I think it would have been complimentary if we had asked to change prior to signing up... Very interested to know what stage you got the complimentary swap though???!!!

I am thinking of the bamboo flooring too, my only concern is how the kitchen will be finished off. Will there be a strip around the waterfall ends on the benches?
We currently have solid timber flooring and when we renovated the kitchen the floor was down first so the waterfall ends etc sit nice and flush with the floor.
I am probably being pedantic but I know the strip would catch my eye everyday against a white kitchen. What to do, what to do

Hi Speddos,

Sorry, I didn't see your reply until now We were told when we were requesting a site inspection that we could upgrade to bamboo flooring for free but were also advised that they were going to change it so we needed to get it into our tender if we wanted it. We went out to Accent and had a look and then asked for it to be included. I think we asked for this variation on the day we paid our $3.5K (probably helped though they were very forthcoming about it from day one as hubby had asked about a traditional wooden floor)

Hmmm, hadn't thought of that Kjhosko! Surely there is a special product to make it look better in kitchens? Will have to mention that one to hubby this evening! I wonder if anyone else on the forum got the bamboo floors with the waterfall edge and can show us a pic of how it looks?

Hi again, We changed to bamboo flooring at colour appointment that's why it cost extra - about $2500 I think, which wasnt too bad i guess... Any more and I would nt have done it.

I am a bit of a novice sorry... Not sure what you mean by the issue of the waterfall edges in kitchen and the bamboo flooring???

There is a beading that goes around the edges of laminate wooden and bamboo floors. It allows it to expand. So generally you have your skirting boards and then the beading where the floor hits the skirting boards. This will apply for any joins and around the kitchen waterfall edge. M have used it (I'm positive it is M) in one of their display homes (I'm guessing Oran Park or Gregory Hills???). I can't remember which one but I was happy to see it on display and how it looked.

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=bambo ... 1200%3B900

I've found this picture on the net which shows the beading.

Hi folks

There is another product you can use around the island bench instead of beading. The salesperson from Don's Tiles at Bella Vista showed us, but I forget what it is called. It looked a lot better, more streamlined. He even had a picture on his phone to show us. It was only a couple of hundred dollars extra for a better finish.

We are looking at the laminate timber because we have an inside dog that will just scratch the hell out of bamboo. We have the Santorini tiles in our tender, but would love to get a credit back and change to this high quality laminate. We are presently waiting on contracts and I was going to bring this up at our colour appointment.

I hope I haven't left it too late

Ally