Porter Davis homes

I wondered if the render may change slightly after a few months as well but I don’t remember the render from a few months ago have the same blue/grey undertone as the new render shade so I still don’t think it would be the same.

We have a meeting with our site supervisor at the house on Tuesday and are going to raise it along with a long list of other things.

Very frustrating when the build was meant to be finished by Dec 12 and we still have no idea when they will be done, let alone the defects fixed after PCI whenever that will be. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Hi all,

For those looking to build with Porter Davis or just interested in costings, I have put up a blog about our tile costs and the pricing for the different Categories on my house build blog https://forsyth35blog.wordpress.com . It goes over what we got and has different floor plans for waterproofing and tiles inclusion.
Cheers Charlotte

Thanks for that - very helpful, I would be very interested in seeing the whole book

Regarding the carpet costs, forgive my ignorance, would you calculate the difference in category 1 and the one you choose (assuming you have cat 1 already) times the number of squares of carpet you would require?

Hi Shane

Yes, I will put up the whole book in the next couple of days.

There are a few different options and costings when it comes to carpet. If you have a promo package that includes flooring ie laminate and carpet, and then you choose to upgrade (lets say to Cat 2), PD will charge you the full Cat 2 rate and then rebate you the carpet component of the promo pack, however when they do this they never credit the labour component that's built into the promo, so you end up paying twice for the labour. The carpet rate they credit is their cost price only. For example, we looked at taking the $10k laminate and carpet promo pack they were offering 6 months ago, but we wanted to upgrade to Cat 2 laminate but it was going to cost us an extra $7k for Cat2 laminate on top of the $10k, this is after the credit, and for Cat 2 Carpet it was horrendous, I can't remember the numbers now but we were up to about $10k extra after the credits for Cat 2 carpet and ugly Cat 2 Laminate on top of the $10k promo pack. To give you an idea we are doing Solid timber floors, 90 square metres and super lux carpet 130square metres all for $20k post handover.

An update on our kitchen stone in case anyone is curious about pricing. We were allowed to change (for an admin fee of $250) plus the cost of the stone, we went from Cat 3 Lyra to Cat 4 Lagoon and the difference in cost was $800. I had expected it to be more. That’s for the kitchen and galley.

I’m so glad we were able to change as it would have annoyed me forever. Make sure you see a real life image of what you choose as the small samples at WOS can be very misleading!

Thanks for that, who is doing your flooring?

That's awesome news, I'm glad they let you change and for only $250 admin fee is good - I thought they say its a $400 fee for Post contract changes. $800 is a bargain for Cat 3 to Cat4 - Very cool

Carpet Court for Carpet and O'Brien Timber Floors for the direct stuck solid timber flooring

More info in blog posts to come with pricing and details.
Cheers C.

That’s great. We chose Lagoon too. It looks great.

It’s really beautiful, I don’t know why I didn’t choose it to begin with. I was expecting an admin fee of $500 as that’s what they wanted to charge when we wanted to change the bath.

Hi Team

I have published another new blog last night, this one is about the planning and preparation for World of Style. It has copies of the preparation guides PD used to give out, a few handy hints and our experience during the process. Along with pricing on Crystal Wardrobes by Porter Davis.

https://forsyth35blog.wordpress.com/201 ... /the-7-ps/

Don't forget to follow the blog to receive email updates on new posts. The link is at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.

Happy reading
Charlotte

Good decision Nikil. We also choose Lagoon. We were initially tempted for Lyra seeing the small sample (considering its not much different to lagoon), but the WOS consultant told it will be very busy pattern with lyra if the stone area is big such as island and galley.

Amazing blog Charlotte. I am in office with loads of work but cant stop reading your blog. Very addictive

Ha, me too. Great info!! We will need to go as simple as possible to stick to budget but I’m really learning a lot from your organisation and upgrades. Thanks for sharing!

Great write up, you were obviously super prepared! I wish we'd had one of those preparation booklets, it would have come in very handy and presumably would have made the experience better/faster for both us and PD. I wonder why they stopped doing them?

I'm not sure if we had a Crystal Wardrobes consultant or a PD one but their prices were actually really good if you just wanted the base model stuff, cheaper than Ikea (plus you don't have to assemble it or even go to the store!) and it's already fitted for you.

