Sekisui | Burbank - Cedarwood1828

Hi everyone

Like many others, we've used these forums extensively for ideas, tips, traps to look for and general information about builders. Figured its time now to try and give back to the homeone community and share our experiences too as we progress along the way.

Our block is 450m2, south facing with dimensions that are better suited to a double but we were after a single design - more so for lifestyle but budget was a factor too of course. Difficult finding a project builder with plans we liked AND who were flexible with design alternations. Done the usual (multiple) visits to display villages all across Sydney. We tried working with some builders to modify potential plans to our liking, and looked into doubles too. Finally came across the Cedarwood1828 design by Sekisui on display at Kellyville - Its not a big plan and in some aspects space is wasted but we liked the feel and flow of the design and the separation of living and sleeping quarters - plus it fit on our block without modification!

Naturally, we stalked as many Sekisui threads as we could find on H1, and decided to sign contracts in May 2016. Thank you to all your sekisui thread authors/contributors, for your all updates, photos and ideas - and frustration venting too I guess - its given us some expectation to what will come and how to resolve should the situation arise for us yvonneh clintdb cat_dunc shazaw The_joneses trimum

We've also had to novate to Burbank and faced some supplier changes too. Currently on the 3rd CSO and 3rd SS. The first SS was hopeless, no communication and just resigned after taking annual leave after Xmas break. Yet to meet a SS in person, but was asked to meet concretors for slab stage - which gave alot of confidence seeing the working relationship and trust between builder and contractors. Current SS gives weekly updates over phone.

High level timeline to back date our journey;
May: Contract
Jun: Colours
Sep: Eletrical appointment
Nov: Site ready
Dec: Site pegged, fenced
Feb: Redo electrical appointment (supplier change), excavation/levelling, piers (under allowanace, Yes!), pods and reinforcement
Mar: pre-slab indepedant inspection, slab poured, tile appointment, flooring and roof tile re-selection (supplier change)
Now: Plumber is currently backlogged due to recent 3 weeks of rains. Next: External pumping. and frame delivery

Yay to the new thread!

And remember to feed us... Hungry for photos 😎 📷 🐷

Plans - Didn't alter much - apart from the below the rest is standard design

Facade - Option was either as per display ($40K) or standard. Chose the standard.
Butler - Deleted sink, CSD to hallway & cabinetry. Moved fridge space to bench area. Enclosing the area and turned in a WIP
Courtyard - Added concrete slab
Height - 2590mm
Kitchen - Clark double undermount, increase island width, handless overheads, bulkheads, glass splashback
Glazing - ThermaLine double glaze to kitchen, and ComfortPlus to family stackers.
Entry door - 920mm with trilock omni handle
Upgrade package - Daikin ducted air, 90mm smeg appliances, 40mm silestone edging to kitchen benchtop and island incl waterfall, 20mm silestone to bathrooms, shower niches, 20 downlights, monitored alarm
and other minor fittings and fixtures


Post handover will be doing a a timber pergola to courtyard with toughened glass or poly tinted cover. And also a small deck and timber uncovered pergola outside the family room.

Slab done. Waiting for external plumber who was due today, but I guess cancelled because of today's rains. Frame delivery is being pushed back until drainage is complete. Oh. and the wrong double glazed door was delivered - only a standard DGU not ThermaLine. Devastated, but SS is sorting out with office people now. Hope they don't come up with some sort of excuse to not swap it.

Yeyyyyyy, welcome to H1 exciting to see more Sekisui / Burbank.
Great to see your plans, wishing you a smooth build ( from what I have read on H1 that not going to happen).
Keep up with pics!!

Build Thread : viewtopic.php?=31&t=81624

Great news! Sekisui (Burbank) have some great designs at Kellyville the only issue I have noticed is that sometimes the communication between contractors and Burbank can be a bit off and you need to be on top of everything, we kept all our emails and leaflets from Sekisui and we often bring them out to quote to Burbank if we need to clarify what we agreed with Sekisui. I found Sekisui absolutely fantastic to deal with and am sorry they changed hands but Burbank are doing ok, the weather isn't their fault.
Can't wait to see more of your progress I like your plans they look lovely clean lines and very typical of Sekisui!


Our Acacia build - http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=86619

Nice!!!! A very similar plan to Yvonne I think!
Which way is north on your block?
So glad our threads have been of help.
Hope your build goes really smoothly.

Thanks shazaw - if we can stick to our current SS or even revert back the 2nd SS, I remain hopeful on the progress. Looking forward to seeing your bricks! Wonder if they will do bricks or roofing first...

Hi cat, Thanks! yeah its a baby version of Yvonne's, quite jealous of her plan and block haha
We feel bad we only stalked your thread but never contributed to it - we sort of had nothing helpful to add though if you know what I mean.
If looking from the street, North is at the back. So the kitchen/courtyard area is west.

Thanks trimum! and I'm glad you mentioned you have had to present the background/paperwork etc to Burbank. We thought we might have been abit too controlling, but we knew that a change of hands may lead to confusion and discrepancies. At the beginning we were happy to give them the benefit of the doubt, but recently we've had to pull up our tender discussion email trails to prove a particular product was estimated and quoted for as per tender wording. We've also asked for our work order end panels, so we know what is in contract is being released through to work order. No discrepancies found.

