Construction progress - dirt to lockup stage

Excavation started mid March and now, at the end of May, we have a slab, frames, windows, roofing, gutters, bricks, electrical, eaves, and most of the facade complete. We're about to have the Tyrells inspection as well as our own independent inspector check everything. It doesn't look (with our novice eyes) that there are any major issues so crossing fingers, toes and ears, we can get through lock up stage and see that light at the end of the construction tunnel.

Here's a visual diary..

Another month, another flooring option

Last month I was sure. Well not sure, but convinced. May brought another option and "Yes to laminate" became "Maybe not".

After reading about vinyl (specifically Karndean on the homeone forum), I was curious but not so much that I thought I should go check it out. After all, my last vinyl experience involved a curling-at-the-edges-streaky-brown-on-checked-cream-and-blue eye sore that we had to put up with as renters. That was a Bunnings $24m tragedy that I wanted none of in our home.

When I spotted the Karndean stall at the Home Ideas exhibition, I made a beeline for it to check out why other people were so rapt by it. Then stood back amazed at how close it looked to the real thing. We spoke to the salesguy, got some pricing and some interesting comparison tips that I hadn't thought of. I was expecting it to be more expensive than the Quick-step range since it has to be installed by a tradie, it wasn't.


Anyway, if you're struggling and obsessing like me, here's a quick list of why we've now discounted laminate as an option.


1] laminate is aqua phobic
Like me, laminate doesn't like to sit in water. It reacts the same way that I do when I can't touch the ground in a pool, it swells up (me with fear) and warps (uncontrollable panic seizes me). I've found small pools of liquid on the floor so many times that our young boys like to deposit from the bottles and other toys, so unless we permanently attach a mop to their back, we would be replacing boards almost every month.

2] expansion and contraction
Laminate contains fiberboard so with humidity, there will be movement. The vinyl salesguy mentioned something that woke me up to this more. Have you noticed when there's an air-con or heater running, and you walk on laminate you hear that crackling sound underfoot? It's caused by the quick change of climate that heating/cooling brings.

3] price
Both are on par (if you get laminate professionally installed). Around the $70 mark for professional installation of the high quality laminates and vinyl products (although you can get much cheaper options).

4] warranty
15 years on Karndean's Van Gogh range
25 years on Quick-step's Largo range

5] sound
Vinyl is directly stuck onto the concrete slab so it sounds solid like a hardwood floor. Laminate doesn't absorb sound well and will sound hollow but you can get an acoustic underlay to improve this ($5+ per square meter)

6] wear
Both products are very hardy. Vinyl is almost impossible to scratch though (I tried with a fork). A lot of stores use Karndean's woodplank vinyl including Woolies and Coles in their fruit&vege sections particularly because of its fantastic durability.

7] the Look
Laminate lacks the warmth of real timber floors. It suits an ultra modern home because its very clean looking with hardly any character of natural hardwoods. A very kind installer took a photo of Quick-step Largo as there is hardly any displayed at flooring stores to get a real feel for the product. Here's what it looks like in a residential environment (fantastic for minimalist Zen-like spaces):










I've gone for white walls, ceiling and trims so I'm relying on the flooring to lift the home with the gorgeous knots and lines of natural timber.

Vinyl wood planks have all the character I'm looking for without the expense and maintenance issues of hardwood. I have to say though we borrowed a 1m sample board of the vinyl we like for a few days. Two of the visitors we had didn't guess it was vinyl (but physically recoiled when we told them.. afterall vinyl has had a bad image for years). And they both had assumed it was the real thing.

8] installation
Laminate can be DIY but vinyl has to be installed by a pro (approx 4 days for 200 sq meters). One important thing to note is that vinyl can simply be stuck right up next to the skirting boards (because it doesn't expand and contract). Whereas laminate needs to be under the skirting boards with a suitable gap for movement. If you already have skirtings installed, you'll have to get them taken off and possibly touched up (the paint) after reinstallation. More $$ and time to factor in. Yet another thing to think about is the difference in thickness of the product you choose with other flooring that it meets, impact under doorways, kitchen kickboards, etc. AAAARGH! It never ends.

June is about to hit. Here's hoping another flooring option doesn't. I'm over researching and would love to move on to another obsession. Like rangehoods.

Flooring - the Hair Greying Topic

I had no idea how difficult flooring would be. Didn't really give it much thought because apart from tiles in the bathrooms & laundry, Eden Brae are not doing any other flooring for us.

All we know is we like the look and warmth that timber provides (American Oak, pictured above, is divine). I can't have carpet anywhere because the dustmites brings on hayfever. Also with two young boys who find ingenious ways to make a mess (just cleaned strawberry drooled in a trail from kitchen to dining room a few minutes ago), carpet was definitely not an option.

