Hi all,
It's 4am in the morning, my head is swimming with the current decisions to be made for our house so I figured I would google for inspiration - and I found this forum!
A bit of info to start with I guess...
I'm in Tassie. We have purchased a 1ha block, zoned semi-rural about 20 minutes from Hobart.
We've just signed up to have a builder build for us after coming to the conclusion that the bank won't finance us as owner builders - so after designing our house, we've had to settle for a smaller off the plan design (with some alterations) with the view of extending/amending down the track. I'm also due to have our second child in March so we figured going with an establish builder with their own design would get us into our house in the quickest manner.
Suffice to say - much as we are happy with the layout of the house, sadly budget and time restraints mean this will not be our dream house, but we WILL have a roof over our heads for our (by then) two children and a manageable mortgage - with the view to making it our dream house in the future.
The house is: 17 squares, brick veneer with colourbond roof.
Inside it is three bedrooms plus a largish study/fourth bedroom; main bathroom with separate toilet and ensuite bathroom off the master bed.
The kitchen opens out onto a family/dining room and we have a separate loungeroom.
Since we are going with the most basic interiors package our kitchen doesn't have overhead cupboards which was the perfect excuse to add in my one 'can't do without' demand for the house - a pantry room... So we've amended the kitchen to include this - yay!
Our basic options for interiors as far as I know at this point are:
Paint - Dulux - choice of three colours - so we are thinking pure white ceilings, an off white of some description for most walls with a dark feature wall - am too warm and comfy in bed to retrieve colour charts!
No floor coverings but we are thinking large gloss tiles in entrance/kitchen/living/dining/wet areas at some point in the future, and carpet in lounge/hall/beds - kids rooms will get done first and I'm sure ours at a much later date...
Kitchen - Wilsonart laminates. Will possibly pay extra to get a glass splash back. As far as cupboards/benchtops go we are tossing up between either dark cupboards (either a slate colour or a dark wood grain finish) or a white gloss.
Benchtops would be a light white/off white - am gutted that we can't really afford a stone benchtop but our budget is tight and at this point we would prefer to stick with laminate and update at a later date.
Am thinking a red splashback -depending on costs, we have an Empire Red kitchenaid and 'Big Red' is always out on display so would like a colour that matches/complements it- any suggestions?
Basic appliance package is just a a basic oven with electric cooktop but gas is on my must have list so thats another upgrade! No natural gas nearby sadly (or we would be putting in gas hot water too) so will be bottled gas.
Bathroom has very few options but we probably won't upgrade anything there and will just use accessories to personalise.
So at this point in the game, we have just received our revised plans back and submitted to council yesterday - squeee!!!!
Oh and we are on town water but don't have sewerage so have to have waste treatment. We want a biolytics system but are currently wrangling on the costs of this with the builder who quoted us a rather hefty $7k more than the indications we were given by the Biolytics people, so this is something we are still working on.
Am looking forward to getting some great inspiration, advice and seeing your wonderful homes too...