Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 24, 2013 7:20 am Thought it'd be interesting to hear what people paid for what upgrades, this will give others an idea what to expect when they spec out their house. here's a few from other threads, keep in mind you can expect variation on these costs (of course) * a provision for Electrial upgrades. You only get one light batton and one powerpoint for a standard sized room. This is what we spent the most on upgrading * Are you happy with the internal doors? They come as a plain door, to upgrade to one's similar to the display homes is approx $78 per door * are you planning on kitchen upgrades? This was our second most cost to upgrade, but then we made a lot of changes, such as a wall oven in place of stand alone, 40mm ceaserstone, extra pot draws, polyurethane cupboards etc etc. From OneWheel: * I think you might need 3 phase power if you elect for ducted air con. * we extended our garage by 500mm width, cost approx $2k * Have you looked at bricks yet? You will need to upgrade to exposure grade bricks if you have soil salinity like we have. Ours was $6.5k extra, for a 2 storey home, full brick (in lieu of FC sheeting on 2nd level) * How about the bathroom windows? Our plans came with clear windows, so we changed this to obscure frosted windows for the bathroom. Our DA also listed this as a requirement, I don't know why they don't include this as standard, who wants clear bathroom windows? * our garage did not come with a window, so we added one $400 * are you getting W to do the carpet? The basic underlay that they include is pretty thin, so we upgraded that too. * are you in a bushfire zone? Add a provision in the tender that too if you are. I've put below the per unit cost so you can work out your extra's: * extra batton $52 ea * LED downstairs downlights with 5500 globe $160 each, you can get cheaper one's approx $110 ea * Outside up/down crome round lights (at front of some W display homes) $180 ea * Footer lights for stairs $95 ea * Twin floodlights for outside (at back of some W display homes) $145 ea * extra light switches $40-90 depending on how many switches (1-4) * extra powerpoints $55 each, for a quad switch $82 * outdoor powerpoint RW 10A $101 * TV point $80 ea * phone point $80 ea * hands free sensor light (for our pantry) $168 ea * extra gas point $275 ea * external sensor light (for outside front) $179 ea * decorative oyster light $70 ea * two way light switch $40 ea I'll dig through some of ours when I get a chance, however I'd be especially interested in people's kitchen upgrades. Slooowwwwly getting a Manhatten 35 in Middleton Grange Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 2Jan 24, 2013 9:03 am Hi MR2, We are building a Impressions 38 in Middleton Grange at the moment, in terms of upgrades it really comes down to what you want. We went in with the thought that we should upgrade the things that we could not upgrade after we moved in. So in saying that anything that was part of the actual frame of the house or a component that we would NOT be able to upgrade post move in. Some of the things we could upgrade ourselves for less cost would be: Doors, Taps and fitting (Although Wisdom already has top products for these), accessories for the kitchen, electrical (Fittings only). Everything else we assigned what our maximum budget for that item, our electrical we put an additional $5K in the variation but still ended up spending about $1K over this but that was not too much a problem as we have all the wiring we need for the house. We got downlights were we wanted downstairs as running cable downstairs is impossible post build, on the 1st floor electrician has access to the roof space so not so difficult to get work down upstairs but you need to make sure that downstairs you put the money in to get it right. We got Clipsal starserve put in and networked the house, always a good thing these days with home media servers etc. Kitchen i think the only upgrade we got was $500 for silk finish, all other things we could add later on. We made sure that the wall along the stairs was painted a feature colour as it would have been a pain to do that ourselves, all other walls are white and we will paint our own feature walls. Frame additions we got added were, moved the upstairs lounge space to the middle with bedrooms either side, been told this is called the "Colt Special" named after one of there sales people as it is a popular mod to do (Should just make it standard, it makes sense). We put about $5K for tiling and stuck to our budget, unless you want palace grade tiles you really don't need to go higher. We removed the carpet from upstairs and stairs and bought wooden floating floor ourselves and will get it installed before moving in, we were quoted about $11-$12K but we can get it in for about $10K, a saving is a saving. Just make sure you put adequate provision in, and stick to what you have allocated otherwise you will find your costs will blow out, if there are things that you can replace later on then leave it and focus on the things you cannot change later, that would be my best advice. Good luck with your build, which part of Middleton Grange are you building? Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 3Jan 24, 2013 9:20 am Great to hear from you Jason, we're over at the 1b release (around the back of the school) the reason I ask about upgrades is that we hate a lot of the kitchen stuff, the included all in one oven means lots of bending over, the cooktop having so many burners so close means you can't fit more than 2-3 pots on at the same time, the rangehood is ugly! :p so I'm curious if anyone has upgraded these and the cost... Some of our Upgrades: H1 slab costs $2,95 Additional Fill/Exp $4.2k Longer run for electrical $600 Salinity grade Slab $3.2k No water tank saves $3k Moroka to front Facade $1.4k Garage Width increase by 600mm $2.5k throw a hand basen in toilet $1,050 upgrade from 20kw classic to 23kw ESP Ultima Aircon $7.3k upgrade 24L standard gas HWS to 27L eco HWS $320 (cheap!) upgrading the insulation was really cheap, keep in mind internal walls/floors are not insulated by default. 2.0 bats around garage/laundry (included? free?) 2.5 bats between first and second floor ($2k) Sound insulation around all first floor internal walls $1.55K 2740mm ground floor ceilings $4.2K 2590 first floor ceilings $4.5K brick veneer above garage $3.6K Slooowwwwly getting a Manhatten 35 in Middleton Grange Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 4Jan 25, 2013 9:46 pm Hey MR2, your kitchen sounds like what ours will be. We also upgraded our stand alone oven to a wall oven too. We had a budget for upgrades, but we seriously underestimated how much everything would cost for electricals and kitchen. Anyway we went well over our budget for these two items, but we had enough in the kitty for these and are very glad we did upgrade these items. But we did have an overall limit so some items we would have liked (nice to have but not essential) but we went without. Some of these things we can do later on anyway. Agree with you jasonw, focus on upgrades that you want that is too hard to do later. ie for us, Bricks for example........we upgraded but then found when we got our DA approval we needed exposure grade bricks, which is what we had chosen anyway. When we were first looking at houses, I found W'dom pretty upfront on upgrade costs. We asked at each W'dom display home a list of their upgrades which they were happy to provide. A lot of builders couldn't (or wouldn't) provide these costs upfront, they said they would only do it at tender. So that put me off going with someone else without at least some idea how much the upgrades we wanted would be. We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 5Jan 28, 2013 1:14 pm Onewheel Hey MR2, your kitchen sounds like what ours will be. We also upgraded our stand alone oven to a wall oven too. We had a budget for upgrades, but we seriously underestimated how much everything would cost for electricals and kitchen. Anyway we went well over our budget for these two items, but we had enough in the kitty for these and are very glad we did upgrade these items. But we did have an overall limit so some items we would have liked (nice to have but not essential) but we went without. Some of these things we can do later on anyway. Can I ask what sort of credit they gave you on the blanco for upgrading to the the wall oven? that's one of the items we're looking at.. trying to get a nicer looking range-hood and stove-top if we can manage it if I'm not pushing it can I ask if you how much extra you put into electrical and Kitchen? I read someone went up to 10k on the Electrical! Hearing posts like that make me think I should just get the cabling run and throw fittings etc on it all as we can afford it, has anyone had the cable run without anything on it? if so how much? Slooowwwwly getting a Manhatten 35 in Middleton Grange Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 6Jan 28, 2013 3:53 pm MR2 Can I ask what sort of credit they gave you on the blanco for upgrading to the the wall oven? that's one of the items we're looking at.. trying to get a nicer looking range-hood and stove-top if we can manage it if I'm not pushing it can I ask if you how much extra you put into electrical and Kitchen? I read someone went up to 10k on the Electrical! Hearing posts like that make me think I should just get the cabling run and throw fittings etc on it all as we can afford it, has anyone had the cable run without anything on it? if so how much? Hi MR2, we were only provided the price difference between the stand alone oven/cooktop as standard and our upgrade - we chose a double Blanco oven and a Blanco gas cooktop - $3,400 extra. As the standalone oven is standard for Wisdom, they would get a better price as they buy so many and get a discount, compared to the oven we requested, which is a one off purchase for us and therefore not attract a discount. Plus as we are getting these items by the builder, builders margin is added As for the extra's, it is probably us you got those upgrade figures from. Out electrical was $11K extra, kitchen $10k ....... I know, sounds excessive But this is our dream home and at the appointment you see the lovely kitchen displays (plus the kitchens in the display homes) and before you know it we added a few things and the cost just adds up. Plus we changed the layout a bit and changed the oven to a wall oven, so there were costs associated with that. Anyway, our kitchen extras included cupboards upgraded to polyurethane, 40mm caesarstone, a caesarstone waterfall edge, extra cabinetary build around wall oven, we also changed our kitchen layout to the standard so there was were extra cupboards, plus we added an extra set of draws. Our package included a glass range hood but we preferred the standard