Colours and Electrical

Last Friday we had our colours and electrical appointments with Simonds. It was a long and tiring day with far too many decisions, but we got it done, and the house is just that little bit closer now.

We chose a Sambucca roof tile and a Redgum brick - didn't get any samples of those, and forgot to take photos, but the Sambucca is a dark blue-black colour, and the Redgum is a red brick with blueish highlight patches.  We had a free upgrade on the roof tiles, so we've got Monier Traditional tiles (basically a flat profile instead of the standard wavy profile).  To match these colours we chose Monument colorbond gutters, Classic Cream colorbond fascia and garage door, and White Birch aluminium window frames. 

Monument, Classic Cream and White Birch

To finish off the externals, we went with a Caramel stain on the front door (upgrade from painted door - $197) and added translucent glazing to the front door glass from our promo pack.  Downpipes will be painted to match the Monument. Facade cladding, posts and back doors will match the Classic Cream.  The front gable will be Classic Cream with Monument trimming.

So far so good, now for internals.  For paint on walls and internal doors we chose Pale Mushroom, with white ceilings.

Pale mushroom

We have a hardwood handrail and first 2 stairs from our promo pack, and chose a Caramel stain for these.  Not sure about this one, as we are still yet to decide what timber flooring to go with.

I was a bit disappointed that they don't do a DiamondGloss laminex for the kitchen benches, so I had to choose something similar in a matt instead.  So we chose Imperial Topaz for the kitchen bench, Pearl Mist (fine stipple) for the cabinets, and Luxor for the kickplate. 

Imperial Topaz, Pearl Mist and Luxor

We accepted the standard 900mm Technika cooktop, but we're upgrading the rangehood from our promo pack to a slideout with cupboards, and the oven we will provide ourselves - we're getting a Neff 600mm wall oven.  We also accepted the standard taps, but upgraded the sink ($465) as the standard was quite shallow.

In the bathrooms and laundry, we chose a Stonehaven benchtop, and Pearl Silver cabinets.  The standard basins were either square or round above counter. I generally prefer semi recessed basins, but not enough to want to pay extra, so we went with the standard square basins.

Stonehaven and Pearl Silver

There were plenty of other decisions - door handles, taps architrave and skirting etc.  Generally we just accepted the standard where possible.

The electricals was a little different, as I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted.  Of course this was also the big $$$s.  We ended up spending about $4k even after the items included in the promo pack.
The big stumbling block though, is that they don't do patch panels.  I find this rather surprising, considering they will be doing all the data cabling, but what can I do?  Anyway, because of this, we didn't finalise on the day, as I wanted to run everything past some of my more knowledgable network friends.  After some of their feedback, I'm knocking a few items off (and hopefully about $1k).