Hi Nat83
We upgraded to the 2.7m high ceilings and found those to be fantastic. Looooove high ceilings. Our ceilings may be 2.9m - 3m in the areas we did the coffered ceilings.
Browse Forums Building A New House Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14161Jan 24, 2017 8:40 am CathyLeigh Building the Monte Carlo Executive with rear activities with Balinese Resort Facade, Salt Water Beach Estate, Wallabi Point Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14163Jan 24, 2017 4:33 pm CathyLeigh Edy_Jab Hi everyone, I am also at initial phase, My land registers Dec this year and am looking at MJH Castelton, We have been offered pretty good inclusions with the allure package, fisher and paykel appliances including fridge washing machine dryer and dishwasher, and a wine fridge. I would like to know if anyone can give me feed back on the basic range of kitchen cupboards, and flooring and if they are any good? also if we wanted to upgrade to a nicer version is it pricey?? any help would be fantastic. Edy Hi Edy We got the keys to our house last February so prices may have changed a bit since then but some of the upgrades we did for the kitchen cost as follows: Upgrade entire kitchen to 2 pak polyurethane - $4,200.00 We kept the stone benchtops at 20mm but added 2 x waterfall ends - $2,140.00 (we didn't upgrade the stone at all as I felt there were a lot of nice choices in the standard range) Added 2 banks of drawers (3 drawers in each bank of drawers) - $250.00 x 2 = $500.00 There was alot of choice in the glass splashbacks in the standard range but because we went pure white we paid an additional $900.00 to have the green tinge taken out of the glass which is called starphire. Really not necessary if you choose a darker colour. Underbench bin drawer - $480.00 (a bit pricey but I am soooooo glad I got it. It is great not having to look at a bin in the kitchen) We also upgraded the pantry door to a LIN1 door which they use a lot of in their display homes which cost us $720.00. If you want to keep the price of the cupboards down a bit you could get the Polytec Melamine in Sheen which looks really nice too. They use this in some of their display home kitchens which would have cost us an additional $1,200.00 at the time to do the entire kitchen. I hope this helps. HI CathyLeigh Thanks for that info, congrats on moving in, very exciting I bet.. we almost have the same taste.. We want the white splash back also so will have to pay the difference to have plain white. We also want laminate floor boards, but not sure on if we should do this after key hand over or get MJH to do it- my concerns are the skirting boards been left in garage un painted.. do you recall if the prices were reasonable or are we better off going to a third party for this.?? Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14164Jan 24, 2017 7:45 pm Nat 83 We are trying to decide on whether to go for 3m ceilings at the moment. 2.7m ceilings are plenty, you don't really need to go higher in my opinion. 2.4m ceilings are horrible, so I went for 2.55m ceilings as it was a reasonable amount cheaper and that is good enough I think. From when I have hired cranes for work it's usually you pay for a minimum of 4 hours, so pretty typical to get either a half day first up in the morning or a half day in the arvo. There's a good chance that they probably only had the crane booked for the morning, hence the early knock off. Unless your building envelope has slopes or obstacles around it, I'd be challenging that variation for sure and asking for them to be more specific about what the issue was. It's not your fault that they are slow or the frames were delivered and stacked incorrectly... Building the Cordova One with McDonald Jones at Calderwood Valley, NSW: http://calderwoodvalley.blogspot.com.au/ Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14165Jan 25, 2017 12:49 pm Edy_Jab CathyLeigh Edy_Jab Hi everyone, I am also at initial phase, My land registers Dec this year and am looking at MJH Castelton, We have been offered pretty good inclusions with the allure package, fisher and paykel appliances including fridge washing machine dryer and dishwasher, and a wine fridge. I would like to know if anyone can give me feed back on the basic range of kitchen cupboards, and flooring and if they are any good? also if we wanted to upgrade to a nicer version is it pricey?? any help would be fantastic. Edy Hi Edy We got the keys to our house last February so prices may have changed a bit since then but some of the upgrades we did for the kitchen cost as follows: Upgrade entire kitchen to 2 pak polyurethane - $4,200.00 We kept the stone benchtops at 20mm but added 2 x waterfall ends - $2,140.00 (we didn't upgrade the stone at all as I felt there were a lot of nice choices in the standard range) Added 2 banks of drawers (3 drawers in each bank of drawers) - $250.00 x 2 = $500.00 There was alot of choice in the glass splashbacks in the standard range but because we went pure white we paid an additional $900.00 to have the green tinge taken out of the glass which is called starphire. Really not necessary if you choose a darker colour. Underbench bin drawer - $480.00 (a bit pricey but I am soooooo glad I got it. It is great not having to look at a bin in the kitchen) We also upgraded the pantry door to a LIN1 door which they use a lot of in their display homes