one. On top of the kitchen cost, we also got cupboard fitout to the laundry, plus we got a home theatre cabinet made. As for electricals, well you only get the basic one double powerpoint and one light batton for each standard sized rooms. I think for each bedroom we added two extra powerpoints, plus extras for the living areas, downlights for downstairs only (as we heard it is difficult to put in downlights to the ground level for a 2 story house afterwards, our electrical friend confirmed this), decorative lights for the front of the house, in some places satin switches, outdoor power sockets, twin flood lights for the back of the house, extra TV points, dimmers, sensor light etc. I think to add an extra powerpoint during the build is certainly cheaper than adding one later on. So these were our biggest upgrades. We limited our carpet and tiling upgrades instead, as we found what we liked that was included in the standard, we just upgraded to the best underlay and while the tiles we chose were included in the allowance, they are larger than standard size, so a bit extra for laying cost. Would have liked timber floors, but we have an inside dog and I have had conflicting stories about if they scratch the timber floor or not, anyway we decided to play it safe and we thought best to stick to tiles. We have lived with tiles in our current kitchen and leisure room and are quite happy with them so we were happy to chose tiles again. Would be interested in hearing the cost if you just did the cabling. Do you have an electrican who can add the lights etc after handover? It is interesting reading to see what extra's eveyone has in their build as they are all so different. We didn't do insulation in the internal walls (just external walls as standard) and we put in sound stage insulation around the home theatre walls. We didn't add extra height to the ceilings, we just stuck to the 2590mm ceilings on the ground floor and normal 2440mm height for the 1st floor. So for us the cost savings here we put towards the kitchen and electrical upgrades. For those H1 member reading this, I would say if you want to avoid extra costs, try and get a floor plan you are happy with and make no changes. We loved our floor plan, we just changed a few things and it cost a lot to do so. But we were happy to do this. Change things you cannot change later on. If you want the kitchen you see in the display homes, ask the sales rep how much the upgrades are. The displays are decorated to look their absolute best, which means lots of upgrades. Same with electricals, I found the display homes had lots of down lights, some rooms a lot more than you actually need. I suggest if you want to just add the battons and upgrade to downlights yourself later, make sure you have spoken to an electrican first to see if they can do this for you and how much they will charge. Agree with others in that Wisdom seem to include quality fittings for taps, door handles etc, so no upgrades required there. Anyway, sorry for rattling on, wet rainy day with nothing better to do We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 7Jan 28, 2013 4:42 pm please Rattle on, it's very interesting to see what direction people head and what they are willing to give up... to be honest half the point of this thread is for my partner and I to get a rough cost of everything and workout before time runs out (and we start incurring additional costs) what we are happy to miss out on in exchange for. honestly with the cooktop etc I'm tempted to just buy them myself and and say "use these" then put whatever discount we get against more kitchen stuff, and judging by how small a list of kichen upgrades you put through I can see us doing the 10k as well (Uh OH) did you ever figure out what the rough cost of the items you upgraded to were ? so you get a rough idea of your discount? I notice the latest prestige pack actually goes with a glass rangehood finally! Slooowwwwly getting a Manhatten 35 in Middleton Grange Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 8Jan 28, 2013 7:17 pm I'm interested in prices as well, as the wife and I are currently in the tender process for a Majestic 45. I've found all the sales staff to be very open and honest about prices right from the start whereas other builders wanted $1-2k before disclosing the cost of any upgrades/extras. So far, with the price estimates we've been provided we're up to around $520k for a knockdown/rebuild (not including window fittings, landscaping, pool etc). It's a little higher than I was hoping for so need to see what the actual tender comes to after the survey and soil test.... otherwise, I'll be removing things to get it down to around $500k. Just can't see what I can do without though! Onewheel - I appreciate your blog. It's great to see someone else build the same design as us before we have to go through it all. Which master bedroom layout did you get? The new one has a WIR behind the bedhead. Apparently there's no doors on it as standard? I've been through the Majestic 40 display home in OneMinto and it's looking pretty good Cheers, Dan Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 9Jan 28, 2013 7:57 pm MR2 please Rattle on, it's very interesting to see what direction people head and what they are willing to give up... to be honest half the point of this thread is for my partner and I to get a rough cost of everything and workout before time runs out (and we start