Lennox with celebration homes

Hello everyone
My boyfriend and I just signed up for a block in avonlee in brabham and are looking at building with celebration homes and building the Lennox. We just got pricing for a couple of things we wanted upgraded and just wanted to know what others paid for their upgrades or what were something's that you felt needed upgrading in your home. We are both first home owners

We are pretty much going to sign up with CH too. Are you finding the upgrades too Pricey?

They are I think :/ I've never known what the prices of things should be but almost $2000 for overhead cabinets in kitchen is way too much

You'll find cabinets are usually around $1000/m of cabinets. That's what our builder charged. Overheads are one thing that will often be cheaper to do after handover.

Remember you will pay the cost plus 30% builders markup (what they charge for managing the build) the more you can get discounted or thrown in by your sales guy before you sign the better, there won't be many deals after that.

Our sales guy is great but when I asked if there were any negotiations on the prices he said no and hasn't thrown anything in either..

We are now being told that there is a price increase on the house from May 1st.. Feel a bit annoyed that because of the price increase they won't throw anything in knowing that we will want to secure the price soon

Hi Elly

We added overhead cupboards in our Lennox kitchen as well, it was around $3k for a full wall of cupboards with an integrated extractor but we went for the cheaper option of the upgraded extractor/rang hood and cupboards either side. We thought it was very expensive as well but we went to The Maker (their show room is really good and they provide the kitchens for Celebrations) and the sales lady there told us our builder quotes cheaper prices than they can to install overheads afterwards as Celebrations buy in bulk so get cheaper prices anyway. Saying that, you could always go to Ikea or Bunnings and I'm sure they would be loads cheaper if you didnt mind not having an exact match (we went for a wood grain silk finish laminex and couldn't find a suitable overhead from a different supplier that would match/compliment the ones put in by Celebrations).

Hope you get a good deal out of your sales rep - our sales rep did give us a deal on lighting (we were quoted $10k for down lights in every room and then he knocked it down to $7k) but we decided that it was still too much money so didn't bother. Ask them if they have any upgrade packages they can give you, when we did pre-start they had a package for alfrescos getting feature ceilings and fans.

We just signed the contracts last night and have out finance meeting tonight and looking at all the selections we can choose from very excited!!

We are getting our over head cupboards from ikea - my hubby is a carpenter so he will install.
They have a great range and very affordable.

Where are you building? Exciting!

We are building in brabham would love to see what the layout looks like in person for the Lennox

Hi Elly_93
That is exciting you signed your contracts. Pity you couldnt get extra thrown in.

I too wish i could have seen the layout in person, but hopefully i will be able to see my coming together soon.

Yeh but the Lennox does have all flooring included and did go up $7000 the next day so I'm still happy

Contracts back and deposit payed for the land now just hoping titles come by November as planned

Prestart booked for 4th august

Yay! Prestart is the best bit until the house starts to get built. And you get to choose everything in the nice new prestart room

I've been there twice once by myself and once with my boyfriend we both felt so overwhelmed we only stayed for 5 minutes :/

oh dear, it can be confusing and a lot of the things to look at are in the huge banks of drawers now, I was always scared to open the drawers, felt like I was being nosey! ha ha!

If you aren't keen on the selection centre the best thing you can do is go to the manufacturers direct. This took us around 2-3 weekends and then we were really confident going into prestart. Laminex and Caserstone have showrooms in Osb Park and the staff are really friendly and will give you samples etc. CH use Crosby Tiles so go there to see all the tiles you are allowed to have as standard, they will also show you non-standard tiles if you ask them and can usually let you know if CH will allow you to choose them (we tried to get concrete tiles and large rectangular tiles and were told "no" ). Crosby tiles are in Osb park as well and if you go when they arent too busy they will fill in a tile selection sheet with you so you can take it to your prestart. For you carpet, go to the Trevors carpet in Osb park and they can show you the standard range that CH use as well and they will also fill in a selection sheet to take to prestart.

Hope that helps.

Thankyou that does help it would be nice to talk to someone in the selection area so I know the size of tiles I can pick from because there are so many different sizes :/
I hope I'm uploading this right but these are our house plans

Like the changes to the WIL - is that for a fridge freezer? Very good idea!

The standard size floor tile for your wet rooms is 200x200 (you can upgrade to 300x300 for roughly $1k)
The standard size floor tile for you living areas is 300x300 (you can upgrade to 450x450 for roughly $1k)
Standard wall tiles everywhere is 200x400 (a big rectangle) but you can choose a non standard tile (our wall tiles are 400x400 and we paid extra for each tile and a "non standard selection" fee).

Yes it is I had to get a wall oven my boyfriend said my too accident prone with lower ones and always end up burning myself so I can imagine what it would be like having kids one day like me!
Now that I know the standard ones I might be brave and go down and have another look haha