True Colours.

Since the very beginning of our journey back in January 2016 we have been thinking about how we want our new home to look, what sort of things we really want our new home to have and how important it is to have the right kitchen tap.  For months and months we have visited numerous display homes, capturing photos of colours and schemes that we think would work in our Nova and looking at everything from Colorbond roof colours through to flooring.

Oh, the flooring!

Who would have thought that there is so much choice? Laminate, Timber, Carpet, Tile and so many variants, colours and textures in between. It is seriously mind boggling and how are you supposed to just decide?

Well we did.

Yesterday was a big day in our build journey. The "all day" Colour Selections appointment is a pretty big milestone in the pre-construction realm of building a new home. On this day you bring everything together and lock in all of your choices as well as those special wish list items,  if the budget will allow.

The day kicked off at 9:00am sharp at Bella Vista. We are up and out the door at 6:30am as we REALLY didn't want to be late. Needless to say we didn't realise that school holidays would mean less traffic so we arrived just after 8:00am and enjoyed a hot cuppa and some breakfast at the local cafe.  Parking is always an issue at BellaVista and it was nice to see we had a reserved spot right out the front. :)

I think it's safe to park here :)

Sweet!

Mandatory selfie!

We came prepared as best we could. After numerous trips to Bunnings  to deliberate over exterior paint colours, we took the step of purchasing some sample pots of our choices and decorated some  canvases so we could better visualise how they would look. We brought them along and they were well received.

Taubmans Abstract, Cookie Jar and Streamwood. Streamwood won and Cookie jar didn't make the cut.

It's a bit tricky to explain how we intend to paint the exterior of the house so I will create an image using the colours and our plan drawings.  I'll save that for a later post.

A pretty neat tool that means nothing is missed. All selections are entered and at the end of the day it spits out a full report of all of your choices. Happy days!

Finalising the exterior did not take long. We were still little undecided on the garage door and front door colour colour but with he expert guidance of Amy, our Interior Designer, we quickly selected the Decowood Ironbark upgrade for the Garage door and a Walnut stain for our huge pivot front door.

Top to bottom: "Jasper" Colorbond roof, "Surfmist" for the eaves and windows, "Walnut" stain front door, "Ultra smooth Chill" brick for piers (no longer needed), "Ironbark" garage door with a wide panel, Taubmans "Abstract" for most of the house, Taubmans "Streamwood" for the feature at the front of the house.

Taubmans paint colours, THE list, our plans, Calderwood Building Guidelines... not too hard!

The bride at our desk for the day...in between walking around the huge selections of everything.

Inside is where our selections started to get interesting.  The interior wall colour is nothing spectacular - a neutral colour that  will allow us to mix and match some colours and themes in each space.  The Bride has always wanted our En Suite to be a special place. With the inclusion of her free standing bath in this area we wanted to include some other features that made it feel really special. 

Where better to start than with the tiles!

Artisan Oslo "Denim" is our floor tile of choice. Was a bit of an upgrade but we both love it and feel it will make the space feel rather nice.  Caesarstone bench top 20mm is Raw Concrete with cabinetry all Amaro Matt. Wall tile JC Paris Silver 300x300.  Same wall tile, bench top and cabinet colour in the main bathroom however floor tile is the darker underneath the Oslo - JC Paris Charcoal 300x300.

Michelle found a tile and fell in love with it. We just HAD to include it somewhere but preferably a smaller space as it was very expensive! The 300x600 wall tile is beautiful and we have decided to include it in our downstairs WC. Once the house is built and you happen to use the toilet downstairs, it is mandatory that you tell us how much you like this tile!

Our canvas painted with Taubmans Streamwood which will create our colour feature out the front of the house. The large  450x450 tile is called Sands White. This will be used to tile our Master balcony. Its a  pretty tile that reminds me of the beach. 

Our other dilemma was the kitchen. Over the last year or so we have looked at so many kitchens and it was really hard to come up with a scheme that just clicked. Do we go grey based or brown based? Do we go plain jane or do we textured? Do we go a mat finish or a sheen finish? So. Many. Questions!  

One day a few months back I was flicking through kitchen images on Google (as you do!) when I found this:

I really like it!

This is what I had in mind with our kitchen. To my surprise, Michelle agreed however she was not so much sold on the colour (it's grey and Michelle is a brown girl) but more with the use of textured look cupboards up high and a plain colour below. The white bench tops were a winner.  Over the months there were other kitchens we found that were nice but I just kept coming back to this one. We couldn't really agree on the colour and resorted to picking on the day, ensuring it fit in with the other interior schemes we had chosen.

The end result is this:

L to R: Corian bench top for our square kitchen island, Glacier White 60mm. 40mm Caesarstone bench top in Pure White. Lower cupboards and drawers finished in Carbon Micro Matt, upper cupboards in Belgian Oak Matt. Upper cupboards will be push-to-open, so no handles.

Upper and lower kitchen cupboards with Pure White caesarstone bench top under the window splash back

Same again, in day light.

Our biggest surprise of the day came when we looked into our flooring. Again we had spent lots of time trying to find flooring that we liked and with the plethora of options out there, this was never going to be easy. On advice from others who have built before and by asking lots of questions, we went out and sought quotes from flooring specialists to not only help us decide what flooring we should get but also give us an indicative dollar amount to plan for. We settled on a laminate floor option throughout the lower levels of the house with a plush carpet in the Media Room and upper bedroom level. Given the size of the house...this was a significant investment.  We had a ballpark figure in mind before talking with Amy about flooring - we have been told that builders will charge upwards of 20% on top of retail for flooring and that installing post handover is the done thing, mainly to save some money. This however is pain in the bum as the builder leaves skirting uninstalled an unpainted so that flooring can be installed. It would then be up to us to paint, cut and fit this throughout.

We had decided that if the flooring quote came in at a reasonable price we would just go with it, to alleviate any stress and frustration post handover. To our surprise the quote from Mojo came in only slightly higher than our best quote from Harvey Norman Flooring, which apparently was significantly discounted below retail price

Carpet: Eco Sunrise - Extra Heavy Duty Premier. Laminate: 12mmProline Evolution "Chateau Oak"
Colours are from Kitchen cupboards, wall paint and skirting colour. Photo doesn't show the best colour.

Our wish list included a gas fireplace. there is literally only one wall where we can build one in and that is the back wall of the Living Room.

Red arrow marks the spot

We selected the Real Flame Landscape 1000 in black, which as the name suggests is a metre long...and black.

It will look something like the below but we are not sure what to do with the surrounding wall as yet. We won't have any shelving on the side.

Black frame fire place with pebbles :)

I will finish off this post with an image of us with Amy, our Interior Design Consultant. She was awesome and made our day so much fun. Thank you Amy :)

Smile :)