Luckily we are living in a place that has tiles. So easy to clean but the grout between them changes from green to brown all over the place so they look awful. Tiles are out because of the grout issue and also they lack the warmth I want.

Hardwood flooring looks beautiful. For us, this was our initial plan, until we saw prices and also the problem of getting it laid quickly after handover (afterall, we want to move in ASAP). Most hardwood needs to acclimatise for several weeks and then we need 200+ square meters of the stuff so the cost of the product plus laying put it outside our budget. I've also seen the effects of humidity in Sydney.. my parents had a few meters of their beautiful floors suddenly buckle last year.

Strandwoven - Natural & Coffee

I found out about strandwoven bamboo flooring and it seemed the perfect alternative. Cheaper ($60 - $120 depending on who you go to). Incredibly hard so seemed impressively durable. Faster to install if you get it prefinished. Ability to sand back as per traditional hardwood floors. Bingo. Flooring finito.

Until I started digging further and further and the more I read, the less it seemed a wise choice. Its a product that comes out of China and the issue there is you never know what type of quality you're going to get. Also the resins and chemicals used (especially in strandwoven) could be toxic.

Another problem was that the look never really appealed. I thought the coffee stain would be OK but after we borrowed a large sample board of the stuff and took it home, I just couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't right for our house. Images of installations that I found online ranged from looking quite good to teeth gratingly terrible.

Largo - Natural Vanished Oak Close Up & Room View

Now we're considering laminates. The top of the line Quickstep Largo range looks beautiful. I've been quoted $49 for materials only and we can install it ourselves since its the click lock system. Heart racing moment when I saw they had an American Oak finish (ha! what has home building reduced me to?!?).

It was decided and topic was closed until 10pm last night when I chanced upon a forum that mentioned a vinyl alternative "Karndean". This product apparently looks like hardwood flooring but is obviously cheaper. Doesn't sound hollow like laminates. Durable. But it does cost more than Quickstep (the product is more expensive plus it has to be professionally installed).

AAARRRGGGHH.. anyone who has either Karndean or Quickstep Largo please contact me. I need the value of your experience with these products.

Dreamy eyes

Now that the slab is down, I can see where exactly each room is, it's outlook and also how TINY everything looks. I'm meeting the Site Supervisor this afternoon with tape measure and camera to ensure all is per floorplan. I've been told that its normal for the slab to make the rooms look small. But being a detail freak, I need to make sure.

After all the time spent on paperwork and endless emails to correct/change things, I can finally look through my collection of inspiring rooms to refocus on the interior design. Here's my favourites to date..

Master Bedroom

Boys' Bedroom

Landscaping

Final floorplan

Major changes to original floorplan

* used Eden Brae promotion for extra square meters

* added the "guestroom" at the back of the house which will be used as the boy's play/media room

* extended the laundry out to meet the garage wall and removed door and jamb between mudroom and laundry

* relocated LP to laundry

* added a wash basin to WC

* removed the small "media room" that was in the middle of the house with no windows and used the space to extend the kitchen & family room and add a walk in pantry

* removed the pillar to the alfresco area so have uninterrupted view to alfresco and garden

* raised the ceiling height

Construction has begun

It's been more than six months since my last post. In between we've had months of thumb twiddling time as we waited for a start date and made the last of the changes involving the finer details.

No more am I allowed to ponder any detail. Well not true. I am. But it's to my detriment as I can't make any further changes.

Long story but finally dirt has been excavated (Mar 8th), piering done and plumbing pipes went in (Mar 11th) and concrete poured (Mar 15th).

Four days later drainage pipes were in and more excavation with more soil used to fill the front of the house and driveway. Was a shock to see heavy machinery on the slab only four days after been poured. Spoke to the Site Supervisor and he said that this was normal and there was no choice because of the fencing around the block and limited room. Frames should be delivered later this week and already we've had a replacement SS. So much for that bottle of JD we gave the first one. Wonder if I should call him and ask if its already been opened haha.

Moving back in time..

We had a new Customer Service Administrator appointed to us late last year and she has changed my perception of building. We would be pre-construction if we'd still been lumped with the previous CSA. A new dawn arose when our phone calls were answered. Emails were responded to the same day. Correct information was sought and then passed to us with progress reports along the way. Astounding.

We were really dealt a Joker with the first CSA. Months were wasted on incorrect information and lags in communication. The average time between us getting a response from email/phone call was two weeks. Even then at times the information was not correctly researched so was either misleading, incomplete or ridiculously far from the mark. We ended up going up the management change to resolve the "Kitchen Saga".