Yes agree Sekisui was awesome to deal with - there wasn't a single contact or process point we weren't happy with. We particularly liked dealing with our colour consultant Annisa. Makes us want to build a Shawood if we were to do it again. Yes and also agree Burbank are doing ok - must not be easy and I have to admit they've been accommodating where they are able to be.

I'm super jealous of your kitchen and HUGE Walk in Pantry.


oooohhhh... I may be too late... and it may not matter -- you may want it this way! -- but just wanted to point out that in your bedrooms (bed 3 and 4) where you have the sliding doors that it's very hard to 'secure'. I have friends of ours who always said that if they had doors in the bedrooms they would make sure there was an operable window. You have space for it but I'm not sure if it's too late for the variation!! I know I wanted to put a french door in our rear bedroom and a window on the side for air flow.

Thanks for the input yvonne, man we took about 2 weeks to decide what to do with bed3/4 for the same reason you've said! ultimately the rooms are/block is small and we have the same config now at our current place - although they on FF, behind a set of security bar type doors and step out to a balcony so they are more secure. The options we considered were;
1) Delete sliding doors. Add 1372-1810 windows. Would mean the 2057-610 awning in bed3 will be out of proportion
2) Add another 2057-610 to bed 4 to give ventilation option like bed 3. Felt room was too small already, and removes privacy from future rear deck outside family.
3) Leave as is & install invisiguard/crimsafe post handover. Costly but should enable ventilation & security

Decided with option 3 - hope they work! ... :/ Will potentially use these rooms as home office and crafts rooms.
Anyone have experience with using invisgard/crimsafe products?

Plans from the brochure. Biggest lesson we've learned so far as we're building for the first time - is finding a block big enough and at the right dimensions to suit our and the plans needs. We approached it backwards - buying the block then find/modifying a plan that suits.

Setback from family are bed3/4 are only 4.8m and 3.4m respectively. Wanted to extend family room in line with bed3/4 but also wanted to retain some outdoor zone in the rear.
Also considered extending family room in line with garage but wanted to retain external walkway access along side gate/courtyard/rear yard. With the watertank behind family room, such an extension would have only left approx 500mm walkway to boundary. Didn't want to be forced to use family room everytime we need access from courtyard to rear

Oh well. we'll know next time, IF there is a next time lol

weekly update from SS

*Plumber was scheduled for Monday that just passed. Rained Mon&Tue. Plumbers been out again today and decided site is too wet. Now working on digging a channel to assist with drainage
*External plumbing now expected to complete by Tue11th/Wed12th
*Frame delivery expected Thur13th just before Easter long weekend
*Sliding door confirmed incorrect & to be replaced. ThermaLine is being re-ordered by office people

You are very lucky to have weekly update from SS. We don't even know the name of our SS, let alone up date from SS.
Yes if the ground is very wet it will be hard for them to dig and work on plumbing, we need a bit of dryness ( no more rain) for everyone to catch up
can't wait to see more photos from you and trimum.

Build Thread : viewtopic.php?=31&t=81624

We have a sort of weekly update from our SS although when nothing happens all week we get no call which is when we want a call the most!!!


Our Acacia build - http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=86619

meh. Drove by the site after work, nothings changed. pretty sure he said plumbers were digging now. Must of heard wrong

These plumbers need to unblock their schedules

btw, have you done your tile selections Shazaw?

Did our tile appointment Saturday that just went by. This was our colour inspiration theme... hoping we pulled it off...



Selections (excuse the bad photos, didn't adjust for lighting)

Bathroom & ensuite floors: Link Fumo 300x300 matt rectified matching grout
Bathroom feature wall to ceiling (over bath hob & up the wall): Link Fumo 300x600 matt rectified matching grout.
Bathroom & ensuite walls to ceiling: White gloss 300x600 rectified white grout


Laundry floor: 300x300 Manchester Sand matt limestone grout
Laundry splashback: 100x300 classic white gloss Brickbond



Porch: 300x600 Summit Mocha matt off white grout


1 - Square grate with hair catcher: Shower drains
2 - Smart tile insert: bathroom/ensuite/laundry floor drains
3 - Square set polished chrome trims: shower niches and bathhob

ha ha funny " plumbers need to unblock" lol

No we are still waiting for invite for tiles appointment. Just recovering from final decision on our electrical plans. Drain energy out of me. lol
With Sekisui we added extras and upgraded around $4000, now we have added extra with Burbank $3720. We signed off electrical plan today. I'm very glad that we have already added extras with sekisui, the price differences from 2014 and 2017 are shocking.

Thanks for sharing your tile selections, I do have grey stone for guest room ensuite and powder room.

Build Thread : viewtopic.php?f=31&t=81624

Love your tile selections!!! Agree with the prices we went for an upgrade of all downstairs tiling execpt 4th bed and floor to ceiling tiles in bathrooms, we still ended up with $8k of upgrades but half of this was to tile the alfresco think we were overcharged but decided to get it done at the same time otherwise I'm not sure we would!


Our Acacia build - http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=86619