Pics please (particulary M'con)

haywgl · Feb 16, 2008 11:08 pm

Hi guys!

You may have seen my other post - I am new here and am really excited about the process of building a dream home.

My husband and I have just had our second baby and would really like to build a family home that we can live in for the good part of the next 15yrs!

We are in Newport, Western region of Melbourne and so far have found that M'con is one of the few builders who will build out here. Established area etc

We are currently looking at the Laguna 33 floorplan with added Rumpus and outdoor room (if $ allows it!) as blocks around here are quite narrow.

After purchasing land/old house + stamp duty we are looking to have about $400k to play with, this will include the base price of the home, site costs, demolishing old home, and 'extras'

What I would LOVE to see, is what M'con's standard range looks like, of course I love the display homes but I don't think I will ever afford to finish off my home in such a way. I would love to see people's bathrooms and kitchens in particular who have built with M'con and the approx costs (if you upgraded anything!) to these areas.

I have NO idea when it comes to building (as you can already tell!!)

I am happy to provide my email via PM if you don't want to post pics on site (OR if this topic has been done to death!!)

Thanks so much!!

Adrian B · Feb 17, 2008 12:59 am

Hi and congrats on the second. I am typing this from RWH leaving tomorrow with our first.

As far as the Big M goes, we had a great build with them, and most of our house was standard. IT isnt hard to find what is and what isnt, but I would encorage you to go to the Studio 501 tours if they still run them (on a Sunday i think.

As far as whats standard for to you, we selected some 2 yrs ago (scary) so things have changed. Couple of pointers though:

Dont get feature walls, you can generally paint them cheaper yourself.
Pay the extra for downlights on the ground floor, but NOT upstairs, again you can do it cheaper.

Choose your tiles carefully. Anything not 400x400 mm will cost you more in labour over your tiling allocation. Some more expensive and bigger tiles will cost you more.

Just looking at their current promo, its close to what we got, but it had Aircon ionstead of Cesarstone.

Do you need bigger skirts, cornices and things like that, generally not.

One thing I would suggest is athat you ask if there is an al fresco package. I noticed one of the pictures (no 3) shows an alfreesco under roof line. We got this and it is worth every cent we paid. Dont necessarily get them to do the decking, but definately the roofing is worth it.

Any other qstns, send me some mail.

First_Timer_Ray · Feb 17, 2008 9:46 am

CONGRATULATIONS ADRIAN! AND HAYWGL!

I'll be back with some pics of our incomplete home... again we upgraded a few things but majority is standard (or part of their promo at the time).

Ray.

haywgl · Feb 17, 2008 10:17 am

Thanks Adrian and Ray. I'm glad you both replied as I have been reading both your experiences with great interest!

Congrats on the birth of your little one Adrian - boy or girl? I have a 2 yr old little girl and have just had a little boy - so am feeling very lucky

I owuld definatly love to see your pics Ray, also Adrian if you have any it would be great to see, especially since you have both gone alot of the standard package which is what I would hope to do too.

Do you think they give you a big enough selection of colours when it comes to kitchen cupboards, benchtops, bathrooom colours etc in the standard range?

I would ideally like to have a white kitchen with light benchtops and probably a light brown/latte colour cupbaords in bathroom with light benchtops again, however, I'm not sure if these colours are considered standard??

I will definatly book a tour in 501 if they still do them

Thanks again guys, no doubt I will bug you again soon :wink:

First_Timer_Ray · Feb 17, 2008 10:55 am

Haywgl, their standard laminate range is the Parbury Wilsonart. Go into any tile centre and they will have a stand of the samples - GO FOR YOUR LIFE and take as many as you want, they are all standard as far as I know. We ended up having 3 different coloured tops, all cupboard doors are the same, and all kickers are the same - so 5 shades in total. This is excluding the Ceasarstone we got included in our promo - which is only to the kitchen tops.

Paint is Bristol, so go into a decorator centre and have a look at their colour wall. The darker colours attract an extra charge as they require 3 coats to get even coverage, but the lighter colours are fine. We went with a wall colour called Sandlight which was one of the darkest you could chose without the extra charge.

Tiles are through Beaumont tiles. If you go into a showroom, one of the sales people will explain which are and aren't part of the builders' range. If the tiles have a silver or gold dot, they are included, if not M con will put $25m2 towards the cost of any other tiles in the showroom (of course porcelain tiles are NOT included in the standard range, and because of the price difference made them out of our budget

but we did find some "included" tiles that retailed for $39m2 so we were happy with those as a compromise). As Adrian said, any large tiles require additional costs for laying and breakage. Our house is mostly tiles (approx 100m2) and we were charged an extra $1200 on top of the $7K for tiles charged by the builder because of those gorgeous feature strips in both ensuite, bathroom and the larger than normal size floor tiles.

