We have a roof!

The roof went up very quickly – two days.

What become immediately obvious was that not a lot of roof would be visible from the street.

Frame is up and roof before Christmas

Once the materials arrived and work started, the frame went up very quickly and was finished in about five working days. Normally brickwork would be next after the plumbers roughin, but with the holiday season upon us, Troy our site supervisor wants to get the roof on. Really good thinking! Hopefully the good weather continues for the next few weeks.

Flush tracks for our aluminium stacker doors

Door tracks on external sliding doors are not only a trip hazard, but a little ugly. A good friend of ours gave us a little tip from their KDR experience. All you need to do is to have a recess put into the slab to allow for the door frame. This is not standard so you need to ask for it.

You can see the recess in the photos below. All the contractors do is insert some formwork into the concrete based on the construction drawings. I watched them do it and it took no time at all.

The only reason we will have a flush finish on our external stacker doors is because we were given a great tip from our friend Kerith.

Personally I think this should be standard or at the very least offered as an option during the tender stage. It is little details like this that contribute to a great result.

We have a slab!

The slab was poured on November 8, the day after the formwork was completed.

Earthworks and Formwork

There was about a month delay from our clearance certificate to the commencement of work – something that Eden Brae did inform us would be the case. The earthworks were completed in about 2 hours and formwork started the next day. Our site supervisor – Troy – has advised that we can expect the slab to be poured next week.

Down she comes

And just like that the fences were up, the trucks arrived, the mechanical digger started and down came our little family home. The team at ANA demolition were fantastic. They were easy to communicate with and careful with our desires to keep certain trees and plants in the garden. We would highly recommend them. Once our clerance certificate is granted, Eden Brae can get started and peg out the site. Let's hope that the next step with Eden Brae will be as smooth as it was with ANA!

Farewell to our family home

We knew the time would come to say Farewell to our family home. The home that all 4 girls came home to from hospital when born.
We decided to farewell our house with a Graffiti party. We had spent many years taking care of this home - renovating internally and externally. The idea of a bulldozer going through when it still looked like a lovely home wasn't right. We had a great time decorating the walls with friends and family.

DA Approval - June 7th

We have DA approval from our local council! Yes it's real. It came through on SJ's birthday.

A simple tapware upgrade with an Epic cost

Eden Brae's standard tapware range across their Prestige series homes is Dorf's Jovian range. One of the challenges with the Home Options process is that the full range was not on display. After visiting a number of different showrooms, we decided that we wanted to change a number of items from Dorf's Jovian range to the Dorf Epic range. The Epic range maintains square angles but is a little softer and cleaner. We found the Jovian range a little chunky for our taste.

Dorf Jovian v Epic (images from Dorf website)

To get a rough idea of the potential cost change, we did a calculation using the recommended retail prices (RRP) published on the Dorf website. Seemed reasonable enough. Based on the unit cost difference and the quantities required, we calculated an overall cost increase of $203.00 to switch ranges. Note: this excluded basin mixers as we have selected a mixer from Astra Walker.

When the costing came back from Cook's Plumbing Supplies, the figure was a whopping $2,068.19! That is a little over 1000% more!! For example, the RRP difference between the wall bath mixers is $5.00 online, but the cost increase from Cook's is $257.27. Really!

Now I understand that Eden Brae and/or Cook's Plumbing have no doubt done a great deal with Dorf on the Jovian range for Eden Brae's Prestige series homes but that cost increase is truly "epic".

We queried it with Cook's Plumbing. The explanation was that their pricing is not RRP and that the pricing on Dorf's Jovian range is the result of a bulk discount to Eden Brae. Sounds reasonable but surely does not explain the huge difference. Our contract says the builders margin is 20% but with no transparency, the consumer is left with no option but to trust the builder.

This small example does show very powerfully just how costly upgrades can be.

Pendant Light for Powder Room

The first piece of our new home arrived this week – a pendant light for the powder room from Ivory & Deane. We decided to purchase it in case it was no longer available by the time our rebuild was finished. 

The smallest room in the house is where we have decided to have a bit of fun with black, white and highlights in copper tones. We have chosen a matt black subway tile for the wall behind the basin/mirror. The wall tile will be laid in a herringbone pattern with black grout. Since we do not require any storage, we will go with a 600mm wall hung basin from Studio Bagno with AstraWalker's Metropolis basin mixer in flemish copper. To soften the square lines of the basin we will hang a round mirror from IKEA (Grundtal) with a black leather strapped mirror kit from etsy.com – thanks to Robyn from Inspired Interiors for that find! The pendant with it's black and copper detailing and a retro edison filament globe will finish the look.

