Hi all, been following this forum for a while now and I must say, it’s very interesting to hear different experiences from different people and compare them with your own.
As the subject describes, my fiancé and I are building the Kallara 29 with Porter Davis. We had three houses in mind and were tossing between them all and comparing the pros and cons of them all and in the end chose the Kallara. The other 2 were the Darnley 29 by Porter Davis and the Lexington Q2 by Henley. We finally settled on the Kallara because it fit on our irregular block a little better.
We had our tender back on November the 28th. We have changed quite a few things so it took a few hours to completely go over and check everything and re check it again.
I have a pretty good idea of what I’m looking for and have discussed it in detail with my partner so we are on the same page. The main problem we have is that the land is yet to be titled. It was supposed to be titled in November and we were hoping that at least by the end of the year it would have titled but that is not going to happen either. We are now looking at some time around February or March. This leaves the problem of having gone through tender and not knowing what the site cost will be. They have estimated it to be around $8000 but I don’t like estimates and am not feeling comfortable signing a tender without this costing. Apparently we can still get out of it if the costs are ridiculous.
Things we have added or changed are;
*2 Meter extension on the width of the garage and adding a 600mm wide window to the garage on the front door side (Our garage is on the right hand side)
* Urban Facade (September Bonus offer free of charge)
* Hebel promo for $1999
*2740mm high ceilings and doors upgraded to 2340mm high
*Double wall oven cabinet tower
*apron returns to the kitchen island bench top and 150mm wide extension the the island
*additional broom cupboard and cabinets to the laundry with overhead cabinets as well
a few other little things but not that important to mention like voids in walls and stuff.
We had our electrical and colour selection yesterday and if I hear “that’s extra” one more time…I’M GONNA FREAK OUT…..
I have to say, the electrical was quite funny the prices they charge for some stuff. You want it, you pay for it… so I didn’t change much in the electrical, just a few extra switches and power points and that still cost us $1200…..security and network I will do myself later on at a fraction of their prices.
One thing that really cheesed me off was the fact that they don’t have a fanlight option. You have to get a separate fan and a separate baton….Can someone tell them that they actually make them as 1 unit these days and it looks much nicer than a huge fan in a tiny toilet!!!
I’ll leave it at that for now and I’ll fill you in on the colour section later on…it was amusing as well.