Colour & Other Selections

Bricks - Boral Victoria Blue, with natural mortar

A house with the same bricks and looks like our roof too - which will be Shale Grey Colorbond. We will have Colorbond Ironstone downpipes as on this house. We will also have timber windows at the front. Other windows and bi-folds will be Metro Silver aluminium.

Colours for bathroom and powder room. Wall tile has a horizontal wave through it, hard to see in photo.

Laminex vanity top is Fresh Reid, green tone. Laminex cupboards is Polar White. Floor tile for all wet areas is a charcoal colour with slightly rough texture, less slippery we hope.

Ensuite colours.

Vanity top is Caesarstone Sage. Cupboards are Laminex Polar White.

Our spa bath - not a great shot, but you get the idea! Spa is standard with the house, but we have upgraded to add air jets and headrests.

Laundry colours
Laminex benchtop is Cassata, cupboards are Ash White






Our floorboards.
They are hand scraped American Oak floating floors. Not high gloss, and they have a great finish which seems to be able to withstand the dogs and anything else we can throw at it. We hope anyhow!





This is the kitchen in the display home of the Monaco 36. Ours will be similar with the same white cupboards and draws - Laminex Polar White, and same benchtop - Caesarstone Snow.







Close up in kitchen - shows colours and the handles we have chosen. Caesarstone will be 40mm thick - this one is 20mm. Photo also shows our lovely square sinks.







Our front door - 1200mm wide pivot door. We will have translucent glass.










And a couple of things I don't have photos of.

Kitchen glass splashback is a colour called Dulux Cool Waves -a strong greeny blue. I think! Haven't found a sample of it yet since picking it from the Dulux book on selection day.

Carpet - will need to head to shop again to take a photo. Selected with the help of Mum. It is a charcoal grey, with blue undertones. Selected after looking at heaps of grey type carpets in different lights and discovering many had brown undertones which dominated in bright light.

The House - Carlisle Homes Monaco 32

So what are we building?

The house is by Carlisle Homes, and is the Monaco 32. See http://www.carlislehomes.com.au/monaco.html for orginal floor plans and photos of the display homes. The one shown on the site is the 36 square version, but we are building slightly smaller. Same original plan with reduced room dimensions.

Below, shows our site plan - how the house will sit on our block. There is some cut and fill to create a flat spot for the house, given the slope.

Then the second image is our final plan with the changes we have made from the original. Main changes are:

1. Deletion of walls to rumpus to create one large space at the back of the house. We only wanted two living areas, not three or more... Plan still shows original room names. We will probably use the area marked 'Family' for dining, and the areas marked 'Meals' and 'Rumpus' as the main living area - and we are currently on the hunt for a couple of long sofas for there!


2. Extension of lounge room out to align with rest of house exterior. Original was indented for no great reason


3. We needed to extend the back room a little to provide enough room for the corner bi-fold unit (a must have upgrade!).


4. We needed to extend the front bedroom a little to ensure front of house was 1m in front of garage - to meet design guidelines for where we are building


5. Inclusion of 1200mm wide pivot door (another must have!)


6. Double glazing for all but minor bedrooms


7. Addition of sliding door from master bedroom to outside

Of course lots and lots of other upgrades that all add up, but those are main structural things.

From the photos on the website, they show some upgrades and changes we are not doing. So, you can ignore the floating type wall in the living areas. Our house will be completely open. Plus, we are not having any appliances on the island bench, that will be clear as per our plan. Smaller lounge will also have a different window to the one shown. Also, the entrance from master bedroom to ensuite is per our plan - a central entry - and not like that weird one on the photo.

You can click on any images to enlarge.

Last image is our front elevation. Once I get my act together I will photoshop this with our bricks etc.

They've Started - Yaaay!!!

Site start was officially Monday 8 December, although not exactly sure when things really started to happen. So after returning from our Christmas holiday we went up to the block yesterday and were surprised to see that the cut and fill has been done.

Apparently before Christmas they were having trouble getting tradies for the two retaining walls, so they didn't get done. Work is meant to start again next week, so hoping to see a slab soon....

Second photo is from the start of the alfresco - so this will be the view. Well at least until people buy and build on some of the other blocks!

Our Land

A couple of shots of our block.

A nice size of 1527 m2 with a bit of a slope (adding to building costs of course!), and some common land all around, so nearest houses will not be too close. Lots of trees in the area, with two big gums on our land, which need to be protected and also mean reasonable set backs so house will not be too close to large tree roots.