Feature wall elevation

Flemish copper (right) is more subtle than copper (left)

Black subway tile with 600 x 600 floor tile and spotted gum flooring sample

Kitchen Design

'The kitchen is the heart of the home' is a common saying and in our family of six that is certainly the case. We went into our Kitchen Culture appointment with a clear idea of what we wanted. We had a mood board with research from sites like Houzz and had even developed some draft elevations ourselves including thoughts on colours and finishes. Robyn from Inspired Interiors also joined us to offer her expertise and advice as a qualified kitchen designer.

Sample mood board

Houzz is a great resource – not only for identifying want you like but just as importantly what you don't like. Our visual research led us towards a palette of white and grey combined with the warmth of timber.

Which Floor Species?

One of the key considerations was the selection of species for the flooring. Blackbutt and Spotted Gum are both popular flooring options. Right now Blackbutt is arguably more in favour but we decided to go with Spotted Gum as we liked the slightly darker colour as well as the greater variation in colour and also the grey veins that run through the boards.

Design

We have kept with Eden Brae's Sandringham kitchen layout – a galley plus an island – with the following changes:

• increased the island bench overhang and added waterfall edges
• added a window splash back
• added overheads above the freestanding oven with a concealed undermount range hood
• added one run of floor cabinets in the WIP
• addition of bulkhead above overhead cabinets
• use of pot drawers

We have stayed with the standard range of inclusions for appliances excluding the fridge which is not included in Eden Brae's kitchen package.

The lighting plan for the kitchen will also be a key consideration. So far we have included LED lighting in the overheads and placement of batons to accommodate three pendants above the island bench.

Draft galley elevation

Draft elevation including island bench

Finishes and Palette

Kitchen base cabinets: Satin Polyurethane in Dulux Mt Eden

Kitchen overheads: Laminex Impressions Sublime Teak Riven Finish

Kichen benchtop: essastone Pure Cloud

Splashback: window and essastone Pure Cloud

Palette for kitchen

WIP base cabinets: Formica Ashphalt (selected to match Dulux Mt Eden)

WIP benchtop: Laminex Fresh Snow (selected to match essastone Pure Cloud)

Palette for walk in pantry

Facade and exterior palette

The facade is a modified version of the Long Island. The exterior will be brick on the ground floor and weatherboard on the first floor. The entire front facade will be rendered and painted the same colour as the weatherboard (see palette below).

Finishes and palette

Render & weatherboard: Taubman's 'Miss Molly'
Exposed brick (sides and rear): Truffle from PGH (this is an upgrade from standard range)
Roof tiles: Monier Horizon Sambuca
Windows: Colorbond® Surfmist
Gutters and Facia: Colorbond® Monument

Floor Plans

Here are our floor plans. We have made the following modifications to Eden Brae's Sandringham 38:

• increased the depth of the house by 500mm
• added the alfresco
• added 1000mm to the width of the garage
• increased the size of the laundry/reduced size of the living space
• reconfigured the ensuite, walk in robe (master bedroom), powder room and walk in pantry

Home Options: A review

Now that we have almost completed speccing our Sandringham,  it is a good time to review Eden Brae's process.

Day 1
1. Home Options – external and internal colour selection including brick and tile selection, front door, garage door, door furniture, cornice and skirting
3. Kitchen Culture – kitchen, laundry and bathroom cabinetry
4. Cook's Plumbing – toilets, basins, bath, tap ware, kitchen appliances
5. Actron Air – Airconditioning

Day 2
6. Home Smart Innovations – electrical
7. General Stairs – staircase
8. DiLorenzo – tiles, carpet and other flooring options

In our view the DiLorenzo appointment should be earlier in the process. It makes more sense to design the interior from the floor up and if you are looking at hardwood strip flooring, a 40mm allowance is required which will change the height of the kitchen cabinets due to Eden Brae's practice of installing the kitchen first – on the slab. Eden Brae do recommended a visit to PGH (to select bricks and roof tiles) and DiLorenzo before the Day 1 appointment.

We also took along our good friend Robyn Cote from Inspired Interiors. Robyn has a great eye and we really value her advice. Robyn is a colour consultant, kitchen and bathroom designer and interior decorator who has also project managed large renovations which has given her a very sound understanding of the construction process.

Home Options
Our first meeting was with Sarah at Home Options. Sarah was friendly, knowledgable, fun and a pleasure to deal with. Sarah understood very quickly the design style that we wanted to achieve and was able to add value to the selection process. We have also found Sarah to be very responsive post our meetings in providing advice and answering questions.

