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Thomas Archer Hue 42 Bayside Build - 2020/21

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lilaandco
Things are racing along! I feel like landscaping will take longer than the build at the pace we're going!

Our joinery is nearly complete now - tilers were in yesterday. They will be painting over the Christmas break and then carpets, etc all in the new year! They hype around TA's speed seems to be right!


Sorry massive dump of photos below but clearly we're very excited!

It's all looking really lovely - in hindsight we think we have gone a little dark with some of our cabinetry and probably would have had some light colour palette choices in there also however we will lighten it up with some brighter furniture (e.g. bar stools, colourful rug etc) to help lighten up the space). The proportions especially in the living, kitchen and dining area feel expansive now that joinery is in and would HIGHLY recommend upgrading to 3m ceilings if you can - it really changes the feel of the space!

The rendering looking fab too would highly recommend it if anyone trying to work out facade colours - we chose silkwort for the render (one colour for whole house which we were nervous about but has come up looking lovely) and black shadow clad for the detail.


















































wow , it looks great !

I will not worry too much about the joinery color - once you got your wall paint on , they will looks amazing !
lilaandco
JoeyJoJo
Everything looks amazing! You must be so excited! We've picked similar colours for our kitchen. What colours are yours? And what product (polytec, nikpol, laminate?). Imagine when those bench tops go in šŸ‘Œ We've done the little bar area too. Schmick!

thank you for your lovely words! we chose the polytec black woodmatt. it looks lovely - my suspicious is that fingerprints might be a nightmare (although we have finger pull so hopefully not too obvious). apparently there is a nikpol line that might be better with the finger prints so maybe investigate that!
the bar is a winner - we're super excited for it! we have everything on a bar trolley at the moment and a toddler who is very fascinated by EVERYTHING so very glad to have it out of harms way soon !!


We've selected nikpol black feelwood. Im sure it will still show finger prints with a 4 and 5 year in the house but hopefully it looks as beautiful as yours. We've gone laminex ghostgum for the white cupboards. Enjoy watching your home come together. Loving seeing g the photos!

And sorry my previous comment posted 18 times on one of your photos šŸ’ā€ā™€ļøšŸ¤¦ā€ā™€ļø im still working out homeone šŸ¤Ŗ
Love the Shower Ledges!
scott2323
Love the Shower Ledges!

mathanki steered me to do ledges i am glad she did - i love them! definitely get those if you can!
Wow wow wow! Itā€™s looking amazing. Going to be such a beautiful home. So glad you talked me into the 3m ceilings!
Has anyone building with TA used Made by Block floorboards? Would love to hear your experience, thoughts, colour choice etc. They are TA's go-to brand now as apparently they are the lower cost sister company to Made by Story floorboards (which i thought we were going to be using).
JoeyJoJo
Has anyone building with TA used Made by Block floorboards? Would love to hear your experience, thoughts, colour choice etc. They are TA's go-to brand now as apparently they are the lower cost sister company to Made by Story floorboards (which i thought we were going to be using).


We are using made by block. We couldnā€™t justify the price increase to use the made by storey x
Leeota
JoeyJoJo
Has anyone building with TA used Made by Block floorboards? Would love to hear your experience, thoughts, colour choice etc. They are TA's go-to brand now as apparently they are the lower cost sister company to Made by Story floorboards (which i thought we were going to be using).


We are using made by block. We couldnā€™t justify the price increase to use the made by storey x

Yes, we really want to avoid the extra $$$ of Story too. What colour did you choose? The sample of the colour we chose arrived in mail today and I dont love it?
Iā€™ll msg you x
Hi Everyone! We went today to see the tiling today which is close to finish (bar a bit of grouting!) - we're super happy yet again!
We chose the Siene Grey for most of our tiles - this was based on a recommendation from Signorio. We're totally in love and would highly recommend. We got in the smaller size for the small bathrooms and the large format for our ensuite.
Otherwise we chose a feature mosaic tile for the powder room downstairs and will instal a long oval mirror post handover. We barely did any upgrades for the Bathroom, Upstairs Powder Room and Laundry and instead invested in tiling floor to ceiling and mitring in the ensuite and downstairs powder room.
We chose a ledge for the Bathroom and Ensuite and a recess for the powder room downstairs .
The Siene Grey is an S1 tile also so double win! Any other questions let me know

Would highly recommend going ledge for bathrooms - looks great and much more functional too. You just loose a little bit of space so you have to be willing to forgo about 10cm.















JoeyJoJo
Has anyone building with TA used Made by Block floorboards? Would love to hear your experience, thoughts, colour choice etc. They are TA's go-to brand now as apparently they are the lower cost sister company to Made by Story floorboards (which i thought we were going to be using).

