The CARLISLE HOMES & SPECTRA General Information Thread

We are doing a KNRB (Milano 46 Hardwick facade with full front render and stone cladding being done post handover to main Pier). Site was supposed to start this week but has been pushed back to 1 Feb next year. Some tips for those doing KDRB based on my experience.
. Look at reducing front setback on house sitting - increase backyard size - this is up to council but if new houses being built in your area appear to have been built closer to the street you have a good chance of having this granted. I gained 2.5 meters of backyard with this. You need to raise this with carlisle otherwise they will simply site your house according to resicode. A fee applies but its reasonable and worth it.
. Extend your garage to boundary if you can - std double car garages are too small anyway - make use of your land as much as you can - then put a garge roller door out the back - handy if you might build a pool etc in future as excavator needs access and they can fit through a single garage door. Carlisle costing for these things are very reasonable.
. Did you know you can have 4 seperate zones on your brivis heating/cooling - not cheap but no one at carlisle seemed to know about this but as i had spoken to brivis i knew what i could get - that way you can have 4 seperate heating and cooling zones with their own controller and only need 2/3 outlets operating at the one time rather than 6/7.
. Did you know you can use the 1200mm x 2340mm (huge) entrance doors as feature sliding doors internally if you want to zone off study, lounger, theatre etc. These are used alot in Metricon displays - and my wife and i love them - we are getting them for our study and lounge - 2 for each room with one fixed and the other slides behind the fixed one.
. Look at replacing windows on ground floor to sliding/entertaining doors - the upgrade is very reasonable - we replaced widows on home theatre and the meals area with entertainers so we have direct access outside in these areas.
. Double glazing the whole house - all glass windows and doors - if you can afford it do it. Our cost was about $11k and this was after increasing height of all sliders/entertainers to 2340mm.
. Increase ceiling heights - makes the home much grander - ground level was $4,256 to go to 2740mm ceiling height and upstairs was $3,780 to go to 2590mm height.
. 600mm eaves in lieu of 450mm eaves was only $518.
. Upgrade all bedroom doors to solids - great for noise reduction
. As we are doing a pool in a few years i had 2 rear external powerpoints wired to 40amp cable - this will save me costs down the track. All other external powerpoints i upgraded to 15amp.
. Foxtel points with cat 6 internet cable - $250 per point - think where you might put foxtel especially on ground floor - otherwise foxtel will run cable on external part of your home - ugly.
. I placed an extra 4 water taps around the home - cant have too many.
. I placed external gas point (future BBQ - no more gas bottles) hot/cold water and waster to alfresco.
. 5000 litre water tank connected to 6 internal toilets and one garden tap on tank - $5k - with concrete slab laid when they do house slab.
. will do all downlights post handover but getting std light fittings to all locations where downlights will go. Will do 10w and 15w LED lights post handover - the 10W are close to current 50w halogens and the 15w are brighter - even on ground floor this is easy to do.
. double powerpoints at $52 a pop is reasonable - load as many as you think you might need in the house - also think externally.
. Gas fireplace - Jetmaster XLR Plus - this produced the same heat as the SLR 550 but looks so much better and modern - and the price is only a little bit more
. Do you love square set cornices - downstairs we are doing for $2,086 which is very reasonable
The main thing we are doing post handover as we dont like floating floorboards nor the cold tiles is solid engineered spotted gum floorboards that are glued to the slab - very expensive but really makes a difference. The brand is tectonic flooring and we have asked carlisle not to fix skirting boards to ground level where we will have timber floors glued down (i cant stand the quad against the skirts with floating boards). That way i will fix the skirting boards over the timber floors post handover. We are having carlisle do the carpet all upstairs and downstairs to study and home theatre - the rest is floorboards. If you go to new David Jones at Highpoint - at the entrance are the tectonic spotted gum floorboards which we will get.
ive done quite a few more upgrades etc but main ones are listed above.

Hi All!

What a fantastic thread... So much heartache saved by spending the time to go through all of your experiences. Some really wonderful homes in here.

My wife and I (First home buyers) are still in the very early stages, but it's a stage nonetheless!

Last week I managed to put a deposit on a block of land (14x36.5) in the west (truganina) and also put the $1000 deposit on Carlisle's Hansen 29.

This house won the Display home of the year award (or something ) in 2013, but doesn't seem to be a very popular choice in this thread? It seems great for us as we don't have any children yet, and it has the least amount of zoned off areas (i.e no rumpus/activity off rear hallway). We are also opting for the study in lieu of 4th bedroom (no charge).

I have a little list of things I'd like to do (Mostly collated from ideas in this thread)

• General
○ Extend Garage (width)
○ In preparation for refrigerative air-con: pre-wire and fit bigger ducting
○ Power-points
§ End of island bench
§ Inside WIP
§ Alfresco
§ Hallways
○ Cavity doors to Theatre (and Study?)
• Kitchen
○ Delete the Dishwasher
○ Extend island bench 800mm to 1000mm (for bar stools)
○ Under cabinetry lighting
• Bathroom
○ Caeserstone benchtop
• Ensuite
○ Caeserstone benchtop
○ 2nd shower head in shower
• Master Suite
○ No rails/shelving in WIR for post handover installation.


To be honest I don't really have any questions However I'm really open to any suggestions and advice! I'm a first home buyer (and we're working to a pretty slim budget) so I really have no idea. lol. Just wanted to say G'day to you all and thanks for all of your info.

Looking forward to getting on with this Carlisle journey!

Cheers!

Hi union7. Great to hear that someone else is building the Hansen 29! Best of luck with it all

What sort of upgrades or customisations are you making to the house? Have you been quoted (rough idea?) for any of these?
What are the dimensions of the block you are building it on?

Really looking for to your build due to the lack of other Hansen builds I've seen!

Great! Looks like a good list.
I will need to add the shower niche to my list, as well as maybe ensuite and WIR doors....

So many decisions!

At this stage we've put forward that we would like to go with the Oakley Facade, which is the facade used in the house's display video:
https://youtu.be/4JMBS1Xnh8g

However, it's not one of the free ones, and we may well change that to favour internal upgrades. (600x600 porcelain tiles are $$$$ )

No problems

And I know what you mean about the closed display home! I've put the deposit down sight unseen. Haven't actually stepped foot inside a Hansen! However the sales guy we were speaking with took us through another house and was able to show us similarities and differences etc. Was actually fairly informative.

And you make a good point... Basically I think what we're doing at the moment, is collating a list of 'possible/functional upgrades' trying to keep the really greedy, luxury, "could probably live without" items off the list. But when it comes time to cull the list to fit in the budget, we will - attempt to - take all emotion out of it, and simply choose what is more beneficial to do while building and leave the things (even though we may love them) that can be done post build, till then.

Our land isn't expected to title till July, so we are well ahead of the curve I think... But hey, the excitement is real! lol