Cody

Something different tonight! It will be brief but I'd like to touch on it as it has a bit to do with the home we are building and it might give those of you who don't know us personally, a better idea of who we are. Who is Cody Drysdale, other than a homeone forum and blogspot username? Well, Drysdale is the house design we are building, and Cody is the name of a very special girl we lost a few months ago. I am an only child, and in 1999 I was 17 and our family was out to get a new dog. We went to the RSPCA and had a look at the puppies available. The parents insisted on getting a female and the only female in the litter was the Codester. So we were stuck with her! I was a quiet kid, and she was my best friend. We referred to her as my 'sister'. Even now at 30 I can confidently say she was my best friend, my favourite person. She knew everything about me whether she knew it or not and she was my world. We had 13 1/2 awesome years together before she started to feel her age and I had to make the toughest decision of my life. One month after she passed I dreamt that she was with me on a bare patch of Earth. I woke up really happy, interpreting it as Oran Park. So glad I can remember my dreams :)

Stephen had previously mentioned (when we still had Cody, he knew her for the last two years of life) that he wanted to name our theatre room after her. It would unofficially be known as the Cody SchliEgan Theatre Room (she had a couple of dozen nicknames). If I get my way, I want Becca to do a portrait for me. I've been in touch and can get a digital copy of the artwork for about $150. I'm happy with that when the cost of a printed and shipped artwork would be $400+ for a large size. I'm thinking it would look nice on a feature wall in the theatre, but we'll figure that out when we actually have the theatre room! So we'll have a happy, funky artwork to remember a very inspirational pup who was full of nothing but love (and the ability to be a real ratbag when she wanted!!). xxx

Colour Samples

Not very good quality, but these are our colour selections:

• We've gone with a dark grey colorbond roof, in monument.
• The bricks are mocha, in the standard range for our package. We were going to go with a darker one but that was more of a want than a need. 
• The garage and much of the house will be in surfmist. 
• We forgot to look at the render colour, but we will be going with Stone Drab. We hadn't seen it until yesterday but it was the favourite for both of us.
• I did want a red door, but we decided it could look a bit out of place, so have gone for a reddish stain instead (upgrade). The door itself has three large panes of glass. In a standard size door this would look a bit squarish but ours will look like this. The translucent glass is also an upgrade.

 Next up is internal paint! There are standard shades, so just because they say Taubmans Endure, don't go to Bunnings and find a colour you love unless you're willing to pay for it. You can probably see a past post where I've got a swatch of Grey Fog. Well its not standard. The standard shades only require two coats of paint. The one we've chosen instead is the closest to what we liked.

Kitchen stuff! We haven't had our appointment yet, kitchen and electrical are on Monday however we have chosen the colours we like. 

• On the left side are the colours we are using for the ensuite. New Cairo essastone is standard. The door colour is from polytec and that's something we'll change after handover. In the interim we will use what EBH can provide and hopefully Blackened Linewood is a standard colour!
• In the centre is the kitchen. Sorbet stone (not standard) and possibly either Blackened Linewood from laminex or Amerind Ebony Fineline Gloss. We had a look at Stephens work showroom today and we both like a type of fingerpull system that may not be possible with laminex or Amerind. If all else fails we might just do a really dark colour and put a feature panel on the back of the island bench.
• On the right is the main bathroom. This should compliment our main tile well. Piazza stone upgrade, and chalky teak laminex, which is standard. We actually like chalky teak, so this one might stay!

 
Oh and we just got our carpet quote back. I was only $100 off so I'm happy! For 4 bedrooms, robes and theatre and the $8/sqm underlay, we'll be looking at around $2700.

Colour Appointment #1 - a success!

Yesterday we had day one of our colour appointment days. We came prepared and with a fair idea of what we wanted, and I think that has made the experience MUCH easier. First we went upstairs at HOG and met with out Colour Consultant, Rikelle. She was great. The others in the Home Options Gallery sounded just lovely as well, but Rikelle made everything so easy. She offered honest and useful advice and was very helpful. I will add photos of the colours later today or tomorrow.

 

We finished with Rikelle early, so while a couple of other people were delayed, we were moved in to see Nicole from Abbey blinds. Again we had a vague idea of what we were after (just wanted to get a quote for shutters for our main facade), so that made her job a lot easier too I'm sure. Again, lovely consultant! You're going to see a trend here :) She seemed to know her job very well and offered some good suggestions and assured us of the quality of the product. At this stage I'm thinking that it may be worthwhile to get their shutters for the front, and a couple of translucent (??) rollers for wardrobe and ensuite. We used blinds online for the last place and I think if there's a big price difference, if they offer very similar products, we will probably just go with them. As long as we can sort something out for the main and secondary facade windows, we'll make do. There are a few things that are a higher priority than blinds for bedrooms not in use (fridge etc!). Quote should come through next week.

