Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 28, 2018 8:18 pm Hello everyone, I've been lurking the forums for a few months now building up tips and absorbing your collective knowledge as we moved closer to getting our own little piece of this earth. Our land settled in December so we have been trying to get things moving asap in the new year to complete our last tender and go to contract with Coral on our custom Daydream. Now that it's getting so close to reality I decided to make my own blog for posterity and to hopefully continue getting tips and advice from the community. Here is our take on the Daydream 32 Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We changed quite a few things on the original plan (sadly this has meant we weren't able to go straight to contract on the 6th of Feb like I wanted but oh well). Little changes: -Larger window in the master ensuite -Back window in the games room -Stacker doors from games to outdoor -Smaller window in the master -Normal door from laundry to outside -Smaller window in media -Smaller window in activity room -Changed the location and type of doors to media (these will be sliders unlike pic) added door to study -Extended width of kitchen bench Big changes: -Flipped the design of Bedroom 4 and the bathroom/laundry around to accommodate a powder room instead of separate toilet, extended laundry under eaves to allow enough space and removed the linen cupboard -Took out the alcove entry to master to allow for entry to Bedroom 4 up that end -Extended the garage forward 1m as we couldn't go wider but this will allow bench space at the rear -Swapped the entry of the pantry to the garage side of the kitchen, moved fridge space back into kitchen and took 200mm from the study to allow for butlers pantry bench, turned WIL into standard linen cupboard While we haven't done our colour/tile/electricity appointments yet I do have a good idea already of everything I want. My husband has had certain key things he wanted input on that we've agreed upon but for the most part he can't bring himself to care whether it's "this grey" or "that grey" etc so he has given me permission to make final decisions :') At this stage we are waiting on our contract and also for our engineer to complete a plan for our sewage connection as there was no sewage connection on the block so that's what's holding us back at this stage. Queensland Urban Utilities is a nightmare to deal with. I will update as soon as we have an update! hopefully that's pretty soon! Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 2Jan 29, 2018 7:07 pm Exciting we did some good mods to our Daydream 30 for kitchen and ensuite Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 3Jan 30, 2018 12:59 pm dougang287 Exciting we did some good mods to our Daydream 30 for kitchen and ensuite Hi Dougang! Yes I've read through your post, I absolutely love your pantry design I tried to think of a way to get that open look ensuite into the 32 but the dimensions just don't quite work for it. Your house is beautiful, I've definitely taken inspiration from it for some of our stuff! Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 4Jan 30, 2018 8:21 pm The kitchen was a quick idea just before contract sign and it has paid off! Thanks so much. I love the Daydream so will love watching yours Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 5Feb 01, 2018 10:05 pm Hi Nublette, Your floor plan changes look great, shifting the laundry and making a powder room is a clever idea. I understand how you feel with Urban Utilities, we have to pay to get a water meter installed for our trickle feed water, they are seriously painful and expensive. How are things progressing with coral? Any ideas on your colour schemes? Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 6Feb 02, 2018 3:52 pm Tribe7 Hi Nublette, Your floor plan changes look great, shifting the laundry and making a powder room is a clever idea. I understand how you feel with Urban Utilities, we have to pay to get a water meter installed for our trickle feed water, they are seriously painful and expensive. How are things progressing with coral? Any ideas on your colour schemes? Hi Tribe7, Thank you! I loved the floor plan but we have a separate toilet at the moment and I don't love it so it was the one thing I was adamant we had to change. Our sales guy was non-too pleased with me haha, he's tried to talk me out of it so many times. I've just heard back from QUU today that they've approved our application, so now it's just getting the plumber and the engineer to do their work and then another approval process with QUU lol. Oh gosh I didn't even think of the fact we might have to do water meter as well haha! I hope it's not another nightmare. Well at this stage I've got a couple of ideas for what I know we want: -black kitchen benchtops -the dark brown shiny wood look cupboards (we fell in love with this look ages ago and haven't been able to give it up) -white overhead cupboards -a light wood look tile throughout (like in Becs Corals house, I love them) -white bench tops in the bathroom and ensuite with black cupboards -dark grey tiles (haven't picked a specific one yet) for the ensuite walls and floor -same tile on the floor in the main but a lighter, maybe white tile for the walls -plain white paint job, we probably want a feature wall in the lounge room and maybe the media but we'll do it after handover ourselves haven't decided at all