We upgraded our heater to 4*, we got an evaporative cooler for $1.5K as part of a promo they had, we upgraded our ensuite to the spa layout (which was partly because we deleted the outdoor room due to space restrictions on our block) which included structural changes and extending the roofline, but that came in at $6K. We upgraded to the butler's pantry option which was quite cost effective considering we got the sink taken out of it which was $900 on it's own. Another major upgrade were to our doors - we got the sikkens doors on the master bedroom and between the entry and kitchen and they cost about $3K for those 2 doors. We also upgraded our sidelights to match the front door instead of the standard (as they didn't have a translucent glass to match the front door). Other things were minor things like changes to kitchen cabinets - added cut corner cabinets either side of the rangehood, added a bin draw, added a microwave space with pot drawer below it, rack above the fridge, we added mirrored robes in bed 2 and 3, extra powerpoints and lights (we got downlights throughout the living areas), etc.

All up, we added $40K to our base price, which is complete except for gardens, paving, concrete (no drive included), curtains and carpets which we will source ourselves.

501:
Range of handles - yellow are standard, then green, then blue and red are dearest.
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Sinks that are standard - either
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Cooker as standard (this is 60cm wide, we had 90cm included)
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Glass canopy rangehood as standard
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Tapware - the 4 panels on the left are standard range - your choice, the others towards the right (zucchetti) are extra, but to me they looked similar and I preferred the standard.
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Our kitchen island bench (currently without the Ceasarstone top fitted). Doors are Parbury River Cherry, Kicker is Parbury Pearl Dust. Handles are from the yellow standard range.
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The shelving above the fridge space was extra, and we asked for the shelf to be vertical rather than horizontal so we can store cookbooks there.
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Back wall of kitchen - the cut-corner shelving was extra either side of where the rangehood will go, as was the bin drawer and microwave/pot drawer combo to the left on the rear wall (all up approx $1K)
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Ensuite vanity and basins are standard with the exception of the 3 drawers in the middle, which were an upgrade from open shelving/holes. Top is Parbury Antique Bronze, doors and kicker same as kitchen.
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Bathroom vanity and basin is standard. Top is Parbury Desert Zephyr, doors and kicker same as kitchen.
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I hope that helps,

Ray.

DeeElle · Feb 17, 2008 11:40 am

Very good response Ray.

kiwi056 · Feb 17, 2008 11:44 am

Excellent post Ray!

Love the photos of your place also, well done!

haywgl · Feb 17, 2008 3:09 pm

WOW!!!

Thank-you so much for gong to all that trouble Ray - Great photos and great descriptions!! Your house is going to be gorgeous!!

I must say I am VERY happy with the standard range and this has made me much more relieved about my budget!!! I think I would be happy to go for quite alot from the standard range!!

Yup Ray, you have me sold we ARE going to build, the sooner we find some land/old house to knock down the better!! :lol:

This forum rocks!!

Thanks so much again, greatly appreciated!!

coljacqld · Feb 17, 2008 5:27 pm

wow ray your kitchen is looking great

haywgl - the big m in brisbane may be a little different to Melbourne but to give you an idea our base price as quoted by them was $191360.

However you can not ever build a house for the base price. even if you had an S soil test you still need to add
: drainage $2k (compulsory with M in QLD, I think it should be in the base price)
: rain water tank $7K
: temp fencing $600

plus you would expect your site wouldn't be an 's' so I would add at least $10K for site costs

council fees for a particular council should be included in base price only if your council area charges more should you pay extra

As I said we are with the big M in QLD so things may be different in Vic.

We upgraded a number of items and changed the house a fair bit. To give you an idea here are some of the costs

Promo package (Caesar bench, 8.5ft ceiling timber bi-fold, front door upgrade, 900 cooking, range etc, dishwasher microwave, 3 phase upgrade for air cond, upgraded basins & taps)- $6500
Air Cond Ducted - $14490
Butlers Pantry with sink - $4300
Tiles to entire house expect - bed 1-4 and home theater - $9863
Upgrade tile to porcelain in entire house including bathroom, ensuite floors, wall feature tiles etc $2110 approx 200m2 of floor tiles
3 controllers for HWS $675
powder room - $2368
render entire house - $12445
second shower set in ensuite - $650
duct rangehood to outside - $486
roof tile upgrade to boral striata - $854
upgrade laminate bench tops to caesarstone in
bathroom & ensuite $1600
butlers pantry $2130
and ends and front apron of kitchen island bench $2364
Upgrade kitchen sink - $458
Glass Splash back to kitchen - $2364

we also removed one wall between the rumpus/family moved the living room wall back 2m and out double sliding doors on it to make it a home theater. you get credit for removed walls. total cost ended up about $800 after credit taken into account. we also change windows and got credits because what we chose was cheaper.

Our other major cost was our outdoor room extension (this cost may help of you need to add rooms) we were told it was not much more to fully enclose if we wanted. We added 4m to the entire back of the house 14m width ie 56m2 at a cost of $21k.

If you find a house you could always sign a contract subject to soil test and prelim council approval (if it works the same way as QLD) The other thing to keep in mid if you need to demolish is Asbestos, this will cost extra to get rid of.