Hi Hurrow

Charly and I have decided we wanting to test the bounds of our Marriage commitment by building and installing 9 metres of wardrobes

I agree with you that their costs for the basic Melamine wardrobes are on a par with Ikea, but if you want something with colour that doesn't look a bit cheap, then Crystal Wardrobe prices start to get very expensive IMHO. Charly wants a darker look to our WIR, so we compared the Crystal laminate pricing with the Ikea and Ikea came out on top.

I also like the options Ikea have to added to the basic wardrobe set up, like shallow drawers with felt lined inserts for your jewellery etc, and similar inserts to allow you to organise your belts and ties in a shallow drawer. (I'm possibly a little OCD when it comes to these things). They also have great shelving options like a pull out shelf with shoe rail or a glass shelf. They have pull out trouser racks and a cute little Valet hook you can attach to the end of your robe to hang up your chosen clothes for the morning (something I will be getting for Charly so she can choose her clothes the night before instead of wasting time in the morning) - whoops, probably about to get a clip behind the ear when I get home tonight for that comment.

I hope your build is now going full steam ahead, I remember reading about all the hold up you suffered leading up to breaking ground. Trusting everything is going along smoothly now that the construction has finally started.

Hi inphaze

Pretty much all the times my wife and I have had actual arguments in our marriage have been either at Ikea or when assembling Ikea, so good luck with your 9 metres of cupboards from there!

We actually did go to Ikea and were planning to get their cupboards but we were really pleasantly surprised with the pricing from Crystal and went with them instead. As you say there is a big price difference between the plain stuff and the coloured with Crystal, for us it's going to just be the plain stuff as we really didn't care that much about colours or what it looks like. Ikea definitely had a lot more options for the drawers and such forth so if that's what you're going for it makes sense to go with them. Personally I'm just really happy we won't be having to assemble it all! I'm hopingl we can avoid any trips to Ikea at all to fit the house out!

The build is coming along pretty well now, thanks very much for asking! We thought there wasn't going to be any work done over Christmas/New Years but it looks like there has been a bit of rendering which is good, we are hopeful that we will be in around April.

I love your blog btw, where are you guys up to now with the build?

Thanks, I think we might need all the luck we can get building that much Ikea in one go.

Pleased to hear your build didn't stop completely during the Christmas & New Year period. Hope it all stays on track for an April handover.

Our build was supposed to start yesterday. We thought our timeline was running on track, with us making sure that we had everything we needed to get organised accomplished before Christmas, so that we would be admin ready by the end of the year.
Unfortunately there was a hold up on some information from the council about the services, like water and power etc. We were not informed that they were waiting on this information before they could do their final checks. Apparently these chacks will take an additional 3 weeks and then they will send us our final drawings for sign off. (Thought we had done all that at contract??)

Part of the hold up probably occurred because our Lot didn't title when expected and only titled in late November. With the Christmas break and our BC being on leave until 29th January it is probably still another week or two before we see these final drawings and then they can hand the file over to the construction team.

Long answer to your short question

Probably looking at a late January start fingers crossed. Water was connected last week, so that's a good sign

We have our WoS appointment next week, so this information has been invaluable. Thank you so much.

I think we have a fair idea of what we are going to upgrade...but tapping into the collective intelligence and experience of this forum is too good of an opportunity to pass up. So...

Is there anything or any areas that took anyone by surprise? I’m taking cost or even something that you forgot to consider before going in? We have been to WoS a couple of times.

Thanks for any input

Hi Kenshi

I guess my overall piece of advice would be don't let them push you around. They may try to force their style or opinions on you, if you don't like it or are not sure then say so. Also, don't let them scare you into making a decision on the spot, I found the cooling off time of 48hours a very loose thing, we were still updating our kitchen over 4 weeks later and we didn't get our tile paperwork back for sign off till about 1 week before the contract. If you ask for pricing and they cant give it to you on the day but say it will be provided at contract then at contract you can remove any of it without incurring a charge. In fact, all our changes during the contract appointment and our 12 line PCV had no fees or fines attached.

And take food - have a bag full of different little snacks and drinks so you don't get hungry/angry at your partner. There is a cafe but it costs and you don't always have time to stop in between appointments, only at lunchtime - as it was Dave and I worked through both of our lunch brakes (we had 2 days as we are building a 2 story house.)

Best of luck!
Charlotte