on carpet yet, I feel like we're gonna get stung hard upgrading to something we like as the standard one is absolutely yuck and comes in like 3 colours Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 7Feb 02, 2018 5:12 pm Nublette Tribe7 Hi Nublette, Your floor plan changes look great, shifting the laundry and making a powder room is a clever idea. I understand how you feel with Urban Utilities, we have to pay to get a water meter installed for our trickle feed water, they are seriously painful and expensive. How are things progressing with coral? Any ideas on your colour schemes? Hi Tribe7, Thank you! I loved the floor plan but we have a separate toilet at the moment and I don't love it so it was the one thing I was adamant we had to change. Our sales guy was non-too pleased with me haha, he's tried to talk me out of it so many times. I've just heard back from QUU today that they've approved our application, so now it's just getting the plumber and the engineer to do their work and then another approval process with QUU lol. Oh gosh I didn't even think of the fact we might have to do water meter as well haha! I hope it's not another nightmare. Well at this stage I've got a couple of ideas for what I know we want: -black kitchen benchtops -the dark brown shiny wood look cupboards (we fell in love with this look ages ago and haven't been able to give it up) -white overhead cupboards -a light wood look tile throughout (like in Becs Corals house, I love them) -white bench tops in the bathroom and ensuite with black cupboards -dark grey tiles (haven't picked a specific one yet) for the ensuite walls and floor -same tile on the floor in the main but a lighter, maybe white tile for the walls -plain white paint job, we probably want a feature wall in the lounge room and maybe the media but we'll do it after handover ourselves haven't decided at all on carpet yet, I feel like we're gonna get stung hard upgrading to something we like as the standard one is absolutely yuck and comes in like 3 colours It’s great to hear coral are willing to do the changes for you, we tried coral before signing with Bold, it didn’t go well That’s good news about the approval notice, have you got a water meter housing box thing? It might mean the water has been ran to the box thing but no meter has been installed. That’s what we have. I hope for your sake you have that, it’s insane how difficult and slow they are to deal with. They told me today it will take up to 5 weeks to get the meter installed. I have to admit I am a sucker for the dark wood kitchen and black stone, there is a coral build at Ormeau from when we built first time and there kitchen is stunning I think there name was nikshell, have you been to the style master display houses at Rochedale? They have a kitchen with that colour scheme and it’s wow. Bec’s tiling is Lovely, that’s a good choice. Our bathrooms will be similar we have black cabinets to all 3 bathrooms and white floor and wall tiles with a grey feature wall tile to one whole wall. Agree with the plain white walls they look so crisp, we used dulux Casper white quarter and loved it. Painting feature walls is fun, it’s rewarding too. I’m not sure about there carpet, a good way to get a luxe feel without spending a fortune on carpet is to upgrade the underlay from 7mm to 10mm Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 8Feb 02, 2018 7:08 pm oh yeah that was something I really liked about coral, that change to the laundry they are only charging us for the extra floor space in the design, they don't charge extra for a change for the sake of it, only if there is extra materials or whatever. (though that doesn't seem to be the case with the colour selections; we're not there yet) We actually were really close to going with Bold, but when we settled on this land we decided we wanted a wider design and they didn't have something in our price range, they had a bit of a gap in their designs between 14-20m frontage where there was just nothing (I think they have way more designs now than when we were deciding though) I haven't been out to Ormeau or Rochedale, but I had seen a similar kitchen somewhere, I'm wondering if it was in a Stylemaster as we looked at quite a few around the place. I'll have to take a peek! Yes well we might not paint, I'm pretty sure I want to do wallpaper as my feature wall. I've even convinced my other half! haha Actually just took a peek at your thread and am following now, the bricks we want are almost the same as yours, the dark ones are so pretty, we are going with the offwhite mortar. Yes I've read that here a few times about the tip for underlay but thank you I think we will definitely do that. We have 2 cats and 2 dogs so we'll probably be pretty picky when it comes to carpet! Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 9Feb 02, 2018 8:32 pm The upgraded underlay is to die for we love it with ours and we upgraded to platinum range or gold or whatever it's called as we didn't like anything else. I swear Bentley our puppy loves our comfy carpet Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 10Feb 02, 2018 8:45 pm dougang287 The upgraded underlay is to die for we love it with ours and we upgraded to platinum range or gold or whatever it's called as we didn't like anything else. I swear Bentley our puppy loves our comfy carpet can I ask how much that set you back? we've tried to include as many things as possible in our tender so we don't have heaps of upgrade room, I think we upgraded the carpet underlay to 10mm already in our tender but beyond that we've only allowed for $2k of upgrades in our colour selections etc >.