incurring additional costs) what we are happy to miss out on in exchange for. honestly with the cooktop etc I'm tempted to just buy them myself and and say "use these" then put whatever discount we get against more kitchen stuff, and judging by how small a list of kichen upgrades you put through I can see us doing the 10k as well (Uh OH) did you ever figure out what the rough cost of the items you upgraded to were ? so you get a rough idea of your discount? I notice the latest prestige pack actually goes with a glass rangehood finally! Yes, I did the same as you, spent hours researching on here for estimate of costs from other people, it certainly helped us decide what we wanted to upgrade and what we would leave as standard. I've looked through my mountain of paperworked and found the RRP from a year ago for the kitchen upgrade - the double oven was RRP $2,899 and the cooktop $1, 499 - so taking away the upgrade cost, our credit must be $998. kidsbuggingme I'm interested in prices as well, as the wife and I are currently in the tender process for a Majestic 45. I've found all the sales staff to be very open and honest about prices right from the start whereas other builders wanted $1-2k before disclosing the cost of any upgrades/extras. So far, with the price estimates we've been provided we're up to around $520k for a knockdown/rebuild (not including window fittings, landscaping, pool etc). It's a little higher than I was hoping for so need to see what the actual tender comes to after the survey and soil test.... otherwise, I'll be removing things to get it down to around $500k. Just can't see what I can do without though! Onewheel - I appreciate your blog. It's great to see someone else build the same design as us before we have to go through it all. Which master bedroom layout did you get? The new one has a WIR behind the bedhead. Apparently there's no doors on it as standard? I've been through the Majestic 40 display home in OneMinto and it's looking pretty good Cheers, Dan Yes, we found the Wisdom staff upfront about costs, which was good to know they had nothing to hide! We've also added a pool plus with expected landscaping, blinds etc I would say we are nudging $550K We realised pretty early on to get the house we really wanted we had to up our budget. To us it is worth it, we are pretty happy with what we have chosen and upgraded. Still would have like to upgrade more things, but hey, maybe for the next house (if I ever win lotto!). Anyway we are not planning to move until we are to old to climb the stairs, lol. Hopefully that is quite a while off yet. Glad to hear you enjoy the blog. I've just checked out the Wisdom site for the new Majestic plans......I like the WIR behind the bed. In our home, with the old majestic plan, there is a lot of room between the end of the bed and the end wall, but we do have a balcony door so that area is a walk way to the balcony. However if I did chose that design, I would be adding doors to hide the clutter of clothes, shoes etc. Nothing else seems to have changed from our plan. But we did modify ours.....our plans are on my blog, should be on page 1. I didn't think the Minto display home was opening til Feb. If it is now open I'll definately have to go down to have a sticky beak....would love to see what they have done with it. I've seen some pics on facebook and it looks fantastic so far. By the looks of it, I'm sure it has lots of upgrades, now I know how much they cost, they have added a lot to the display home. Where are you planning to knock down and rebuild? We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 10Jan 28, 2013 8:27 pm The Minto display home isn't open yet. Wisdom's sales manager let us through for a peek about 2 weeks ago (great service). I think we spent 1/2 an hour walking through looking at room sizes etc. When it's complete and furnished we'll go through again and see if the 40sq is OK for us... although I really, really want the 45! We are building at the foot of the Blue Mountains (Emu Plains). Bought a house late last year on 1290sqm's right on the Nepean River and currently renting it out while we save a bit more money. Hoping to start the build early next year but going to get tender/plans etc done this year - I know it takes a while, so I'm happy stringing the process out for a bit to fit in with our timing I'm struggling just getting quotes for demolition. Have called one company several times over the past 2 weeks but can't get any answers. I guess they don't want my business. Why is it so hard?! lol Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 11Jan 28, 2013 9:13 pm kidsbuggingme The Minto display home isn't open yet. Wisdom's sales manager let us through for a peek about 2 weeks ago (great service). I think we spent 1/2 an hour walking through looking at room sizes etc. When it's complete and furnished we'll go through again and see if the 40sq is OK for us... although I really, really want the 45! We are building at the foot of the Blue Mountains (Emu Plains). Bought a house late last year on 1290sqm's right on the Nepean River and currently renting it out while we save a bit more money. Hoping to start the build early next year but going to get tender/plans etc done this year - I know it takes a while, so I'm happy stringing the process out for a bit to fit in with our timing I'm struggling just getting quotes for demolition. Have called one company several times over the past 2 weeks