Anything else you would like to know happy to help

haywgl · Feb 17, 2008 6:28 pm

coljacqld - Thanks for the info mate! Greatly appreciated!! You have had some decent upgrades there, 21k for an add on room/structural change :shock:

, maybe I might be better finding a plan with these included...

Was your aircon ducted refridgerated? Or evap?? 15k sounds good, I was budgeting about 20k...

I am hoping the 100k we have set aside for upgrades will do ok, we also have set aside a further 50k for site works and demolition of the old place...

I know what I'm like and I'll probably have a preference to all the upgrades, but I have to remind myself to only get the essential upgrades (the things that will cost $$ to change after construction) and save the non-essentials for down the track

Keep all the info coming on 'M' guys its great to hear its straight from the people dealing with them

coljacqld · Feb 17, 2008 11:37 pm

haywgl

don't be scared off by the cost of the extra we added, when you look at the cost per sqm to what you pay for the whole house it is reasonable. Remember that what we have added is equal to 3 generous size bedrooms.

base cost - 191K for 332m2 = $ 575 per sqm

our extension $21k for 56m2 = $ 375 per sqm.

The other thing we had to think about with outdoor entertaining was what it would cost us after to add some sort of stratco structure and the overall look we wanted.

Quote:

Was your aircon ducted refridgerated? Or evap?? 15k sounds good, I was budgeting about 20k...

Air Cond is ducted refridgerated

Anne

VJ · Feb 18, 2008 11:39 pm

Hi haywgl,

I answered on your other post.

I will give you a detailed list of our upgrades too, so you would get more ideas.

We are both building double storey house and most of your list of upgrades were part of our upgrades too.

From the base price, our total cost went up by $70K (upgrades and site costs of $8k only), excluding floor tiles/carpets, curtains, driveway and landscaping, which we'll do after handover. We are budgeting around $60K for all of these. So in total, we are looking at $130K on top of the base price. The promo that we had was $31K worth of upgrades for only $5k. The evap cooling was $1.5K only.

Upgrades/structural changes were:

We added a mud room (around $5.5K+) by extending the garage, moved the laundry opening (to make way for a bigger WIP and bigger fridge opening), and enclosed the lounge area (same as your Laguna) to make it a Home Theatre.
We upgraded the kitchen (as displayed) - with 40mm stone benchtop and 100mm to the other side, the stone benchtop from category 1 to category colour, even the glass splashback.
Ensuite, Bath and Powder room benchtops - category 1 20mm stone composite
All doors to downstairs were high solid doors (2340mm as opposed to the standard 2040mm).
Three of the doors (2 to HT and 1 to pantry) were the timber glazed with Sikkens finish.
Mortar colour - upgraded to off-white
Bricks - category 3 (Melbourne series)
Roof tiles - flat colour through
Sound proofing to HT and pre-cabling
flyscreens
25 degrees roof pitch
door locks to all toilets/bath rooms
4-star rated close coupled toilet suite
medina bath tub
stainless steel canopy (instead of the standard glass canopy)
some downlights/dimmers (not all areas), extra battens, etc. - total of $5.5K extra for electricals

AFter hand over:
- porcelain floor tiles 450mmx450mm
- wool carpet to all bed rooms and HT
- front and back landscaping
- driveway

I don't have the list with me, these were as far as I can remember.
So if I'll re-check my contract and let you know if I miss any.

Hope it helps.

haywgl · Feb 19, 2008 9:53 am

Thanks so much VJ, I love the Nevada - your house sounds like it is going to be gorgeous!!

I like all your upgrades too - If you had $130k of extras in total (inc floorings etc, site costs) I am thinking I may be alright, I am budgeting $150k but will also need to demolish an old house and I think my site costs will be a little more....

I am assuming that with companies like M, you can list all the things you want and if budget doesn't permit you can remove items to decrease the $ spent?

Also out of curiosity has anyone got the builder (particulary M) to do the floorings and if so was is a dramatic increase in price? I am just thinking it will be easier to have the house complete for handover, and also don't want to have to worry about skirting boards with timber floors/carpet, unless if anyone knows if M are happy to tack the skirting boards on?

Cheers guys!

First_Timer_Ray · Feb 19, 2008 9:24 pm

Exactly. We were told to include all the things we could think of to quote it all, then at Pre-Contract we eliminated all the extras that we decided we didn't need/want/couldn't afford.
I know this is our first house, and we have a limited budget but I can't think of much that we didn't include that we would have wanted to upgrade anyway. We found that their inclusions were quite generous compared to some other companies that were very basic.
When you consider what M offer as standard, I would think you could build a fairly decent house with NO extras on the base price (apart from required extras like site costs, temp fencing, etc). When you think about $100K+ of extras/upgrades, that's a heck of a lot!

And for what it's worth, when I was doing a search for home and contents insurance, one of the site quotes had a calculator and said something about it would cost $40K for demolition and removal of rubble (eg. house burnt down), but I can't remember if it was based on our house size or it was a generalisation. ... will see if I can find it.

Ray.