which cost us $720.00. If you want to keep the price of the cupboards down a bit you could get the Polytec Melamine in Sheen which looks really nice too. They use this in some of their display home kitchens which would have cost us an additional $1,200.00 at the time to do the entire kitchen. I hope this helps. HI CathyLeigh Thanks for that info, congrats on moving in, very exciting I bet.. we almost have the same taste.. We want the white splash back also so will have to pay the difference to have plain white. We also want laminate floor boards, but not sure on if we should do this after key hand over or get MJH to do it- my concerns are the skirting boards been left in garage un painted.. do you recall if the prices were reasonable or are we better off going to a third party for this.?? Hi Edy, We still have plenty to do. We are living between 2 houses so our new house still has a long way to go. We are still trying to decide on flooring. We had the same skirting board issues as you. We really want to do solid timber flooring but have also been looking at the timber look tiles. Some of the timber look tiles look just like timber and you can get them in rectified tiles so you have a very narrow grout line. I hate grout and that is what is stalling me on the tiles even though the grout line is very fine. We ended up getting them to put the skirtings on for us because we thought it was too much work to do later on when you don't get a reduction in price when leaving them off, uncut and unpainted and also because we were undecided on what floor we would end up with - timber or tiles. I think you will find it is a fair amount cheaper to get your flooring done afterwards. McDonald Jones don't do solid timber flooring so that was the other issue for us and my partner didn't want the bamboo flooring that they do. If we end up going timber look tiles the skirting boards won't be an issue at all because they will just tile up against them. If we go the solid timber flooring we will have to tolerate the beading but I am thinking of painting it the same colour as the skirting because I have seen this done and it then looks like a part of the skirting. I will have to test it out and see what I think. We ended up paying an extra $1,000.00 to get the 92mm height skirting instead of the standard 67mm height skirting so we don't lose a lot of it if we end up doing timber flooring. The whole skirting board thing does my head in!!!!! Good luck with your build. Which house are you looking at building? I really love my white glass splash back. We went white shimmer caesarstone benchtops in the kitchen and have white and dark grey cabinetry. We did use their standard cabinetry in the main bathroom. We went a timber look vanity and it looks really nice so I think if you planned your kitchen really well you could probably get away with the standard cabinetry. For us, this was our third build, and I always wanted a 2 pak kitchen so we went for it. CathyLeigh Building the Monte Carlo Executive with rear activities with Balinese Resort Facade, Salt Water Beach Estate, Wallabi Point Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14166Jan 25, 2017 2:25 pm Hi CathyLeigh,, we are totally having the same thoughts as you!! the thought of skirtings sitting around not painted annoys me because after spending all the money on the build you don't want to be painting and installing them later on.. I have been informed though they can swing us a number of a guy that will do it for us for a couple of hundred dollars..BUt we will see as time goes on.. That is a really good idea to increase skirting size though.. will definitely do that.. We will be signing tender next week we are going to build the Castleton.. Our colour scheme will be white and oak colours so hopefully the basic wood look colours can match that!! Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14167Jan 25, 2017 6:44 pm Just thought I would give credit where credit is due. We are really pleased with how the Hebel turned out, this is the finished product following the render, texture coat and final coat of paint (taubmans tudor beige). The tradesmen knocked this over in under a week from start to finish in the scorching heat we've had recently, my hat goes off to them. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14168Jan 27, 2017 8:19 am CathyLeigh Nat 83 Has anyone put 3m high ceilings in their house? Hi Nat83 We upgraded to the 2.7m high ceilings and found those to be fantastic. Looooove high ceilings. Our ceilings may be 2.9m - 3m in the areas we did the coffered ceilings. @Nat83 We have 3.2m high ceiling in one part of the house (hallway, bedrooms and baths) and 2.7m for the rest 'coz of step-down. Being a single storey house, it made it feel so much bigger. At first was not too happy when MJH advised of the step-down required a few months away from construction. But turned out really well and added some character to our humble 4-bedder. Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14169Jan 27, 2017 9:08 am Spronkly, I have a similar slope issue and MHJ have advised to have step up in our case. On entering we would have about 3-3.2m ceiling then a step up to 2.7m ceiling. It would be great if you could share few pics on how spacious it looks. Thanks Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14170Jan 27, 2017 9:47 am ps Actually your build will be the same as ours. So it is 3.2m entering the house with all the b/rooms and baths. And 2.7m the rest of the house (theatre/lounge, kitchen and dining) Sorry don't have pics at the moment but house does feel BIG with the extra high ceiling. Was initially very disappointed with the addt'l $16K variation and almost pulled the plug before the build. But turned out well and the 3 steps midway along the hallway added character to the house. Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14171Jan 27, 2017 9:58 am That is great! I will be having the front two rooms and garage at 3.2m and step up and reset of the 2 beds, lounge, theater, dinning and kitchen at 2.7m. I just hope it turns out well. Was your piering within the allocated limit by MJH? Cheers. Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14172Jan 27, 2017 10:13 am Oh yeah our garage ceiling height is around 3.5m due to driveway gradient regulations. You can build a mezzanine in it..hehehe. The split/extra high ceiling adds value and character to the house. The 50 L/m piering allowance was almost spot on with only addt'l 2 L/m variation. But this will still be a case to case basis. Hope yours won't require much. Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14173Jan 27, 2017 3:20 pm I just got an update contour plan, and it seems after developer bench and retains my block i will have about 1.5m fall from back fence down to street sloping slightly right....Does anyone have any indication of how much extra MJH charge on these things.. I understand there has to be a site test done to get exact costing etc, just want a rough idea as sometimes the sales staff say anything to get you to sign, and my land does not register until later this year. Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14174Jan 30, 2017 2:57 pm Hi everyone, Just an update on the build as it has been a while. The misunderstanding with the rear garage door has been fixed, we spoke to one of the managers at MJH for a couple of hours and worked everything out and are very happy with the outcome. All I can recommend is if you find an issue request the mediation with MJH, it worked well for us. We got to lock up just before Christmas, got a call from our SS today we have had the kitchen and laundry cupboard and benches installed, also the vanities have been delivered. The fit out has finally started today (was meant to start on the 9th January), with tiling booked for next week. Things are finally moving ahead. We will have a site visit early next week to check the paint and tiles and everything else. Our contract date is this Thursday the 2nd of February and there is no way we are going to make it, the SS is hoping for us to be done by the end of March, I have a question however, has anyone ever tried to get extra down lights or something instead of claiming the liquidated damages at the end of the build? Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14175Feb 02, 2017 11:43 am Yuppy!!! Painting started today, and rendering facade is almost done. Would be nice if handed over by mid-march. Site is very messy, would be good if they clean it up quickly. From your build experiences, how long would you reckon its going to take from now? Thanks. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14176Feb 14, 2017 6:02 pm Sorry all, But am I missing something here, what's going on with this thread ??? There has been no input for sometime... Has it been closed down or something.. If it has then I can't seem to find any information about it ????????????? Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14178Feb 14, 2017 9:44 pm Edy_Jab Has anyone taken MJH up on their free Hebel offer? if so what did they think? I am tossing up between brick or hebel. I prefer brick because there is less maintenance. With bag and paint, render or Hebel you will have ongoing maintenance in the long term repainting it and fixing any cracking. If you were already leaning towards bricks with bang and paint or render, then Hebel might be a good option for you... Building the Cordova One with McDonald Jones at Calderwood Valley, NSW: http://calderwoodvalley.blogspot.com.au/ Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 14179Feb 14, 2017 10:53 pm Edy_Jab Has anyone taken MJH up on their free Hebel offer? if so what did they think? I am tossing up between brick or hebel. Hi Mate, At the time of signing on we paid $1k extra for the whole house in Hebel, to be honest they guys from CSR Hebel did a fantastic job. Hebel has great sound and thermal insulation properties and is very easy to work with, the entire house was hebel cladded, rendered and painted in only a few days. We were originally going to go brick with bag and paint to the whole house but decided on hebel, its not a typical render either so its "maintenance" is unlike traditional rendered brick or board walls. I recommend it. -Andrew Hi, Apologies - I know there is plenty out there on this but struggling to put together the puzzle. We're planning our garage/external laundry to master bedroom and… 0 20399 Hi there! Putting the feelers out there for those who have (or almost) built with Arli homes! Interested in your experiences who've built from their stock home designs… 0 61222 What are the most important factors to consider when choosing a builder for a custom-built home, especially to ensure quality and staying within budget? 0 9660 |