Stoneleigh Dale Alcock Baldivis

Sorry I didn't mean to worry you Kelsey! Like Tbrown said, big river comes in 2 types: a prefinshed; and a raw. They only use the raw in their displays, which means it is put down, sanded, buffed, and then 3 coats are put on afterwards. Prefinished is just put down and that is it as it already has the coating. Fingers crossed it you have the correct flooring.

Hey! Looks like things are coming along nicely.
We have just built this house ourselves with a few differences internally (front end remodeled similar stoneleigh display) and one thing I am going to mention, because it kinda bugs me is the alfresco. See what I costs to get rid of the mid pier. And also see if you can have the piers pushed out to the eaves. I kinda wish I had of done this, the alfresco seems so long but just a tad bit narrow at the 3250 width with the pier in the middle... Just a suggestion after having ours up and able to stand in it.

Otherwise everything else is quite nicely portioned and people comment on how big the Howe is when they check it out! It really is such a great simple layout and flows so well... Although I seem to forget about the part of the house after the games room becaus the main area is just so big and nice!!

Good luck, we have had a great run with Dales and hope you do also.

Just another one I would mention and consider, the bathroom window, check out pictures of the stoneleigh. I would consider changing to the same as that window, it fills the whole back wall and for some reason I just think it makes the room a bit bigger and looks nicer!

Hi Jelbell,

We are a bit behind you in the building journey (waiting on April titles) but we had a cornice upgrade costed into our original contract price, $320 not too bad I thought.

Thanks for the helpful suggestions Dewish. We reconfigured the ensuite at prestart so we will have a narrow window in between the his and hers basins that is flush with the stone bench top, and changed the window in the ensuite to clear glass to let lots of natural light in.. we are hoping this small change makes the bathroom feel bigger and brighter rather than where the window was originally on our plans.

It is great to get feedback from someone else who is living in the same home! I guess we don't pick up these little things until we have moved in!

I agree with the alfresco that it is quite narrow however my partner and I are planning to build our second woodfire pizza oven so we are thinking the narrow alfresco has actually been a great thing as our block isn't the biggest! Planning to squeeze this in on the side of the alfresco so fingers crossed we have enough room.. now that we have one I don't think I could live without it!

Congrats on your building journey approaching.. hopefully April comes around quickly for you! Thanks for the advice on the cornices, we did that upgrade at prestart on friday... well worth it I think and the swan cornices look really nice!

So this week was such a huge week for us both!

We had our Intelligent Homes consult on Thursday and our Prestart, electrical, and lighting consult on Friday!!

We are so wrapped and over the moon how everything went.. Our Intelligent Homes consultant was really helpful. We had a smart wire package included in our contract, however we wanted to make sure our home is well set up to accommodate what we are planning on doing after handover so we did add quite a few extras. We are getting them to do our security system, intercom (as we will have a retaining wall and locked gate around the front of the house) 4 wall mounted tv's with tv/data connections, wiring so we can have 2x ceiling speakers in the master bed, 2x ceiling speakers to the home theatre including connections for future surround sound, 2x ceiling speakers to the living and dining, 2x ceiling speakers to the games room, 2x ceiling speakers to the alfresco and 2 wall mounted speakers over the future pool area. We had extra wiring for a future J/Box to be put in our WIL towards the back of the house for the internet. We will have a home theatre consult with them to choose speakers surround sound etc when the build is roughly 2 months away from being ready as they don't like to install anything until after handover.

Prestart was just even better! We had the most amazing prestart consultant and she had lots of great ideas for us. We can't believe the thought that had been put into our house before we arrived. We had the best day it was a lot of fun! I think it helped that we knew exactly what we wanted.. we were there from 9.30 until 1pm! and we did everything including our downlights and electrical.. I think it was well worth having an instore lighting consult with a lighting store to get positioning of downlights and external lights right... it meant we could go in and know what to expect in terms of costing and to get everything exactly right! We are very shocked that the builders lighting came in the same as what it would have cost to have it done after handover. The only thing they couldn't do was the 3 pendant lights over the kitchen bench... They have been really great It is going to feel so great walking in knowing we don't have to do much at all!!!!

I will upload some pics soon of our selections

Excellent that everything went so well. Prestart felt like Christmas to me - loved it !!!!
Looking foward to seeing your choices

Glad to hear such positive things jelbel, we are just finalising our plans to build the stoneleigh as well

So glad you had a great time at Prestart, we are choosing our colours on Friday, I've got the exterior sorted but I'm somewhat stumped with the bathrooms in particular. Hoping we get the same super duper consultant. What sort of things did she suggest out of interest?

How exciting about your colour consult on friday all the best with it all! What sort of things are you stuck on with your bathroom? She suggested the following:

To reconfigure the drawers in kitchen so the top draw is not as deep as the bottom 2,
To remove the 2 top shelves on one side of our kitchen pantry and put power points along there to keep appliances off our kitchen bench/to create a larder.
No handles to any of the overhead cupboards in kitchen and laundry.
To keep all handles horizontal throughout the house to keep it all uniform throughout.
We changed the standard 4 drawer cutlery draw to 3 drawers, matching the other drawers in the kitchen so the handles all line up with one another.
We upgraded our wet area tiles and she recommended Mitred tiling to the home to finish it off.
We now have a Nib wall to the ensuite shower to accommodate the towel rail (there was no where to put it when we extended our shower)
She did little things like raise the mirrors slightly in the ensuite so they lined up with the window etc.
We extended the mirror right across the bath and raised the tiling in bathroom 2 to give the bathroom a bigger feel
At no extra cost we were recommended to have a set back hobs to ensuite to create a floating look to the vanity
Broom section to WIL rather than the shelving coming all the way across. We also added a power point in here.

