Hi everyone,
We've been reading this forum for quite and while and find it extremely useful, so decided to ask your advice now
We are first home buyers and have not built before, so pretty new to all of this.. We are also young family and are pretty tight on money. We do not want to spend much extra on upgrades, but we realise that it can be better to spend money now on things that you can hardly change later (ceiling height, etc).
Our builder (Burbank) also tells us that it is cheaper to do things through them because of their buying power, but at the same time we are happy to contribute ourselves (we have done couple of repairs in our old house, so know how to do things)
So now for questions :
1. Do you know what king of things will be cheaper to do yourself than through a builder?
We will definitely do flooring ourselves. We would love to do painting as well, but our builder told us that our house should meet certain standards before they can hand it over to us, so they will do painting and then if we want feature walls, we can do it ourselves.
My husband can also do electrical, but we are not sure if it is allowed since he does not have a license.
2. What kind of things will be cheaper to have through a builder, but upgrade later yourself?
At this point I can think about going for a laminated benchtop and upgrading it later to stone or GraniteTransformations.
Another thought, we have a dark doorway and plan to put a skylight there later.
There is an issue with upgrades that is a bit frustrating that we might need to spend twice on the same stuff. For instance, our builder told us that if we want a rangehood that they do not have then we will need to put up with the one they provide and then get it out and install a new one later.
Well, probably that's it for now.. Would really appreciate your advice on all of this