We ended up paying to go with the Made by Storey floorboards. The Block range was good (we especially liked the Bondi which was very similar to Sesame in the Storey range) and Aimee was really pushing us towards the Block, but sustainability was important to us and the Storey boards are sourced from France and came with the potential of FSC certification. The Block range were from across eastern Europe and FSC wasn't possible + it's a relatively new brand. In the end, we didn't pay the extra for FSC sourced boards. And if sustainability wasn't as important to us, we'd probably have ended up saving the $ and going with Block.
Wellbuild
JoeyJoJo
Has anyone building with TA used Made by Block floorboards? Would love to hear your experience, thoughts, colour choice etc. They are TA's go-to brand now as apparently they are the lower cost sister company to Made by Story floorboards (which i thought we were going to be using).

We ended up paying to go with the Made by Storey floorboards. The Block range was good (we especially liked the Bondi which was very similar to Sesame in the Storey range) and Aimee was really pushing us towards the Block, but sustainability was important to us and the Storey boards are sourced from France and came with the potential of FSC certification. The Block range were from across eastern Europe and FSC wasn't possible + it's a relatively new brand. In the end, we didn't pay the extra for FSC sourced boards. And if sustainability wasn't as important to us, we'd probably have ended up saving the $ and going with Block.


Thanks for sharing your learnings. Im planning on heading to the Block warehouse in the new year to see the boards in a bigger format. Sesame from Story is beautiful - that's our fave but would love to save some $$$ if I can as we seem to be upgrading alot šŸ™ƒ
The Seine is looking šŸ‘Œ canā€™t wait to see it all grouted.
Hi all- thanks for sharing your experiences. Itā€™s helped me so much.
Can I ask If any of you negotiated on the variation margin. I surprised how high it is compared to other builders!
anged
Hi all- thanks for sharing your experiences. Itā€™s helped me so much.
Can I ask If any of you negotiated on the variation margin. I surprised how high it is compared to other builders!

We didnā€™t and itā€™s funny that TA can make any variations they please but donā€™t compensate ā€˜usā€™. The only way out is to triple check everything before signing on the dotted line. And if any changes are required then weigh the pros and cons of doing it post hand over.
anged
Hi all- thanks for sharing your experiences. Itā€™s helped me so much.
Can I ask If any of you negotiated on the variation margin. I surprised how high it is compared to other builders!

I have not done any negotiation on the margin, however have made a variation change. The prices charged for the variation were no different than the initial contract, so either that is their standard margin (?) or they don't enforce the variation margin ?

Either way my take on it is that they (and probably most builders) don't like to do changes once everything has been signed off. The variation I did took some convincing.
lilaandco
Hi Everyone! We went today to see the tiling today which is close to finish (bar a bit of grouting!) - we're super happy yet again!
We chose the Siene Grey for most of our tiles - this was based on a recommendation from Signorio. We're totally in love and would highly recommend. We got in the smaller size for the small bathrooms and the large format for our ensuite.
Otherwise we chose a feature mosaic tile for the powder room downstairs and will instal a long oval mirror post handover. We barely did any upgrades for the Bathroom, Upstairs Powder Room and Laundry and instead invested in tiling floor to ceiling and mitring in the ensuite and downstairs powder room.
We chose a ledge for the Bathroom and Ensuite and a recess for the powder room downstairs .
The Siene Grey is an S1 tile also so double win! Any other questions let me know

Would highly recommend going ledge for bathrooms - looks great and much more functional too. You just loose a little bit of space so you have to be willing to forgo about 10cm.


















Great Job!

I was also wanting to have the full height tile for All our 4 Bathroom/Ensuits until we saw the upgrade cost ...........
BigDaddy
anged
Hi all- thanks for sharing your experiences. Itā€™s helped me so much.
Can I ask If any of you negotiated on the variation margin. I surprised how high it is compared to other builders!

We didnā€™t and itā€™s funny that TA can make any variations they please but donā€™t compensate ā€˜usā€™. The only way out is to triple check everything before signing on the dotted line. And if any changes are required then weigh the pros and cons of doing it post hand over.



Thanks for your advice. Hopefully you havenā€™t had too many variations.
Did others get their contract review by lawyers / solicitors prior to to signing or just went through it themselves? Anything strange or odd I should be looking out for?
anged
BigDaddy
anged
Hi all- thanks for sharing your experiences. Itā€™s helped me so much.
Can I ask If any of you negotiated on the variation margin. I surprised how high it is compared to other builders!

We didnā€™t and itā€™s funny that TA can make any variations they please but donā€™t compensate ā€˜usā€™. The only way out is to triple check everything before signing on the dotted line. And if any changes are required then weigh the pros and cons of doing it post hand over.



Thanks for your advice. Hopefully you havenā€™t had too many variations.

We've only had one variation we've had to pay for to date which was a big one for electrical. As someone else mentioned they do it as a deterrent.
There were some variations that they instead helped us so that we can do post handover instead (e.g. we realised we wanted an incinerator which would only cost $200 to do but the variation was a $500 fee so they put in an extra switch instead so we can do post handover and avoid the fee). We also had a major electrical variation we had to do so we had to pay those variation fees + more (because of timings on our behalf). It was our fault so we copped it! I think its a bit of a blessing as it also stops you from continuing to change your mind through the process - something I definetly needed!
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