Let's talk about price, baby!

Let's talk about price, baby!

Let's talk about you and me

Let's talk about all the good things, and the bad things

That could be...

[Sung to the tune of 'Let's Talk About Sex' by Salt 'n' Pepa - pathetic, I know!]

We received the preliminary quote from Keogh via email on Monday evening, and this was followed up by a face-to-face meeting on Saturday morning. As for the price...drumroll please!......we have come in at about $10,000 more than our initial Premier contract.

However, this is primarily driven by the fact that this quote includes provisions for Keogh to provide the outdoor decking and Caesarstone benchtops in the kitchen, neither of which we chose to include with Premier. The question is now, should we cough up the extra $10k and keep these options, or move them onto our list of things to do after handover? Decisions, decisions.... 

So far the biggest components of the quote are the stumps/site costs and the timber flooring, which are to be expected. The other big cost is the kitchen. We are going to style the kitchen on Premier's Delatite / Jamieson kitchen, with white vinyl wrap cabinetry and a country mantle. However, the actual shape of the kitchen is a little different - more of an 'L' shape and then a separate island bench. Somehow, I think we might have just enough storage space in the kitchen - at last count, we are up to 15 pot drawers!

Refresh: This is the kitchen in Premier's Delatite

There are still a few small things that we tossing up upgrading throughout the house, and I don't really see anything else that we could cut out apart from the deck and the Caesarstone benchtops, so if we want to keep close to the original contract price then these are the things that are going to have to go. That, or we scale back the kitchen in some way.

What are your thoughts on having a double vanity in the ensuite? The bench in the ensuite is 1800mm long, so it is definitely long enough to comfortably fit two sinks, but I don't know what the advantages or disadvantages would be for this set-up. I like the look of having two sinks, but what does it really mean in practical terms? How does this affect the storage space in the cupboards underneath, having all that added sink paraphernalia?

Today we continued the house-oriented weekend by visiting our storage locker, as we needed to confirm the measurements of the fireplace and hearth that will be going in the family room - I had forgotten how big the mantle actually is! Should come up really nice in this room though, especially once we get the insert sandblasted and repainted and put in our pretty flowered tiles.

Pretty fireplace

So what are the next steps?

We have scheduled in the next meeting with Keogh for two weeks time, so we have until then to decide what changes we want to make to the current specs. If everything is okay, we will then sign the Preliminary Building Agreement and proceed to drawing up the contracts - hopefully this process will go much quicker than it did with Premier!

P.S. We have also updated the pic of the house in the header, as this is a more accurate reflection of what the house will look like now (except for the dormer window). We are thinking of using a similar colour scheme, and we will be having the same archwork as shown here.