Fowler Homes Catalina 23 - Oran Park

lemans Jealous of all the space! A pull out hamper is a dream!

Your new selection is lovely! Still matches your original selection
I hope this doesnt affect our tiles too! we picked the same 450x450! and an extra $5k is heaps too

Oh wow, you chose kierrastone too was it an upgrade for you or standard in the new packages?

The kierrastone tiles are very nice aren’t they!

I wonder why Abruzzo doesn’t have them in 600x600 cause in other tile stores / online they stock all sorts of sizes.


Depending on when your SS requests for your tiles and if Abruzzo has it in stock by then, i don’t think you will be affected. If it does affect you, you can just reselect whatever you like and stick to your standard selection, it was my decision to upgrade cause i wanted to change to rectified porcelain.

When i spoke to the guy from Abruzzo he said there were two reasons why i had to reselect.

1. Mine were arriving in June and my SS wants to start tiling next week
2. Even though it was from the same batch, my tiles are in three different shades of the same grey. Don’t know how that happened but it did

Yes! We fell in love with it as soon as we saw it!
We paid an extra $5 per sq/m. Not too different! Worth the upgrade. I would have loved to upgrade to the 600x600, but it was out of our budget. Yea we were warned as well by our consultation lady that batches may differ in colour. At least they were upfront with it which is nice, and the price your paying reflect the porcelain

You'd think Fowler would let you get the upgraded tiles for free due to the last minute issue.
Absolutely loving all your selections and how nicely your house is coming together!!

Really jealous that i didnt think to gwt pull out drawers for the laundry! Love that!!

We have a construction date! 13th June! Finally!

Hooray!! Congratulations!

Oh yay!! Thats awesome!!

Thank you! Super excited to get build going!

Hows everything going with you portofino38?

Congrats again on your handover Lara21! Your ensuite bathroom looks amazing! have you encountered anything yet that you're not happy with?

Slooooooow...... its taken them forever to get the scaffolding down... and now waiting to get the forst floor roof up.

Hopefully once thats done things will speed up again.

When is your slab going down?

Do you not what the reasoning behind the lack of progression is? Lack of tradies?

Well construction is meant to start on the 13th, but i guess that doesn't necessarily mean the slab will go down then? Does the start of construction mean the fencing will go up? land gets cleared etc..

To be honest, our start date was 6th November and they didnt get the fence up until December...they didnt give us any reason as to what the delay was...they were actually very frustrating so just hold tight...because there will be days where you'll really feel the frustration.

I'll try not to get too excited then. Its still weeks away. Im hoping as our house is small and not that customised, it will be faster, especially if lara21 build is any indication of time!

In saying that though...id rather the build be done slow and done right rather than rush them and impact quality and so far ive been happy with the quality.

Im sure it will all go well though

Cant wait to see your progress!

Thank you! Need to take more pics but there's stuff all over the place still.
Theres nothing that Im not happy with. There are some minor things that I've had like one of the cooktop burners turns off sometimes so Smeg had to come out to fix that. Also some grout in one section of our stairs is slightly crumbling so I have Abruzzo coming out to fix that up soon. But overall we are so happy with everything, so nice having everything brand new and so much more space than what we had before.

Yes of course, quality first!
Thanks, same to you! Please keep us updated

Yay! Thats great news! Nothing that cant be fixed! I'm glad you haven't had to wait long to get someone out to fix up your issues.


How did your retaining wall go? Do you need council to come out to inspect it when your done?

Sorry I missed this. Yes they've been quite good in sending people out fairly quickly.

So we are still going on the retaining wall but won't need council approval, I believe you only need it if its over a metre.

After the retaining walls we have to do a brick pier fence with aluminium horizontal slats in between as we are on a corner block and thats the estate rules, so still a fair way to go but getting there! can't wait til we are at the grass and plants stage!

Thats good news! We shouldnt have too much difficulty with our wall then!

All the best! Keep us posted with your progress!

Got a call from our site supervisor. Piering to start next week, and slab to go in the week after.
Yay! The ball has started rolling.. Lets hope the rain holds out for a bit!

Took a drive around the neighbourhood last weekend. Our neighbour directly behind us and to the right of them are also building with Fowler. They look like they're at a similar stage as us. Next door have a slab, and the other neighbour have their bricks and roof done. Its a good sign that everyone will be in around the same time!

Hi CW,

I've been following this thread for a while (lurking!) - we are building the Havana 35 as a KDRB in Newcastle. At least we will be if we ever get it through council! It's been 6 months so far.
Congrats on reaching construction stage! I can't even imagine how awesome that must feel!
Nice that you have some neighbours building with Fowler too - it's cool to be able to watch everyone's progress.
Hope the build goes smoothly for you and doesn't drag out too much! ☺
What timeframe have they given you for the build?