Building with Dale Alcock SOR - PCI 24/4

Oh and don't know if you have a robot vacumn but one thing I was glad I did was put a power point in the bottom of the linen cupboard so the vacumn I didn't have at the time (but have bought since) has a place to be.

Wow navs that is good value!!

So here are our choices from today. I love white and grey but was really worried that the house would be to cold looking so we did try to add some other colour.

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Bathrooms
cupboards: Sepia oak
bench top: polar white

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Laundry
cupboards: Char oak
Bench tops Classic white
overheads: Classic white

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Kitchen
Feature under breakfast bar: Char oak
Bench top: Caesarstone "snow"
Bench tops Classic white

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External
Render: Southwards
Feature render: 50% Wallaby
Roof: Surfmist
Gutters: Shale grey
Bricks: Amaretto

Great choices Tanya. We chose a lot of char oak cabinet in our selections. How did you go with the main tiles? Did you get any indication in price?

No cost on the main tiles yet. A bit scared because we didn't look for a back up. Our two big cost were going to be the living area tiles and honed aggregate outside so we made the decision to keep the included pavers to save enough money to hopefully afford the living room tiles.

Fingers crossed its affordable. Good move on the paving, We got pricing for aggregate, but it was almost 7k extra for the drive and front verandah. We really weren't sure on the paver matching our bricks so we removed all of the paving and will work out what we'll do at a later stage.

I had a huge driveway being a battleaxe and was quoted $10k for aggregate so we went with their tiles, I think I picked the same colour as you actually and it looks pretty good, especially after the rain we've had which washed all the sand off.

I'm just wondering about your bathrooms - the laminate white benchtops will be hard to keep clean though, wouldn't you rather have dark benchtops and white cupboards?

My quote for honed aggregate for the driveway, alfresco and around the pool was $21,000 The upgrade to the bigger pavers is going to cost us about $1500.



Hmmm I hadn't thought about that. The easiest solution would be to swap the cupboard and bench top colours but not sure if the laminate we picked for the cupboard would look good as a bench top. Might have to discuss with DH.

Love the advice you get on this forum. Thanks navs

We actually took our prestart lady's advice and went with the same colour benchtop and cupboard so it looks like one big cupboard, we are hoping it will look more timeless and I find the bathroom so hard to keep clean with my continual shedding of hair ( I swear I'm moulting) so I just wanted to keep the benchtop and tiles a dark colour.

Actually just looked on my phone and the laundry I did a dark grey benchtop with white cupboards and it looks alright actually. I'll have to check the actual laminate colour for you to see if it matches yours though.

I am just after some advice on flyscreens for bi-fold doors. We get the standard ones included in the build but when we went up to the display home they were very flimsy and hard to use. We had decided we would upgrade them but the only other Dales option is a security sliding screen door. We were informed they are quite expensive (I am getting them costed but still not sure I even like them). I just want a standard flyscreen that wont be difficult to use on a daily basis. Any advice would be most appreciated.

I do like the look of dark benchtops and white cupboards but the dark laminate we are using has a grain in it and that is why I am not sure if it would look good as a benchtop. I cant stop doubting all the colour decisions we made. Our prestart consultant was lovely so I don't think she would let us make a really bad mistake but I just really struggle to picture what it is going to look like.

Thought it was time to upload some photos showing our block transformation.

Firstly the original house
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The demolition process
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Gone!
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The back fence has been replaced and the pool is in.
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Still waiting on my costing from pre-start, had to try not to constantly check my email today at work. Can't wait to find out if we can afford our floor tiles!

Progress!!! Pool looks great too. Hope your floor tiles come in under budget.

Thanks navs. I am a bit worried about the pool now as it isn't being protected in the way I was told it would be. The pool company constantly talked about it being sealed with plank and mesh, so I paid $2000 for them to do this. Went around to check it out last week and the mesh is not covered, the holes in the mesh are about 5cm x 5cm. I am so stressed about the pool getting damaged during the build. I rang the pool company to get an explanation and he has assured me it will be fine, but I am still going to worry up until the day we have the pool handover. At this stage I am regretting putting it in before the build.



On a brighter note we got our costs back today. The tile price is at the lower end of the range that we were expecting . I think we should do it but I haven't had a chance to talk to DH about it. I think he would be happy to stick with them because we built all of our colour selection from these tiles and I don't think either of us want to start the whole process again!

Now just to organise finance and hopefully I can sit back and relax for a while and leave it up to the builder!

From my experience, get everything in writing - get those pool guys to guarantee it in writing and that way if it does get damaged you've got recourse. Everything verbal can be denied later.

Fabulous news about the tiles. Yep the hard work is over for now, you deserve a wine. It's amazing how many moments you'll find deserving of alcohol over the next few months haha

So true! So many moments we have celebrated with a glass (or two) of wine.

The house was demolished - bottle of wine.
We made it through pre-start - bottle of wine

I have a nice bottle of sparkling in the fridge waiting to celebrate when the slab goes down.

If another moment doesn't happen beforehand haha

Went for a walk around the block on the weekend and saw that someone had been out to re-peg the site. Looks like all the fences are out of alignment. Both neighbours have encroached on our land. Really starting to worry this is going to push back the beginning of construction.

Hi Tanyaw,

Just dropping in to say hi and thanks for the demo company contact. Compliments on your selection of colours, tapware, and sink!

We will be demolishing and building in Bull Creek so I will be following your build with interest.

I have been reading in this forum for about a few months now and we have finally selected our builder and signed up with Redink. I was thinking about starting our build thread but they have not sent us the final PCQ plan yet

Hi Redsin,

Cant wait to see your build coming along. There are so many houses being demolished in Bull Creek at the moment. Makes me feel so much better about our decision to demolish when I see the rejuvenation going on in the suburb.



No worries, hope all goes well.

Following your build - good luck!