Too painstaking to go into the details about it but eventually we were told we could not relocate the standard kitchen cabinetry into the Walk in Pantry and Laundry even though originally this was ok'd. We had to go back to the drawing board and weeks passed dealing with Home Option Kitchens, the council and Eden Brae. All the kitchen cabinetry ended up being used for the island bench with a 90cm set of soft close servery drawers, dishwasher allowance, double bowl sink, and bin drawer. We still had to pay a design fee and a few hundred for the two tone colour choice and hardware upgrades.

After handover, the rest of the kitchen will be installed. Possibly Ikea flat pack although their cabinetry won't accommodate our 70cm oven. We've used a high end kitchen company to help us with the overall design (ended up similar to the kitchen pictured). They all do free design consultations so I made the most of this service. You should too if you're building. Does take time (I spent around 4 hours at one appointment). They ask the right questions and have the technology to show you a 3D image which HOK couldn't. Also HOK make minimal effort, charge exorbitantly and even lumped a design fee on the quote which I found laughable. Our HOK meeting lasted 40 minutes and that was stretched out because I asked lots of questions.

Back to the future..

The moment of seeing a bulldozer on our untouched block of dirt was indescribable. WOW moment lasted all day for my 3yo who finally got close to the construction machinery he talks about everyday. All those days of blurry eyed checking of contract details, hours of online research, squeezing things into the budget that was already bursting at the seams and tear-your-hair-out miscommunication with the builder that took weeks to resolve, all melted into the background.

Afterwards we played in the excavated area where our boys' bedrooms would be. We now can take the back seat, and watch the home we have in our minds appear in pieces at a time.

And try not to look at any more floorplans so I don't get the urge to plead for another variation. Never mind the Eden Brae charges. Divorce papers may be served.

Weekend developments

Yesterday was very productive. The morning was spent looking online at appliances and using shopbot.com.au, I found and bought a Smeg 70cm oven at a bargain price. Having saved us $2000, I was chuffed at my morning's work and thinking how we could reallocate those funds.

We got everything together, and drove to my parents who were looking after the boys while we tried to get through my long list of To Do items.

First stop was driving to addresses the brick company had given me to look at finished homes that had "smoke" bricks. It was a worthwhile exercise because we realised that the brick had a grey tint and the dark roof tile colour we choose was way off mark.

Very happy with our choice of brick.

I had asked Eden Brae Homes to give us addresses of homes they had built so that we can drive past and see the finished product. Their display homes have so many upgrades, they are not a true indication of what they provide. We got a quick email back saying they cannot give out addresses of past and current clients for privacy reasons. We were not asking for people's names and tax file numbers! Strange that the brick company took the time to look through their records and were happy enough with their product to provide the details.

Our next stop was at a kitchen showroom, Dan Kitchens. We received very little help and were told that they didn't do just island benches because they might be associated with the rest of the kitchen which wouldn't have the same standard as theirs'. In other words, they wouldn't make enough money to warrant doing the job. Apparently (cue smug expression), "nobody does kitchens like Dan". Right. We were hoping nobody else would give us the same shoddy service as Dan.





Dan did however have beautiful kitchen drawers with an amazing spice rack insert.

We drove to Castle Hill and dropped into Creative Kitchens. We received polar opposite service and had an hour with the owner who gave us complete attention and excellent advise that changed our view of Eden Brae's associate Home Option Gallery. They had treated us like a production line instead of asking us key questions to find the correct layout and product choices for such an integral element in our new home. We also learnt that the island benchtop design they came up with was not properly supported for its length and weight. Then it came to pricing. All prices quoted were, at the very least, 50% less than prices quoted at Home Option Gallery. Their massive margins meant our limited budget wouldn't stretch very far to get the right design for our lifestyle.

Important tips from Creative Kitchens were

• Drawers 90cm and over should be avoided or have extra support for the weight
• Corian is softer and scratches easier than Essastone but has no seams and is a warmer surface
• All composite stone companies like Essastone, Caesarstone etc make the same product and you use their colour palette to choose who to go with
• The convenience of a drawer for plates, cutlery and cups next to the dishwasher
• Have Essastone edge mitred if over 20mm otherwise you get an ugly line all the way around
• Drawers cannot be retrofitted with soft close runners
• Any light coloured stone benchtop is dangerously easy to blemish with kids around
• The convenience of a bin drawer next to the sink
• Importance of supporting stone benchtops at the right spots
• The wrong and right shades of white in kitchens

In one hour, we learned how far off the mark our choices were with Home Options Gallery.

Next stop was at the Saville display home to walk through again and make sure we hadn't missed anything.

If we hadn't spent those hours looking around, there would have been a fair few regrets. It makes me happy but also nervous about how little time we have left to make the right choices.