Next up, we went to Jenni from Outback Landscaping to discuss driveways. We went in thinking there was NO WAY we would get pavers. Weeds, buckling, yuck! But she talked us into it within a couple of minutes. Less maintenance, less major problems to deal with in future. As long as we don't put the removalist truck on the driveway, there would be no issues! They've got some fencing contacts too, which will be useful when it comes time to fence. Being a corner block, we'll be needing some contacts! Oh, did I mention Jenni was lovely!? All the staff we saw really had our trust.

Our next visit was to Cooks Plumbing (all these people so far are in the same building). We sat down with Dana (South African I think? LOVE that accent! Anyway back to what I was saying...), and discussed a few things. Didn't have to worry about much as the kitchen appliances were taken out. She explained what was standard, and we were happy with the range. We're in the Lifestyle range and upgraded to the Living Essentials package. Water filters were explained - the prices weren't too bad but it's not something we need, so we opted not to add one. The only thing I wanted to take out were soap dishes in the bathrooms. We don't need it if we have a niche, and if you could see my current soap dish, you would understand why I'm not a fan! So we used the credit for that, to get a hand towel rail in ensuite and bathroom. We need to add a further $29.55 to our bill. Shouldn't break the bank! That was the extent of our bathroom/kitchen upgrades. Dana knew her stuff and showed us examples in the showroom wherever possible.

By this point we were running two hours early. People must come into these appointments with literally NO idea!? Headed to Castle Towers for a bite to eat and be annoyed by crappy carparks.

At 2:30 we had our appointment at DiLorenzo with Ann. Turns out she was the first woman we spoke to at DiLorenzo. She made a great first impression and I am SO glad we got her yesterday. Most of our choices were in the builders range, we just need to pay a few surcharges. Some of our extra costs will be:

• Approx $38 for the nicer floor waste, below (2 per bathroom, 1 in laundry)
• Cost for laying tiles over standard size
• Cost for laying mosaic feature tile

We're also getting a quote to get the external tiles (same as internal, but with grip) post-handover. 

Also if you are planning on doing a splashback yourself, apparently we need to have this mentioned on a PCV so DiLorenzo can cover their asses. We are looking into this at the moment. Hoping it's not an additional cost. Paying $500 for a PCV for a tiling credit that would probably be minimal kind of defeats the purpose. So we'll see what the go is there.

So here's the placement of the house on the land. Oran Park have unusual fencing guidelines, just to make exposed fences look more appealing. You can go down 1/3 of the property, step it in a metre, then continue to halfway. It does look good, but to be honest it pi$$es me off a little bit. My interest in the corner block is the added yard space, and natural light, I just wish the yard space didn't end up in the front yard. At the end of the day, I think it will still look great. We also moved our water tank. The architect had put it up near bedroom four, which I have crossed out. We want it near the garage. We added extra space to the house (shaded areas) so the space near the garage seems to make the most sense. When we get a shed, it will go up near the crossed out water tank. Air con and clothesline along the back wall.

We made very small changes, other than the added space throughout the house. Took out a wall in the kitchen near the fridge, and we made the study into a wardrobe. Storage shouldn't be a problem in this house!

So that's it! All up we have spent $750 on upgrades - mostly on the front door (but we don't have the tiling details yet uh-oh!). Colours will be added when I've got more time :)

Tile choices

Unless we change our mind. But then we'd have to look at everything again :-/
Floor tiles:

Ensuite Tiles:


Main Bathroom Tiles / Laundry Tiles:

Colours?

If I only see DiLorenzo one more time in my life, I will be happy (but I think it will be more). We went there again today to match our kitchen and stone samples with tiles. I've touched on some of this before, but we got some better photos and have a much better idea of what we're after. Anyway, here are some images of what we hope to do, and what we have decided on. This is some idea of what the house will look like (not our facade but close enough, and the colours are an estimate). Thanks to Kerith for finding this: http://www.studiom.com.au/envisage 

The colours we are keen on:
Walls - Grey Fog

Theatre Room feature wall - One of these purples?

Kitchen Feature wall - Braidwood

Couple of ideas...not sure how well they will work but we're thinking that with the greys, whites and blacks, we may need a couple of bright colours throughout. I don't know if the red door will still work with Mocha, we will deal with that when the house is built I guess. The greens below are ideas for the kitchen splashback.

This, is probably the thing that has been most frustrating to date. The top two stone colours, are the two 'standard' stones, when you upgrade to a package with stone benchtops in the kitchen. That's it. We're doing this:

Kitchen - Sorbet (upgrade of about $950).

Ensuite - New Cairo. We think this colour is generally hideous (in comparison to the rest of the options available), but it should work with what we plan on doing.

Main Bathroom - Piazza (not sure how much the upgrade will be)