Our Simonds Express Journey (Westbury)

GemmaS · Sep 13, 2015 8:14 am

Hi all!
Starting a thread to document our build! We are super excited!
We decided to go with the Simonds Express Westbury, premium specs, ash colour scheme (but we have changed a few things)

Our land is picked and we are in contract, just waiting on finance approval which has been a huge stuff around with the bank changing policy at the last minute and basically asking us to come up with another $20,000 before they would approve us. We are almost there though & hopefully the ball will be rolling again in the next week or two! So frustrating having everything picked and contracts waiting to be signed but not being able to do anything for now!

Megera · Sep 13, 2015 3:27 pm

Yay another express build!
Where abouts are you building?
What things were you able to change?

Very much looking forward to seeing your progress! We're building the Rathdowne.

bourbonchick · Sep 17, 2015 10:15 pm

We are building the Nicholson, its at frame stage. Very exciting.

TomCat · Sep 17, 2015 11:34 pm

Have fun!

Mustang30 · Sep 19, 2015 11:43 am

Am building Westbury too..... did they help you with some changes to colours etc ??

GemmaS · Sep 21, 2015 1:24 pm

Megera

Yay another express build!
Where abouts are you building?
What things were you able to change?

Very much looking forward to seeing your progress! We're building the Rathdowne.

We are building in South Vic (Bass Coast region)
Colour pack wise we are using the tiles out of the blackwood pack as we liked the darker ones better & we are getting colour matched black grout to avoid the grid look that would come with white grout. We changed our cabinetry to Formica snowdrift velour finish as I was worried that the malibu would be too cream against all the white / grey / black.
We added some extra tiling to the lounge / walkthrough area as I was worried about having carpet in such a heavy traffic area. We upgraded our laundry to include a bench & overhead cupboards.
Not sure how to put pics on here, any advice? Would love to show our progress

GemmaS · Sep 21, 2015 1:29 pm

Our finance application is going back in on Wednesday, fingers crossed all goes smoothly this time!!!

Megera · Sep 21, 2015 4:29 pm

GemmaS

Megera

Yay another express build!
Where abouts are you building?
What things were you able to change?

Very much looking forward to seeing your progress! We're building the Rathdowne.

We are building in South Vic (Bass Coast region)
Colour pack wise we are using the tiles out of the blackwood pack as we liked the darker ones better & we are getting colour matched black grout to avoid the grid look that would come with white grout. We changed our cabinetry to Formica snowdrift velour finish as I was worried that the malibu would be too cream against all the white / grey / black.
We added some extra tiling to the lounge / walkthrough area as I was worried about having carpet in such a heavy traffic area. We upgraded our laundry to include a bench & overhead cupboards.
Not sure how to put pics on here, any advice? Would love to show our progress

That's so lucky that you were able to change things! I think the changes you made are really smart!

I've uploaded my pics on flickr and then copied the share code from there :-)

bourbonchick · Sep 21, 2015 8:45 pm

GemmaS

Our finance application is going back in on Wednesday, fingers crossed all goes smoothly this time!!!

Good luck

Mustang30 · Sep 22, 2015 3:58 pm

GemmaS

Megera

Yay another express build!
Where abouts are you building?
What things were you able to change?

Very much looking forward to seeing your progress! We're building the Rathdowne.

We are building in South Vic (Bass Coast region)
Colour pack wise we are using the tiles out of the blackwood pack as we liked the darker ones better & we are getting colour matched black grout to avoid the grid look that would come with white grout. We changed our cabinetry to Formica snowdrift velour finish as I was worried that the malibu would be too cream against all the white / grey / black.
We added some extra tiling to the lounge / walkthrough area as I was worried about having carpet in such a heavy traffic area. We upgraded our laundry to include a bench & overhead cupboards.
Not sure how to put pics on here, any advice? Would love to show our progress

Hello Gemma,
Am very impressed on the changes you have made. Particularly upgrade to Laundry. Lucky you managed to get these done.

Did they charge your extra for the changes. Even am struggling to post pictures. I would also love to share our progress and we are currently close to the lock up stage.

GemmaS · Sep 22, 2015 5:35 pm

Yes, very excited about our laundry, a bench & extra storage in there was a must have for me (three kids under 7 lol), I'm not entirely sure how much extra that was, I will find out on Tuesday next week at our contract signing appointment!!!!! The colour changes for the cupboards & tiles were just straight swaps so didn't cost anything & I think the tiling to the front lounge is costing around $1800, but well worth it not to have carpet in that walk through area I think. We also added a tint to our front concrete driveway / entrance, that is costing $800. I think I've worked out the photo thing, I opened a Tumblr account, fingers crossed these links work!