Kitchen Culture
At Kitchen Culture we met Mary Anne who worked with us to design our kitchen and bathroom cabinetry. We went into the meeting with mood boards from desktop research and some draft elevations i.e. we had some clear thoughts on a design direction. We are still in the process of finalising the design as we had to wait on our choice of flooring to confirm the height of the bench tops. Following our initial meeting, we have also asked Kitchen Culture to cost laundry cabinetry which we are thinking of doing ourselves depending on the cost.

Cook's Plumbing
Next up was Peta at Cook's plumbing who explained to us our standard inclusions and took us through upgrade options for toilet suites, vanities, tap ware in the bathrooms, plus kitchen appliances. We did not have an allowance for any upgrades but we did make a small number of changes. Nothing was too much trouble for Peta and we found her to be extremely helpful especially in researching some options for the powder room.

Home Air
By the time we got to Home Air, we were running late! I think Glenn was a little frustrated at first due to our lateness (fair enough) but once he realised that we knew a bit about Actron's AC systems, as we have one in our current home, he was more relaxed.

Home Smart Innovations
Craig took as through our electrical plan using an excellent online tool by Clipsal, that mapped lights, switches etc on our plans. The plan was linked to a costing model that quoted the electrical plan in real time as elements were added. Very impressive workflow and made the whole process very simple. Costings came in just under our allowance. Craig is great bloke and loves a chat.

General Stairs
The stairwell in the Sandringham is immediately visible on entering through the front door, so we wanted to make it a feature. We had an allowance in our tender price to upgrade the stairs, so we were keen to see if the allowance was sufficient. The General Stairs website was very useful in understanding the key terms used in specifying stairs (e.g. closed, cut and mono string, closed v open rise etc) and has a helpful gallery. At the Home Options gallery, General Stairs had a useful display to further explain options for the purpose of costing the staircase.

DiLorenzo
If you are planning a visit to DiLorenzo on a weekend to do some initial research, be prepared for a bit of chaos! It's a mad house with people like us asking the same questions e.g. What tiles/carpet are standard inclusions for (insert builders name)? What is our allowance for tiles? How much is that? How much is this one? What about this one?…total mayhem! If you can take some time off work and make a mid-week visit it is definitely worth it. We took Robyn along and by the time our scheduled appointment came around we had a clear idea on our direction and only had the ensuite floor tile and powder room tiling to finalise.

At our Day 2 appointment with Isabelle we had the pleasure of meeting Jack and Sally DiLorenzo and had a great chat with Jack about family, the early days of DiLorenzo and enjoying every day. Jack is an absolute gentleman and Sally was spritely and engaging.

Isabelle was a huge help in helping us finalise the ensuite and powder room. Isabelle's knowledge and passion for tiles was evident and to her credit, she admitted that her knowledge on timber flooring was limited. We had an allowance in our tender price for timber flooring but we quickly discovered that it was not enough. In addition we did not include an allowance in our tender price for tile or carpet upgrades which in hindsight was an oversight.

DiLorenzo's hardwood floor costing was in our opinion overpriced. A quick call to Amy who is our Eden Brae CSO confirmed that Eden Brae will handover the project without the timber floor so we are able to investigate using our own suppliers.

DiLorenzo's initial tiling quote lacked detail, showing a breakdown by room only. On request a more detailed breakdown was supplied.

Scotia problem solved!

I had a very positive conversation with Bev at Eden Brae today about our Kitchen and the use of Scotia. Bev was very responsive, friendly and solution oriented – big tick from us!

The plan is to install the kitchen first on the slab as per their normal practice, minus the kickboards, barback and waterfall stone bench. Once the floor is laid, kitchen installers will return to install the kickboards, barback and benchtop. This will involve an additional cost as it involves a call back for trades but it is a cost we are happy to accept to get the result that we want i.e. no scotia. We still need to communicate this with Kitchen Culture, but Bev did not see any problem.

The most important issue is to make a decision about flooring and understand the impact of that decision. Hardwood strip flooring requires a 40mm allowance, whereas a floating floor requires 20mm. This has implications for bench heights, window splashback etc and even floor levels throughout the rest of the ground floor eg. carpeted rooms.

The lesson is to consider all these potential issues upfront. The challenge of course is that this requires a keen eye for detail and the advice of people around you who know what they are talking about, because not all of us our experts.

Scotia Nightmare!

We love hardwood floors, so during the tender process we allowed for a flooring upgrade.
In preparation for our two meetings to select finishes and colours, we visited Di Lorenzo twice to look at carpet, hardwood flooring and tiles. At our first Home Options meeting last week, we were required to choose our interior colours and finishes for kitchen and bathroom vanities, but to do that we needed to have considered flooring i.e. will our colour and finish selections work with our flooring? Eden Brae's process of choosing wall colours etc., first seems 'arse about' to me. I would have thought you build your palette of colour and finishes from the floor up. As a print designer this makes sense and speaking to friends who are interior designers only confirmed my thinking. The right process is incredibly important to good design.

