Fairhaven Homes

Anyone built or building with Fairhaven?

Would love some advice please ☺

We built with Fairhaven.
What sort of advice are you after?

Hi Old Bloke
Need advice on the following please...

1. Cost to upgrade interior paint colour from standard. Want Crisp White so assuming a 3rd coat required?
Building Bronte 191.

2. Wanted opinions on standard evap cooler...should we upgrade?

3. Can we make non structural changes after the colour appointment?

4. Advice regarding independent building inspectors.

1. Why would changing the paint colour be upgrade?- from memory they use Taubmans so if it’s just a change of colour there shouldn’t be a cost depending on how far in to the admin process you are.

2.We went with ducted refrigerated - best money we ever spent with a 2 storey (I wouldn’t touch evaporative with a barge pole)

3. We made a couple of changes (handles on kitchen cupboards, garage door profile & colour etc) at no cost (admin cost that is).

4. We used Darbecca on a couple of stages and we had a good SS which makes all the difference.

We were told we can only choose from one Taubmans chart.


We will stick with evaporative cooling but not sure if we should upgrade to a higher spec unit.

Great...we need to make some changes. Colour appointment was last week.

How much did Darbecca charge you? How many inspections did you have them do and at what stage?

Which house are you building? Is it a special restricted package?
We had a myriad of Taubmans colours to chose from and one of them was even a Dulux colour that we ended up going with.

We had Darbecca at 3 stages - frame, plaster & PCI they were $400 - $500 per stage (double storey) but are less for single storey.and have a package if you go all 6 stages. We would have had them do all stages but were undecided about whether we would engage them at the time and then I ended up in hospital having surgery on a fractured ankle.

Bronte 191 - Bridgewater range.

Have heard all positive about Darbecca so will definitely consider them.

Hi mate,

We are also building Bronte19 in South East Melbourne.

We have our color appointment next week. How was your experience?

DId you spend a lot on upgrades while doing upgrades? Just trying to get an idea how much buffer we need.

Thanks

Hi Bronte19

Nice to talk to someone also building Bronte ☺

We made changes and added extras with our salesman. Changed laundry to butlers pantry moving dishwasher in there and adding a sink and cabinetry, deleted bed 4 to extend family room and create new laundry.

Upgraded all vanity sinks and kitchen island bench sink. Upgraded bricks, added a bulkhead for TV unit area. Raised ceilings and added a larger front door. Cat 4 bricks. Square set plaster.

We are having the Surfcoast facade.

Our colour appointment was with Vanessa she was so lovely and patient. We were there from 10am until 4.45 (45 min lunch break).

We had a good idea of what we wanted as seen in a display home we looked through and 1 we saw on the app. Totally threw us when the first decision we needed to make was the laminate flooring to find out they have changed suppliers and we can't have what we want. They now use Australian Select Timbers.


OMG...I typed up all our additions at the colour appointment but then the whole post dissappeared. I had only copied above 😤😨😲😩 Sorry can't type it all again. We are up to $6000+ but heaps of things Vanessa couldn't give us prices for so won't find out until our Tender appointment. She said add things we might want so they get costed but know exactly what we might want to downgrade to.

Hope this helps doesn't confuse you.

Hi,

Your structural changes sounds really good. We have not done any major changes. Just added an Alfresco in the middle next to meals.

Some other upgrades we are doing are increased ceiling height, doors to WIRs etc

We realised today that both bathrooms don't have windows lol so thinking of adding skylights. We are also thinking of going for Eco Facade.

Our appointments is with Vanessa too, great to hear she is patient.

Can I ask what prep you did before the color appointment?

How does your alfresco fit on the plan?

We added...
Sliding door to bed 1 wir and changed to awning window.

We were told skylights super expensive. Bit worried about no windows for fresh air.

You will love Vanessa we felt very lucky to have her.

We were lucky because we found a Fairhaven house nearby with same facade that we love the colours so copied that.

We also found a display home that we liked the style of so went and looked at that and also copied bathrooms from another display home we saw on the app. Have you checked that out its great?

Did you realise the powder room sink has no cabinet. We added it but don't know the cost yet.

We upgraded the oven and microwave to Westinghouse because we were told the standard not very good.

We also added extra cupboards above the oven with built in rangehood.

Upgraded all taps, and handles for linen and new broom cupboard. Getting a fancy big long handle for front door.
Security door for sliding door at back expensive. Don't even get a basic flywire door included.

Not impressed we couldn't choose white paint so have since emailed to ask how much extra for 3 coat system instead of 2 so we can have Crisp White.

Are you having evap cooling?

Our Alfresco will be 3.5 x 3.5 and it will sit in the middle of the backyard. It costed us $7.5k. We moved the sliding door to the middle and changed it to slightly expensive stack door ($500).
Yes we are also concerned about no fresh air in the bathroom. We were verbally quoted $1000 for skylight will have to double check.
I have shortlisted couple of houses on the app that we like the interiors of.
Yes we are having evap cooling - $5000 all up. We are already over budget so hoping to not go crazy at coloring.
But will definitely upgrade the cooking range, sinks, handles etc. How much was the fancy front door?
How long does tender appointment will take after colors you know?

Great idea for alfresco didn't think of that.

$1000 a lot for skylight think we will just turn on the light ☺ we have already gone way over budget.

Evap cooling was part of our promo package. Do you know what model you are getting? We upgraded the controller from manual to digital but don't know the price yet.

Our salesman quoted the wrong door, he added Corinthian Windsor win21 2340x920 which is all glass $638. We want blonde oak awo5g not priced yet. We added the Gainsborough trilock omni series 8405 handle $638 but might remove that since we will probably have a security door which will cover it.

We were told approx 6 weeks after colour appointment for tender but had a missed call yesterday from someone to arrange the appointment. Will call back Monday.

Found out today at $1000 skylight is pretty basic one and the one thought we were getting is around $5k HAHA! so skylight is out for us too. Instead we are thinking of adding extra lights to ensuite and bathroom.

We are getting Brivis Advanced F36D model evaporative cooler $4800

5K omg!

I think that's the same evap as us, we don't have the model in writing.

Are you having tiled or glass kitchen splashback?

We are thinking of glass but our sales guy could not give us a price. Do you know how much that cost? And how much was upgrading the appliance to Westinghouse?

Glass splashback was included in our $5990 'select your style' promo.
We do have to pay $153 extra to have white though.

$551 WFE914SB oven.
$775 integrated range hood and cabinetry.
$4 WMB2802SA microwave.

Old Bloke
Do you know what the standard front door handle is?
Thinking of deleting the fancy one we added as it will be most likely covered by a security door.

Not sure.
We built the Queenscliff which is in their Elegance range and we upgraded the door handle as well.