I hope these suggestions are helpful

How exciting Kait-e! I can't wait to follow your build too. I can't believe how popular the stoneleigh has been All the best look forward to following

Some of our selections from prestart...

Kitchen tap Technobili Flag Pull out Gooseneck sink mixer


2 of these shower heads in the ensuite double shower


His and Hers basins


We got a bigger basin for bathroom 2 and a different shower head.

Mixers for ensuite and bathroom


Swan cornices


Front entrance door and handle: as we went for a 920 wide and a 28 course raised entrance door this was our only option for a solid timber door, however luckily it matches the remainder of brentwood doors throughout the home.



Yay a custom fit out to master dressing room...Also are getting Dale alcock to put in a 2mx1m mirror to dressing room


Also have upgraded kitchen pantry door to a clear brentwood door to match the remainder of the living areas of the home. We have clear glazed brentwood doors to entrance hallway (double and 1250high), study, double to home theatre, kitchen pantry, games room and rear hallway.

We changed the window in the ensuite to be clear glazed rather than frosted.
Extended 30mm caesarstone bench to alfresco with bar fridge space and cabinets underneath with Grano to suit. Paradox grey (same tiles as wet areas) 300x600 porcelain to alfresco wall above stone bench top (splash back/feature)
Anticon roofing installation to home.
We have a price for the Makrolon garage door
Reconfigured drawers in kitchen and all handles horizontal.
Cold tap to kitchen fridge recess.
Hafele Euro cargo bin drawer to kitchen
No handles to kitchen or laundry overheads
Mitred Tiling to home
Reconfigured the master ensuite
Included a bulkhead above ensuite vanity
Set back hobs to ensuite vanity
Double shower rail in ensuite, and towel ladder in bathroom 2
Bathroom 2 has the extended mirror above the bath with raised tiling to suit
Hafele Laundry pull out basket
Upgrade standard range of caesarstone colours throughout
Arteor switches as an upgrade
Broom section to WIL
Removal of 2 shelves in kitchen pantry with power points so I can keep appliances in there

Electrical:
52 downlights throughout, including 8 to alfresco (dimmable in master, theatre living, dining and games)
15 starlights throughout (3 in bulkhead to study, 3 to bulkhead in master ensuite, 3 above vanity and bath in bathroom 2, 6 in bulkhead to living room)
5 pillar lights to external front elevation
4 bunker lights to remainder of external
flood light to future pool area
2 fans to alfresco


One thing we are very nervous about from prestart is where we moved the kitchen sink to. We moved it to the left not thinking that it would take up more of the breakfast bar space (at the time we were trying to make more cabinet space and move it more towards the dishwasher) We also then designed some of the cabinets below around the sink. I think it needs to be changed so the sink is more to the right (closer to the bifolds) but this means we have to reconfigure where the dishwasher and bin space is???!!! Silly mistake but hopefully wont be hard to change if allowed to...

Sounds like great upgrades and changes you have made. Wow 52 down lights!!!
With regards to the kitchen cabinet arrangements, do you have a layout to post? I was just saying to my hubby other day how great our positioning of sink/bin/dishwasher works for us.
Really looking forward to rest of your choices

I really do love your kitchen layout Tbrown so your help is very much appreciated Thank you. Our kitchen bench isn't as long as yours but here is a pic of our change at prestart and something I came up with tonight.. I really don't want the sink directly infront of the bifolds but I am thinking to move it right instead of left is best. What do you think? Also to add another set of 3 pot drawers.. do you think they will let us change it? We only just got the prestart variation costings through yesterday havent signed off on anything yet

Prestart drawings..


How i am thinking it will work better with more space with the breakfast bar...

Definitely prefer your second option. I am quite sure they will be happy to accommodate you. Email them in the morning!
Quickly took a couple of snaps of our sink layout in relation to bifolds/sink/dishwasher/bin. Excuse the mess!!




Once the bifolds are open the sink ends up being hidden from outside by the folded up window. Having the bin and dishwasher next to each other is also great for scraping off plates etc.
Love that you got rid of narrow cutlery drawers too and added wide drawers. I love mine!!

Thank you so much Tbrown your help has been amazing. I love the kitchen layout... I agree I would prefer the dishwasher by the bin drawer but that means having the sink more in front of the bifolds or going back to a narrower cutlery draw and 1 single cupboard, rather than being able to phase these out and replace them with another pot drawer (which I love!) I think your sink works really well infront of the bifolds, especially because you have a really long space there. I think I would be worried to put the sink infront of ours because I only have 3 windows here, so it would block off the space. Thank you so much for your photos you have an amazing layout there and I cannot thank you enough for uploading them for me. I think I will emailing them in the morning for sure now after seeing your pics, you have certainly confirmed the decision!

Would agree not to block up your bifold area as it is 3 panels like the display and a feature. Your second option is great! Good luck

Thank you, your help is amazing