I know when we were starting figuring out what we were looking at (vs what we could afford of course!), seeing what other people had spent really helped us in our budgeting.
At a high level, I wanted to share some of our info, in case if can help anyone else.
All pricing is for the Charlton 28 (Advantage Range) with Geelong-area pricing.
Total price $379,048
Note, this doesn't include our $40k discount, so we're really spending $339,048 on the house)
Base price: $274,900
And some of the 'bigger ticket items' for us are as follows
1. Ludstone facade $14,900
2. Eves $2800 (these were essential for us from both an energy efficiency perspective and aesthetically. I highly recommend looking at the FB group 'My Energy Efficient Home' - this group has been really valuable in the planning of our house)
3. Modify downstairs WC to bathroom $2550. This makes our house 4 bed, 3 bath, and gives us flexibility in the future should we choose to convert our downstairs living/study to a larger guest suite as then they'rd be a bathroom on the same level)
4. We changed all windows to awning ones rather than sliding - this was an aesthetic preference, I simply like the look. These were then later upgraded to double-glazed at contract.
5. We also added additional windows in the family/kitchen area for more light
6. We also added the 5.4m boutique stacker door to the family as a big part of the appeal of this house was how wide and open the back living/kitchen space could be out on to the back yard
7. We deleted out the WIR fitout in the master and in bedroom 2 as we will fit these out post-handover
8. We upgraded to catagory 2 bricks (Austral Ash), we considered Hebel, however we like the look of this light brick just as much and it was cheaper!
9. We've kept the standard cove cornices throughout, however we fully-tiled most walls in the ensuite, downstairs bath and upstairs bath which meant upgrading to square set. We kept out wall tiling white, so were we haven't upgraded isn't as obvious.
10. We added niches to all 3 shower walls. This was pricey ($326 each for 425x425mm niches) but I think is worth it long term and it saves on having extra rails/storage in the showers).
11. We added three promotional upgrade packs:
1. Design Indoor Upgrade Pack ($4499) - this was worth it for us as it included internal access door, stone to bathrooms, shower frame/base upgrades, laundry fit out and 3-coat paint system
2. Design Kitchen Upgrade Pack ($5499) - this was worth it for us as it included stone bench tops, undermount sick (this was a must-have for me), pot drawers etc. We didn't use some items and got them credited back, including upper cabinetry, freestanding upright cooker etc.
3. Design Outdoor Upgrade Pack ($7499) - this was worth it for us as it included upgraded brickwork, flyscreens, render to the front of the house (required in our estate), remote garage door etc.
12. We spent another $5333 in Kitchen Culture. We initially weren't going to spend this much, but considering the kitchen was so close to being our dream one, we figured spending a little more here would mean we wouldn't want to be tearing it down in 5-10 years! This was mostly to extend our benchtop right around to the back wall of the house (and upgrade it to stone), add lots more drawers, add a lift-up cupboard to the top of our fridge space, and upgrade all bathroom benchtops to catagory 2.
13. We also upgraded our kitchen appliances, we want to go as electric as we can, only relying on gas for solar-boosted gas hot water. We considered doing these externally however were really impressed with the pricing. So in the kitchen we upgraded:
1. The cooktop to the F&P 900mm induction cooktop - $1760 (we were meant to get a freestanding cooker in our kitchen upgrade pack so this replaced this partially)
2. The oven to the F&P 600mm wall oven (upgrade pricing only $317)
3. We added an additional F&P wall oven same as the above, for the additional unit this was $1255
4. We also upgraded our extractor fan to the F&P one, it sucks more cubic cm (or some measurement...) out of the air and we thought that more efficiency here would be good - and it was only $117 to upgrade.
14. We also upgraded quite a bit of plumbing fixtures. This was something I was prepared to not do, as we could change fixtures later. But again, like the kitchen appliances, the cost of doing it later was going to be more expensive for similar quality fixtures (the water ratings on the fixtures PD provides are actually really good). I looked at at-cost pricing externally, as my BIL is a plumber, so I wasn't factoring in labour - and it still worked out better to go through PD. We upgraded:
1. In our downstairs bathroom we upgraded our tapware to brushed gold. They have a new range in and it's really really nice! So we went with the twin rail shower, shower mixer, sink tap, toilet roll holder and towel rail so this bathroom (which is our main guest bathroom) would be finished when we moved it. We upgraded this basin to the Ideal Standard Active Vessel one ($97).
2. In our 'kids' bathroom we kept things simple - we used the shower rail (chrome) that we got in the pack, standard mixer included in pack, and we changed the basin to the The Gap 450x410mm semi inset basin. We also upgraded the hob bath to the freestanding one in this room as I LOVE a freestanding bath!
3. In our ensuite we kept to chrome - but we upgraded to a twin shower, and also put the same Ideal Standard Active Vessel basins in the extended vanity as we have in the downstairs guest bathroom.
We had our ensuite shower upgraded to a 2000mm high semi frameless screen in our indoor pack - we also raised the other two showers to this height.
Additionally, we extended the mirror in the kids bath all the way along the wall to give the light more room ($109), and we've opted to delete the mirror out of the downstairs bathroom - we'll put in a feature mirror here after we move in.
15. We are doing all our flooring after handover - carpet on the stairs and upstairs (we are going with a medium-quality carpet and high-grade underlay). For this reason we've kept our stairs as standard. Downstairs we are installing vinyl floating planks. We have kids and dogs, I love real wood but this was a no-brainer for us!
16. We spent a total of $1954 on tile upgrades. The woman we had from National Tiles was amazingly helpful. We kept to mostly cat 1 and 2, did a lot of extended tiling on the walls and added some designer range tiles between our ensuite mirror and basins.
17. We also opted to remove our gas ducted heating - we are installing split systems downstairs and evaporative cooling upstairs post-handover.
18. Our total electrical spend was $10047 - weāve done all our downlights, cat 6 cabling etc. Weāve also put in a lot of provisioning, including a fan for the family room, batten lights to be switched out for feature lighting above the kitchen bench, and plain battens in the bedrooms to accomodate future feature downlights.
Phew!
I hope this is helpful for other people. We've had such a pleasant experience so far and I would love to be able to help other people feel a similar level of preparedness going in to their appointments. We did detailed quotes with two other builders, and looked and met with another 4+ prior to settling on PD.
Good luck!!!
Hi All,
I have been reading through everythinggggg and a lot of prices are quite old so I thought I would ask.
We are looking at the Hillview 35.
We want to remove the outdoor alfresco however and turn this into more living space inside. The builders rep has said this is doable as it remains under the existing house frame etc. but wont give us a price until we go in for official quoting. Which we are not ready to do as we haven't secured our block yet. We just want to know a worse case scenario so when we are ready to build we have all the money we need and can do it immediately.
Does anyone know how much this may cost though?
Also has anyone had weatherboards put on their house and if so how much was it? Not just as a feature but all the way around? Or just the full exposed front?
Thanks so much!