Choices and Changes

Why did we initially choose Provincial Homes?

• As mentioned in our last post we reviewed many floor plans. We planned to keep looking until we found a plan that was 98% as we wanted it - we did not want to spend too much on structural design changes. We narrowed our choice to two builders in this process.

• Provincial were one of the few home builders to be totally transparent about the cost and upgrades applied in the show home. It was our intention to work top-down, not bottom-up when making selections for our home - the outcome we wanted was closer to the show home, not the base house. Too many choices may have ended in divorce! As this was not our first home, and very likely the last we plan to build we wanted some bells and whistles.

• Real feedback... forums such as the Homeone - Building A New House forum and other blogs from people going though the process were invaluable.  The other big one for us was getting the location of houses currently being built or recently finished from the builders. This enabled us to drive around and see the progress made (or not made) and talk to a lot of the owners about their experiences.... a lot of insight was gathered  which helped reduce the two builders to one!

• The quality of the homes - both in the show homes and out in the field. Solid concrete slab rather than the waffle slabs we see so often now. Backing the quality with 12 months of maintenance  - hopefully if we need this it will be timely and done without multiple follow-ups...

• We like the more personal aspect of Provincial - they weren't one of the big Eden Brae or Metricon's  that had show home receptions that were crowded and felt like new car showrooms!

Structural Changes

As mentioned we chose the Woollahra 40 with the new Impression facade. The prospect of sitting on the balcony watching the kids play in the front-yard and street was too appealing! We kept many of the major upgrades in the display home - namely the staircase and butlers pantry.

The only major structural changes we made were to include a third garage, extend the Alfresco area, and replace/add bi-fold doors between the meals/family and alfresco. We spend a lot of time entertaining outdoors and have built it as close as possible to our existing pool.

Other minor structural changes included:- 

• slightly reduce the width of the meals room to match the rumpus room
• create a cupboard for the kids toys in the sitting room by slightly reducing the size of one of the bedroom WIR's
• Include a double-sided indoor/outdoor fireplace to the rumpus/alfresco - we hope if this works out it could become a real feature of the house!
• Change the kitchen to include an island bench
• Cavity sliding doors to the study/entry and Lounge/entry

Selections

We had the selections appointment on the 9th December and were pleasantly surprised with how easily it all went. The selections consultant at Provincial was friendly and knowledgeable and we had done considerable research ourselves prior.

As mentioned the baseline we used was the show home and some of the selections we made were:-

• Organic White Caeserstone to the Kitchen, Bathrooms, and Laundry bench tops
• Silver Dollar colour to the glass splashbacks in the kitchen and butlers pantry
• Wall Paint Colour - Torte
• Trim and internal doors - Struan Grey
• Dishwasher in butlers pantry rather than kitchen
• Blackbutt floors to most of the ground floor minus the study and Lounge.
• Silver Birch - Resin carpets
• Underfloor heating for the ensuite and main bathrooms
• LPG Underground Gas
• Glass doors to the ensuite shower and WC - we agree with Jess & Ayden that toilets need doors!

Electrical Selections

The electrical appointment was done at the Prestige Electrical offices on the 30th January. We were expecting a hit to the budget at this point and it didn't disappoint. We like to finalise as much as possible so we can minimise work done later and damage / disruption to walls and ceilings including insulation afterwards.
The selections consultant was very helpful and incredibly patient as we went through what seemed like 50 versions before we settled on the final configuration... We tried to think of everything and found walk-through's of the display home while visualising furniture and fittings was very helpful.
The final plan is shown below:-