Scotia! Aghh!
When talking to the sales people at Di Lorenzo about hardwood flooring options, we were told that we would need to select scotia to run around the edges of our kitchen cabinetry. To say we were shocked is an understatement. On further investigation, we discovered that Eden Brae's standard practice is to install the kitchen first and then lay the floor – whether it be tiles, a floating floor or a hardwood floor.

Scotia

Scotia is therefore required to finish off the edges because an allowance has be made for the floor to expand and contract. Tiles on the other had can be cut for a tight fit and finished with grout and caulking.

When you speak to flooring experts however, best practice is to lay a hardwood floor first. Then other trades can walk on the floor to fit out the internals. No protection of the floor is required, because the floor is sanded and finished once the internal fit-out is complete. This results in the very best result and removes the need for scotia, which looks bloody awful!

Scotia installed around an island bench in a Metricon display home. Let's be honest – it looks crap!

A hardwood floor (i.e. strip flooring) can bear the weight of a kitchen. We have some conflicting advice on engineered floors – most experts say an engineered floor can not bear the weight of a kitchen whereas we know of one supplier who claims it can. Whatever the case, we do not want scotia ruining a beautiful kitchen.

We have spoken to our Customer Service Administrator (CSA) about this issue and have been advised that Eden Brae will not change their process. I can only guess that Eden Brae is totally geared towards the investment market with 70% of clients investors who would select a standard floor inclusion i.e. tiles. We will be writing to management on this issue, but if anyone has any insights it would be appreciated.

I hope I don't sound like a whinger but attention to detail is the difference between an average job and a great job, the difference between ordinary and quality. Eden Brae I am sure would consider themselves to be a quality builder but on this issue, their process is wrong. As I said above, process is critical to good design and it is also critical to quality building.

What is really disappointing is that the use of scotia was not made clear during the tender process. We were very clear that we were interested in a hardwood floor. I believe we should have been told that the floor would be laid around the kitchen not on top of it. We just assumed that the job would be done properly. We assumed wrong.

If you have your heart set on a hardwood floor and want the job done properly…choose another builder.

Home Options: Meeting 1

Our first Home Options appointment was today which included:

• Exterior colour selection and finishes
• Interior colour selection
• Door furniture
• Kitchen design
• Ensuite, bathroom and powder room cabinetry
• Vanity and tapware selection
• Kitchen appliance selection
• Air conditioning

At times we felt like we were being pushed through a factory – it was a lot to get through in one day. We had visited PGH, the Home Options gallery and had also been to Di Lorenzo twice to look at flooring and tile selection prior to today, so we had done our homework and were well prepared. From what we can gather around 70% of Eden Brae's clients are investors and a lot of them are not that concerned with selecting colours and finishes. I guess if it is not your home your main priority is getting a valuation of your list of inclusions so that you can give it to your accountant to calculate your tax deductions! Most investors are also unlikely to spend a lot on upgrades. We on the other had, do care and want to be happy with the home we are building and intending to live in.

Sandringham Display Home in Melbourne

To our knowledge Eden Brae have not built a Sandringham in Sydney. In fact, Eden Brae do not have the Sandringham on display which makes it very hard to visualise the design. Perhaps this explains why no one has built one!

Eden Brae source many of their designs from RSS Design Studio – a Melbourne based design company. The Sandringham design is also built by Porter Davis – a Melbourne based builder. They use the name 'Somerville'. It seems that Eden Brae and Porter Davis license a number of RSS Design Studio layouts eg. The Waldorf.

Porter Davis have the Sandringham on display about 50 minutes north of Melbourne CBD. Today we travelled to Melbourne for a couple of days at the Australian Open and decided that we should take the opportunity to inspect the display home ahead of our contract meeting with Eden Brae.

There are a couple of minor differences between the standard layouts used by Eden Brae and Porter Davis. For example Porter Davis runs the staircase in the opposite direction to Eden Brae. Overall though the Porter Davis layout was very similar to what we were expecting. The void over the rear living space is a stunning feature! We also loved the upstairs layout – the size of the living space and bedrooms which is very well suited to our family.

Overall it was definitely worth the visit and confirmed that we are heading in the right direction.

Entrance Hallway: The Porter Davis layout has the staircase running in the opposite direction.

End of entrance hallway looking into kitchen & living space

View of Dining/Living from Kitchen

Upstairs living space

The void is probably the key feature of the Sandringham layout