Pre-Start meeting (Colour selection, electrical plan, upgrades etc.)

Just over a month after our contract signing and the day had arrived for our pre-start meeting. As we were notified so early of our pre-start date we had time to research, plan and prepare for what we would go through on the day and it could not have paid off any more!

We absolutely flew through our selections process as we knew the colours we wanted, all the finishes (taps, handles etc.) and had already mocked up an electrical plan that we wanted to follow. Boutique advised us that the whole process would take around 6 hours or so.. we started at 9.30am and had colours, upgrades and electrical all selected and signed off on and were on the road home by midday!

The consultants we had were excellent. They were helpful in suggesting better alternatives to our original choices (and sometimes cheaper!), voicing their concerns about anything and explaining to us things that are better finished off post-build (ceiling fans, up and down lights, flood lights, painting single room colours etc.). All this while still leaving us in full control of our choices.

The only hurdles we ran in to were very minor things that we had not considered, which were:

• Staggered vs Stacked tiles (we ended up going with stacked)
• Orientation of cupboard handles, vertical or horizontal (we went horizontal)
• Size of skirting/architraves (went for smaller options)

The largest change we made was to the colour of the kitchen caeserstone bench. Originally we were intending to select 'Ocean Foam' (left) but found it didn't match our tile and bottom cabinetry selections, so we went for a darker 'Urban' (right) and ended up using Ocean Foam as the bench top in the bathrooms.

External colour choices:

Main render: Linseed
Feature/Contrast render: Malay Grey
Roof: Dusk (not Off-White as pictured)
Brick: Homestead Tan (category 3)
Garage: Dark Stain (please ignore horrible photoshop job! We went back and changed this after originally choosing a different colour)


Internal colour choices (kitchen/living):

Tiles: Stone Ivory (category 2)
Cabinetry (bottom): Ash White
Cabinetry (overhead): Lustrous Elm - shown more clearly below

Benchtop: Urban
Carpet: Black Orbit - shown more clearly below

Bathrooms/Laundry:

Tiles: Charcoal (category 2)
Cabinetry: Ash White
Benchtop (laundry): Stipple Smoke
Benchtop (bathroom): Ocean Foam


Electrical:

• Downlights in main entrance, master, theater, kitchen, living, outdoor area (29 total)
• Dimmer lights in theatre
• Junction for up and down lights to front facade (either side of garage)
• TV points and extra power outlet added to each bedroom and theater
• Power outler added to outdoor area
• Reinforced roof to allow later addition of pendant lights over kitchen bench and a fan in the living area
• Heat lights to en-suite and main bathroom
• Switch board moved to garage

Other notable upgrades made:

• Upgraded front door to XS26 (left), with pull bar handle, translucent glass and stained timber finish to match garage door

• Upgraded rangehood to slide/pull out canopy
• Upgraded oven to free-standing (larger)
• Upgraded towel rail to double