< I just know I'm going to be wishing we'd added more haha Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 11Feb 03, 2018 6:17 am About 3-4K for upgraded underlay and carpet. We went with 600 size tiles through whole house that was about 4500 Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 12Feb 03, 2018 11:52 am eep yeah I suspect I will want to do that and husband will ask me to settle for the standard. We have upgrades elsewhere so this might be the compromise. Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Plains 13Feb 03, 2018 1:18 pm Have you added external wall insulation Nublette? It’s a couple of thousand from memory but very much worth it. What about an electrical allowance? Oh that’s uncanny you where looking at Bold, they have a lot more designs now which is handy. Rochedale is worth the trip they have so many colour schemes on show it’s great. Not to mention the porter Davis display is stunning. Oh defiantly do the wallpaper I’m planning on it this time. Oh nice with the brick choice, ours are austral chiffon (I forgot and had to look it up whoops) I agree with dougang our platinum carpet and 10mm underlay upgrade was just under $5k we have 5 kids, a cat and a dog so fingers crossed the carpet is kid proof . The advise I got from Anderson’s is not to pick a loop pile carpet as the cat will pull threads in it. We got a high plush twist pile, feels so nice under foot but I don’t think I love the colour more 🤭 Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 14Feb 03, 2018 3:10 pm Tribe7 Have you added external wall insulation Nublette? It’s a couple of thousand from memory but very much worth it. What about an electrical allowance? Oh that’s uncanny you where looking at Bold, they have a lot more designs now which is handy. Rochedale is worth the trip they have so many colour schemes on show it’s great. Not to mention the porter Davis display is stunning. Oh defiantly do the wallpaper I’m planning on it this time. Oh nice with the brick choice, ours are austral chiffon (I forgot and had to look it up whoops) I agree with dougang our platinum carpet and 10mm underlay upgrade was just under $5k we have 5 kids, a cat and a dog so fingers crossed the carpet is kid proof . The advise I got from Anderson’s is not to pick a loop pile carpet as the cat will pull threads in it. We got a high plush twist pile, feels so nice under foot but I don’t think I love the colour more 🤭 Yep already included external wall insulation. Another thing my sales consultant tried to talk me out of but I was adamant. I knew I'd be annoyed with myself and the $$ if we decided we needed it later. We haven't included the garage at this stage which I wonder if that was a mistake. I have already put in a decent electrical allowance (10k from memory) which I hope will be enough for all the connections I need. that won't include the lighting itself though. I am allowing myself a set of pendants over the kitchen counter but everything else is going to be budget lighting. We use our computers a lot and I also work from home, as does hubster sometimes so we want a lot of data connections etc too. It's gonna be tight. With Coral I don't know what the brick choices are yet, I've been to the showroom and I think we use PHG but definitely going for a similar colour. It's funny you say that about the loop pile. I think they are all loop pile in the standard range and that was the first thing I said "the cats are gonna rip them up" haha. Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Plains 15Feb 04, 2018 10:01 am I couldn’t agree more the insulation is so important and makes a massive difference. We are renting a brand new Simonds build in our area and holy crap it’s so hot as there is only the wall sisilation wrap not the batts. Our Metricon build had external wall batts to the garage but not the alfresco ceiling from memory. That’s a great allowance for electrical, ours was $8,500 but bold provide downlights as standard I just added a heap more. I then added extra PowerPoints to every bedroom and living areas, more tv points and 10 ceiling fans. You could always do a cash job through the electrician and get them to fit off your lights? Once the house starts and the meter box is installed the electricians number will be in the meter box and you can call them to organize something they could hang your pendants or maybe install down lights for you. Uhm I’m not sure if coral use austral, I think they might. Maybe ask Caydenn or Stephanie they are under construction right now. Any idea on when your contract is due? You do colours after that? OMG yes the cats will have a field day in loop pile carpet, we had it in our first build and never again, woody clawed the crap out of my stairs and we had to do some creative fixes before we sold Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 16Feb 04, 2018 4:18 pm yeah I said to myself we'd prioritise the wall insulation over the ceiling insulation even, because at least the ceiling insulation could be done later. The sales consultant initially told me wall insulation was standard and only once I pressed him what kind of batts they use did he mention it was just sisilation /sigh That is a fantastic tip about the electrician and the meter box! Thank you so much. I had