(Laundry layout) http://gemmas85.tumblr.com/image/129627297063
(Colour selections) http://gemmas85.tumblr.com/image/129627348063

Background of the pic is our floor/bathroom tile, round sample is paint colour, caesarstone is kitchen bench, Formica is all kitchen, laundry & bathroom cupboards, and Laminex for bathroom & laundry benches.

Going with a very Black, white & grey scheme & will add pops of colour in the furnishings

GemmaS · Sep 22, 2015 5:54 pm

Block pics

https://41.media.tumblr.com/e1909ad31bf ... 3_1280.jpg
https://40.media.tumblr.com/287c7bf7c4b ... 2_1280.jpg
https://41.media.tumblr.com/f704e1602c6 ... 1_1280.jpg

Megera · Sep 22, 2015 6:24 pm

GemmaS

Yes, very excited about our laundry, a bench & extra storage in there was a must have for me (three kids under 7 lol), I'm not entirely sure how much extra that was, I will find out on Tuesday next week at our contract signing appointment!!!!! The colour changes for the cupboards & tiles were just straight swaps so didn't cost anything & I think the tiling to the front lounge is costing around $1800, but well worth it not to have carpet in that walk through area I think. We also added a tint to our front concrete driveway / entrance, that is costing $800. I think I've worked out the photo thing, I opened a Tumblr account, fingers crossed these links work!

(Laundry layout) http://gemmas85.tumblr.com/image/129627297063
(Colour selections) http://gemmas85.tumblr.com/image/129627348063

Background of the pic is our floor/bathroom tile, round sample is paint colour, caesarstone is kitchen bench, Formica is all kitchen, laundry & bathroom cupboards, and Laminex for bathroom & laundry benches.

Going with a very Black, white & grey scheme & will add pops of colour in the furnishings

Now I'm wishing we would've asked about the colour match grout! I really like the idea of the upper cupboards (and bench!) in the laundry, we might have to look at doing that after handover.
The pictures work, thanks for posting them! If you put the links between (img) -- (/img) (use square brackets instead of round) then they'll show up in the thread.

GemmaS · Sep 23, 2015 1:50 pm

Awesome, thanks for the pic tip!
Yes, I love the idea of colour matching the grout, hate that grid look..

Azure2015 · Sep 23, 2015 7:15 pm

Do you have a site start date? We
were told 30/9 but they were onsite the day after the land settled.😁

GemmaS · Sep 23, 2015 9:51 pm

Oh wow that's awesome! Our settlement is currently Dec 11, but we are hoping our finance will be approved in the next week or so and the vendor is happy to settle ASAP so we will bring it forward. Our original start date was Nov 6th (before the bank stuffed us around) so we are hoping to be back around there somewhere!

GemmaS · Sep 30, 2015 8:16 am

Contracts signed yesterday! Just waiting on a call (should be today) for finance approval!!!! They told us yesterday they are starting sites within 2 weeks of settlement and contracts at the moment so we have our fingers crossed for an October or November start!!!

Azure2015 · Sep 30, 2015 9:23 pm

GemmaS

Contracts signed yesterday! Just waiting on a call (should be today) for finance approval!!!! They told us yesterday they are starting sites within 2 weeks of settlement and contracts at the moment so we have our fingers crossed for an October or November start!!!

How did you go?

GemmaS · Oct 02, 2015 11:27 am

OMG when will we catch a break!!! Westpac are finally happy with us as borrowers and have pre-approved us, but the valuation on the land came back bad, no one can work out why other than the valuer was having a bad day

So now we have had to order a valuation from Commonwealth and hope that comes back fine so we can use it to convince westpac that it's fine... Grrrrr!!! All the while hubby has an awesome job offer on the table but can't accept it until our finance is approved.. I'm loosing my mind!

Azure2015 · Oct 04, 2015 8:40 pm

GemmaS

OMG when will we catch a break!!! Westpac are finally happy with us as borrowers and have pre-approved us, but the valuation on the land came back bad, no one can work out why other than the valuer was having a bad day

So now we have had to order a valuation from Commonwealth and hope that comes back fine so we can use it to convince westpac that it's fine... Grrrrr!!! All the while hubby has an awesome job offer on the table but can't accept it until our finance is approved.. I'm loosing my mind!

Oh no!! Our bank/valuer (and most I've dealt with) go on contract price.