Our Gallery appointment selections

On Monday 27th April we had out Gallery appointment at Simonds in Geelong.  We had the help of an amazing girl, Rebecca, who was able to assist us in bringing together our dream home.  We took in some pictures of bathrooms, kitchens etc that we liked, talked about our budget, and she showed us our options, which were spot on!  We are so happy with what we have chosen and can't wait to see it become a reality when we begin building.

This is our facade selection.  We picked Austral Access Chestnut for our main brick, Praline for our front stack/peirs, woodland grey for our roof and window frames, Blood Diamond for our front door and Fossil for the cladding. Both bricks were an upgrade from Category 1.  The Access Chestnut was Category 2, and the Praline was Category 6. 

Austral Access Chestnut

Austral Praline

Woodland Grey

Our front door (blood diamond) - but each side will have a panel of glass. 

For both the Ensuite and the Main Bathroom we have Ceasaerstone Urban for the benchtops and Laminex Sublime Teak for the cupboards.  The Ensuite is a darker grey tile, and the Bathroom a lighter grey.  Both Bathroom and Ensuite have a window to lighten the room, and a long wall that is not tiled and will be painted the same pale grey as the rest of the house. 

Both the 600x300 tiles and the stone benchtops were an upgrade. 

Ceaserstone Urban Grey (kitchen and bathrooms).  We ended up changing the bathroom, ensuite and powder room to a white stone so that it didn't look all so dark

Laminex Sublime Teak

Main bathroom 600 x 300 tiles to floor and shower. The two paint samples show the wall colour and trim colour. The smaller tiles are the feature ones to go in the niche. 

Close up of the feature tile for the niche in the Main bathroom

Bathroom handles - standard. 

Bath in main bathroom - standard. 

Ensuite. Same Urban benchtop, sublime teak doors, darker grey 600 x 300 tiles to floor and shower and the round paint samples are the wall colour and trim. 

Close up of the feature tile. I love all the texture in it!

Ensuite handles. We have also purchased black towel rail, black toilet roll holder and hand towel holder. 

Standard toilet for bathroom, Ensuite and powder room.  

Sink in bathroom, powder room and Ensuite - an upgrade. 

Shower - standard. We will upgrade this when we move in. This was one area that was expensive to upgrade. 

Bathroom mixer - standard

Bath taps - standard. 

Shower mixer - standard. 

 Undermount sink - upgrade

 Accessories that come with the sink. 

Kitchen mixer - standard. We plan to replace this when we move in. 

Overhead cupboards are in Alaskan Nuance. Bottom cupboards are in a white winyl wrap. No handles on the overhead cupboards. 

Oven - upgrade. 

Back splash is these grey hexagon tiles. They have a slight pattern/swirl through them. Wanted glass splashback or mirror, but had to choose between an extended kitchen island bench that was extra wide, or the backsplash - so I made a tile work!  Hopefully it will look as good as I am picturing in my head!

Carpet - Cat 2 (small upgrade).  We really wanted a lighter grey, but there was no choice for this colour in the lower categories. To get the light grey we would have had to go up to about Cat 5, which would have cost thousands. 

Handles throughout the house - standard. 

Front door lock - standard. 

slider door handle in to the laundry - standard. 

Laundry sink taps - standard. 

Gallery Appointment tomorrow - exciting times!

So out Gallery appointment is tomorrow and to say we are excited is an understatement!  We have spent the past week painting sample colours on plaster, checking out bricks and then driving around to look at houses built in the brick we like.  I have spent hours on Pinterest and put together an Inspiration Board and cut out some pictures to take with us.

The most nerve racking thing is not knowing how much things will cost to upgrade, what exactly is included as standard and if we will be able to make out home how we are hoping with the budget that we have.

Time will tell....

Simonds Stanten - to be our castle!

So finally, after a few weeks of indecision, we finally decided on the Simonds Stanten!

We had bought the block for a double storey house that would allow us to have a bigger backyard, but when it came time to make a decision, hubby was really torn between a single storey house that would be completely "tricked out" for our budget, or the double storey which would be more basic, but would have the "bones" in place to grow and adapt with our family.

I really wanted the double storey Stanten, as with hubby being a Carpenter, I know that he can finish things around the house, add things as needed over time.  Hubby was leaning towards the single until we visited a few display homes and was actually able to see how big the backyard would be with the double.

The big question remained - would it come in at our budget??  We really wanted to restrict what we spend on our house as we still want to have a good lifestyle and not be a slave to the mortgage.  Many lengthy discussions with our Sales consultant, and things were beginning to look not so good, but she was truly amazing and managed to get the price (with all of our changes) well within our budget!

And so on the 29th March our decision was made and we went in, made the changes necessary to make the house suit our needs and signed!

We ended up adding a triple garage, a dining/alfresco, butlers pantry (without the sink!), swapping the laundry and powder room around (so laundry is now accessed off the kitchen, the powder room from behind the stairs).  We redesigned the master bedroom to have a WIR behind the bed, redesigned the main bathroom and ensuite to make the main bathroom bigger (I do have three girls who will become teenagers!) and the ensuite a bit smaller and increased the size of one of the bedrooms. We have stone to the kitchen and bathrooms, and upgraded the freestanding oven, and have an allowance of $7000 built in for upgrades at our Gallery appointment (such as tiles, carpet etc).

Our Sales lady, Tania, was AMAZING through our whole process! She was patient, provided us with different options across both single and double, and then went above and beyond to get us as much as possible for our budget.  I can't recommend her highly enough.

Friday 10th April our land titles were finally released!! yay!  Which means titles will be available in the next two weeks.  This was also the day that our Simonds Customer Relationship Co-ordinator Leticia phoned to introduce herself, and to set up our Gallery appointment and contract signing date.  It's all finally going ahead and is beginning to feel real!

So the next ten days are going to be spent on Pinterest finding inspiration pictures to take with us to our appointment!!

Simonds Stanten - Plymouth Facade