heard people on these forums mention cash jobs but I know so little about it I was intimidated by the thought. At least this gives me a starting point. I did like that about Bold that they gave you the actual lights. Coral are quite stingy on the electrical as standard. I asked if we could get our own electrician in and they said they won't allow that anymore after someone burned their house down doing an *unprofessional* job. My contract was supposed to be due 6th of Feb, but I was emailed from my sales consultant the other day saying he couldn't get it through on the express list because of my house changes and so I think it's like the 25th of Feb now or something Only good thing with that is that if they'd done it 6th of Feb I would probably have ended up being the one causing the delay because of this plumbing not being completed so at least there's that consolation. I reeeaally hope he'll book me in to do colours straight after that though, as I'm raring to go and I don't want them to have any excuse to delay us further. Our rental runs out at the start of June but at this stage it looks like they won't be finished by then, which means a tricky negotiation where we just stay for another month or two without signing another 6 month lease Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 17Feb 08, 2018 3:58 pm Loooove what you have done with the plan, adore the bulters pantry, how clever! I’ve mentioned to my partner about the wall insulation for our build but I think the high number is half scaring him Have you been to the colours showroom yet? Make sure you check out the sinks and tapeware in case you wanted to upgrade anything. Or if there is a special colour stone you are after. We put in a 1k allowance. I think we went 1.7k on top of that, but we wanted silk finish cabinets to the kitchen, upgraded the stone colour to a c range and I wanted the swivel bath spout for the ensuite that which was pricey Sounds like you have done the right thing though, added almost everything to the tender. We wanted the pretty glass doors to the pantry master and media room so we made sure to had them to the tender, soften the blow a little at colours haha We only upgraded the underlay to the carpet, the standard carpet feels like crap and I didn’t think of the looping, we don’t have a cat yet, but will shortly after we move in haha hopefully we can have enough cat towers to claw at :/ haha Looking forward to your progress. We did the basics for electrical and went over our 3k allowance. But that stuff is expensive, we still have to buy fans. enjoy your appointments though, you will fly through them as you sound prepared Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Plains 18Feb 09, 2018 1:55 pm Hey Nublette, The standard ceiling insulation is pretty good but agree the sisilation wrap just isn’t enough. Good on you for questioning them it’s hard to get a straight answer sometimes (I’m trying to buying a new car at the moment and my god those sales men can talk the talk ) OMG someone burnt there house down? Holy crap that’s bad. The meter box is the place to find the details or ask your SS but some don’t like doing that. Agree about the Bold electrical it’s really good and wasn’t awful with upgrade prices. Oh what a shame about the contract, at least this delay gives you time to get the plumbing done, have you heard from UU? I got some email from a certifier about doing a site inspection to start the works and haven’t heard a peep since. I hope you can get in for colours soon it’s great to tick that list. I’m so over the admin phase now it’s killing me We are in exactly the same boat with our lease and will be requesting a periodic lease (month to month) till we know we can move. Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 19Feb 10, 2018 2:42 pm Thank you everyone who has contributed here. I just found out that Coral have refused to build our house because of our soil type. I'm pretty devastated and it sounds like we have to start from the very beginning. I know this thread hadn't been going long enough for anyone to be too invested but I thought you'd all like to know why there's going to be no more updates for a long time Re: Coral Daydream 32 Custom - First Home Build: Redbank Pla 20Feb 10, 2018 4:49 pm Nublette Thank you everyone who has contributed here. I just found out that Coral have refused to build our house because of our soil type. I'm pretty devastated and it sounds like we have to start from the very beginning. I know this thread hadn't been going long enough for anyone to be too invested but I thought you'd all like to know why there's going to be no more updates for a long time Oh no! What type soil do you have? I highly recommend Mike at G&P Builders as being a straight shooter and quick to get you through the admin process. If you put an enquiry through to info@gpbuilders.com.au it will go directly through to him and he is one of the owners. Let him know Teneika sent you. So it looks like we finally have some movement on site! Definitely later than expected, but I'll take any progress at this point. I'll drop by over the weekend to get… 5 27716 In Qld it is a requirement that a builder must have a cost breakdown, for building a home to the same specification, with the same inclusions and the same finish. So ask… 1 4346 I'd get the gutters to match your roof and pipes to match the paint - otherwise they become a feature. Nice pick with the paint colours! 1 34269 |