but can't get any answers. I guess they don't want my business. Why is it so hard?! lol Sorry to intrude in here but stumbled across this post. Check out my blog for a demolition company NOT to go with! Kerith - Building an Eden Brae Newport 40 in Sydney's North http://kerithsedenbraehouse.blogspot.com.au/ Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 12Jan 28, 2013 10:40 pm kidsbuggingme The Minto display home isn't open yet. Wisdom's sales manager let us through for a peek about 2 weeks ago (great service). I think we spent 1/2 an hour walking through looking at room sizes etc. When it's complete and furnished we'll go through again and see if the 40sq is OK for us... although I really, really want the 45! We are building at the foot of the Blue Mountains (Emu Plains). Bought a house late last year on 1290sqm's right on the Nepean River and currently renting it out while we save a bit more money. Hoping to start the build early next year but going to get tender/plans etc done this year - I know it takes a while, so I'm happy stringing the process out for a bit to fit in with our timing I'm struggling just getting quotes for demolition. Have called one company several times over the past 2 weeks but can't get any answers. I guess they don't want my business. Why is it so hard?! lol Ooh you lucky thing getting a sneak peak of the Majestic display home. Since we have had gyprock and kitchen installed etc, our house does feels quite spacious. Hopefully it is once our furniture goes in. Wow, your block sounds lovely, a nice spot at the foot of the mountains. The admin side of building a home does take a while, so good idea to start the process early, especially if you need to organise demolition. A friend of mine did a knock down rebuild, but instead of demolishing their house, they gave it to neighbour for free, who transport the house to a property of theirs. The neighbour had to organise for the house to be cut in half and transported to their block etc, but at least it meant my friend didn't have to demolish it. If your home was suitable for this, maybe something you could think of? We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 13Feb 24, 2013 10:40 pm Hi All, I am in the planning stage, and getting costing for impression 37. I know the current standards is for laminate kitchen. - Can anyone provide me costs to go to polyurethane draws. - Current promotion is 2 walls in bathroom/ensuites to floor to ceiling, to finish the other walls. We just visited the ponds impression 38 mk2. The layout is different, curious are the doors there standard. I believe the stair case is. Trying to get a rough figure on a KDR at the moment. so we know if we are going way above our budget or not. Has anyone put a network patch panel under the staircase, I was told it was $90 per run for cat6 cables. or where else they have put a network setup, or used the clipsal starserve system. Would like to run cat6 cabling throughout the house. appreciate the comments Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 14Feb 24, 2013 10:59 pm Hi ugly99 Poly kitchen upgrade (aspiration) was around $2800 so probably will be similar to this. In relation to full tiling to bathroom,for a $35 per sq metre tile it cost us around $300 extra,but our bathroom is quite small. Good luck! Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 15Feb 25, 2013 8:40 pm ugly99 - Can anyone provide me costs to go to polyurethane draws. We just visited the ponds impression 38 mk2. The layout is different, curious are the doors there standard. I believe the stair case is. Hi Ugly99, our kitchen polyurethene doors upgrade was around $1900. As for the stairs of the Impression 38 mk2 at the ponds, I have heaps of photo's of that home (we loved that home) and I just looked back at the pics. The staircase you get as standard is stainless steel balustrade and painted handrail. The timber stained zigzag trim at the bottom of the balustrade per the impression at the Ponds is not standard but extra. We upgraded our staircase to have a timber stained hand rail and the stained zig zag timber trim per the impression, that total cost was $2,290 As for the doors, plain doors are standard. Those doors in the impression, they are extra too and that is the door design we also chose for most of our internal doors. They cost $78 each door. As you can tell, a lot of our extras were based on that home. All of these costs I have quoted are based on prices quoted Dec 2011 to April 2012, so they may cost a bit more if you got them quoted now. Hope this helps We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 Re: Wisdom Upgrade Costs? 16May 02, 2013 6:18 am Hi MR2 - great post, and thanks to those who have contributed. Very informative as far as getting a general idea in your head as to what the "must haves" are going to cost you. Any guesstimating is better than going in blind as far as I'm concerned! Hi, guys! If you've built with Wisdom Homes, would you mind sharing images of your front facades once they're all rendered? I'm considering signing up with them for a wide… 0 8828 Can someone please offer some advice? Im DESPERATE. Because I'm completely and utterly exhausted. How long are variations taking with other companies at the moment? We… 0 11994 In fairness nobody gave a crap about the ACCC and the gag clauses continued in the pro forma templates of a few other builders after the ACCC took on Wisdom, and more… 20 57649 |