Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jul 07, 2010 9:02 am Hi Folks, Just wanted to vent my experiences about our colour appointment which we had yesterday. I was so excited to be going and picking everything and I don't know if maybe I had built it up so much that I was so dissapointed in the end. Just a note first, we certainly didn't think that we were going to walk out only spending a couple of grand. We had budgeted about 10K (not including flooring, we are doing that later) and we already knew that ceasarstone benchtop was $3800 because that was in our tender. Essentially we were dissapointed at what was included in the standard range and how much it cost to upgrade. Things like the front door, I had a nice wooden with glass door picked out, $450 - not too bad, oh but it costs $475 to have it stained, otherwise it would have to be painted which is not what I wanted at all. I don't know how it costs more to stain a door that the door itself but aparently it does (and no they wouldn't let us not have it stained and do it later ourselves). We were told in our colour pack that we had to pick two paint colours for the outside so after we went through the brick, roof, downpipes etc we started talking colours and she said, 'oh but you have already used one'. On what?? Well the downpipes are PVC and are painted so thats one colour. Great, maybe you should be telling people you only get one choice really. Go onto the inside and it was the kitchen that really had me upset. I wanted a painted wooden kitchen (or a similar look) but it was $9000 for a wooden kitchen, they didn't even have any samples of that and it was just a rough guess, it could have been more. We put a blackbutt timber kitchen with plumbing and electrical in our last house just 3 years ago for $15,000 so a 9K upgrade was just rediculous. The only other thing they had was the polytech doors and that was $4300 upgrade. They didn't have all the samples so I had to pick something out of the book and hope to God that it looks ok. When we went to pick the ceasarstone colour, we started looking at the colours and she said, 'no, for that price you only get a choice of these 4'. Four choices!!!!! I was so upset, all those other colours are extra. Gee, thanks for telling me when I priced it that we only got 4 choices for that price. By this stage it was just one thing after another, standard kitchen door handles, 6 knobs to choose from. Didn't have them on display just a photocopied piece of paper. Upgrades - several hunderd dollars. Door knobs for the rest of the house, 1 choice. In white, its going to look great with my cream colours doors but upgrades were about $600 for the house. I didn't think they had a great selection of tiles so I didn't get exactly what I wanted there either (not to mention we couldn't afford a feature tile strip, stainless shower screen, drawers in the vanity - almost $300 per set!). Whirly birds are not standard but if you don't have one you have to vent your bathroom fans but a couple of hundred each so you may as well have the whirly bird even though it too is overpriced. So having said all that, they could see how upset I was about the kitchen so they did offer us an oven and rangehood upgrade for a good price so that worked out ok. It was just dissapointing because it was so different to what I had imagined. I don't know if it is because we are building one of their older designs and the newer designs have a lot more choice but I did expect more when I'm spending $300,000 on a house. Thanks for letting me vent people!! I hope you have better luck with your selections. Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 2Jul 07, 2010 9:42 am white door handles? is this a 1983 home?!! oh you poor thing...sounds awful and so expensive, esp when you are spending so much (to get said white door knobs!) so how much did you spend on upgrades? you wanted to spend $10k, how much over? or did you just go , forget it...lets just do standard range did you choose one of the 4 stones or did you pay to have a nicer one? big hugs! Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 3Jul 07, 2010 9:58 am HI vpeewee, I feel for you!! I was also disappointed when I left my colour selection, so I understand how you feel. My choices were limited too. Now they have a huge range, I was 8 months too early I can't get over your white door handle but they are easily replaced. Don't let it get you down, this is suppose to be an exciting experience. Good luck. Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 4Jul 07, 2010 10:37 am Hi Vpeewee That's soo annoying!!! These builders live in their own world!!! We all have our venting moments so we are happy to listen!!! Hope the rest of your building process is not as hard Building with Celebration homes SOR Perth [color=#BF00BF] Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 5Jul 07, 2010 10:46 am What a shocking experience. No one should have to feel like they have been let down. I would have thought most builders would have a better choice than yours. I hope the rest of your experience is a whole lot better. Where are you building? Kay A balanced diet is chocolate in both hands. Melbourne West Our build viewtopic.php?f=31&t=34169 Landscaping viewtopic.php?f=19&t=51147 Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 6Jul 07, 2010 10:46 am I was also shocked with some of the upgrade costs, but thankfully I could select colours that will keep me happy. I was heavily restricted on budget! I had been given lists for colours, and then had a similar experiance with the stone. List was 20 or so colours, and then it was a choice from about 6! Oh well, so long as your happy with the end result, thats all that matters. Some people don't have time to do the job right the first time, but seem to have plenty of time to fix their mistakes. Build Thread Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 7Jul 07, 2010 10:50 am This is so sad colour selection is "the" most important and exciting thing to us girls, it's criminal what the basics are with your builder and what the upgrades cost, how hard is it to leave a door bare and white door knobs were dead and buried years ago, they must be as cheap as chips and can't believe this is what's on offer I am so sorry for you vpeewee, your heart must be sinking Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 8Jul 07, 2010 11:32 am That's so frustrating and disappointing.... Our inclusions were pretty good, but we had the same issue with doors/windows. Our builder was including timber windows to the facade as part of a promotional offer , but turns out that was PAINTED. We had to pay some silly amount to have them stained. Why would you bother with timber windows if you were going to paint them? Just try to look ahead to when you move in and you're able to add beautiful personal touches with furniture and decorative items. Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 9Jul 07, 2010 1:17 pm Hi, Thanks for listening and your responses. We ended up spending right on 10K although $8K ended up being on the kitchen with the benchtop and polytec doors so that didn't leave much for anything else. We did get a nicer colour benchtop as part of the upgraded oven, I think becuase they could see I was so upset over it. I was just starting at the colours and I must have looked so terrible they kept saying 'you're not happy are you?'. You're right though, the door handles can be easily replaced and I think they will be the first things to go. It's frustrating on the things they knew they have you with though, like chrome floor wastes in the bathrooms, $40 each, you can buy them from bunnings for under $10! Kayteee, were building in Silverdale, outer western sydney. Cheers Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 10Jul 07, 2010 1:44 pm I feel sorry, building a house should be a fun exercise (watching all the money float away). I think the builders advertising has a lot to blame, big banners everywhere (BUILD THIS FOR $XX.00) but then they don't tell you the extra costs if you want something remotely different to spec. In regards to the colour choices for the downpipes I would want to ram that downpipe up their ((********)), what a load of garbage, paint is paint, it all costs the same (mostly). Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 11Jul 07, 2010 2:18 pm Sorry to hear that your appointment wasn't what you had hoped! I will agree that some of our choices were a little expensive but I must admit we were lucky with the majority as they seem to already be at a high standard. Dosn't building a house remind you of organising a wedding - so many compromises! Hang in there and all the best. Jazz and Brett 18m Q2 Retr3@t {Cremorne Facade} Pl@nt@t10n H0m3s {Underwood, QLD} The House that Jazz and Brett Built Blog http://jazzandbrett.blogspot.com/ Build Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=35491 Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 12Jul 07, 2010 3:19 pm Hi there, thee is a couple of things here that might be able to be done. 1. The handles.... why dont you just find out how much they have allowed for them and then tell them to take that price out and you will supply or put it towards the cost of your feature tile strip and then go get your own handles. 2. The door... due to raw timber expanding i can understand why they wont let you not have it raw....but.... why dont you also find out the allowance and put it towards the feature tile and then goto Doors plus or somewhere like that and buy one PRE-STAINED or get it stained. So for another words your supplying the door by lock up stage and its sealed ready for the weather. So, you get the stained door, you get the handles you want and a feature tile stip you thought you weren't going to have . <<<<<, im such a good salesman... + if you think there lo balling you with the allowances then find out what they are supplier and model number and get your pricing yourself but make sure you ask for TRADE discount. and if that dont work post there number and ill get it all for you... misa can be very persuasive whens me need to be. https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=37134 THE THREAD https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=35962 THE BLOG! http://pedrosinspiredbeauty.blogspot.com/ BRICKS BRICKS ARE FINISHED... ROOF STARTS TODAY 03/02/2011!. Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 13Jul 07, 2010 4:03 pm Oh how disappointing for you! I don't understand why you can't use the same colour more than once on your externals!! Also, I just got quotes back today for staining our front timber door in place of paint and it's costing $137. It's a massive door too that we paid around $560 for. I know that if it normally has a paint finish it comes in that green undercoat colour ready for paint, so perhaps that's why you couldn't just stain it yourself afterwards but still - daylight robbery for the price you got quoted! And as for white handles WTF are they thinking?! I hope you can get past it and not be too down about it. Have you considered perhaps just getting the standard kitchen benchtops and replacing with timber ones after handover? You may save a small fortune... Building an Eden Brae Saville 27 http://karry327.blogspot.com/ Building thread https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=44247 Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 14Jul 07, 2010 4:29 pm What an awful experience...especially seeing as you would have been looking forward to it so much. Choosing colours is meant to be an exciting process. Sounds like they didn't give enough information about the extras or what the standard inclusions would be. Fancy having a catalogue and not a few real examples of the handles. What sort of building company doesn't have a set up to showcase their inclusions? Hopefully, the worst part of the process is behind you Re: Almost cried during colour appointment - so disappointed 15Jul 07, 2010 4:53 pm Oh you poor dear, I know exactly how you feel. Both my partner and I were in tears at our colour selection appointment (granted, our sales consultant * to our face about what colour selection items were included in the contract price)! If on a budget my advice would be to only upgrade things which are impossible or way too expensive to retrofit after handover. Things like knobs and handles are not that big a problem to change after a few years (and the benefit is that you get to choose exactly what you want without paying the builder’s margin). We too were disappointed with the range of items that we could choose from in the builder’s showroom. So what we did after the appointment was to get in touch with all the suppliers to see their full range. For instance, Beumont Tiles have a huge selection of tiles on display that fall within the standard builder’s category (they are actually marked with a grey label to differentiate the stock). Obviously the builder has space constraints in their showroom so they can’t display all the different selections. Thus we were able to change our tiles and a few other items after contacting the suppliers directly and were feeling much more positive about everything. The benefit also was that the supplier confirmed that the new selections were no more expensive so that when the builder tried to slug us more we told him where to go! (Actually that is my big secret with dealing with builders- if ever you are told something can’t be done, is more expensive, is not available etc, just contact the supplier or manufacturer directly and then watch your builder squirm hehe). Can you give advice on how to get missing certificates needed for a form 21? Our bank requires us to provide one but we are missing 4 building certificates from our first… 3 71777 i would suggest nothing is unreasonable for PCI. we did all sorts, including checking the hot water, checking all the GPO's had power, testing that the showers were… 9 98623 Just to makea point about this, an approach that some people have found sucessful in negotiating these rises down, Is to provide some workings to the builder, specifying… 4 81667 |