Simonds Gallery Tour

Not much to report on just yet, but we do have a Tour of the Gallery Selections tomorrow after hours with our consultant. Hopefully we can take home a few swatches and get a rough idea of the colour schemes, patterns and extras we are looking for. Pretty excited as this will give us a far clearer picture as to how much we will need to budget for and have ready as a deposit.

Once the selections tour is done and have taken a few samples home I'll update this post with some pictures

Latest floor plan updates

So I have recently received the upgraded floor plans from the consultant. He has been very prompt in helping us and have had a great experience with Simonds so far (touch wood) We are still brainstorming ideas with him that we can add/deduct from the house to find the right balance and cost. The living will now become the home theatre, with the library now becoming the study. I am very pleased with how big the alfresco will turn out to be and with the stacker doors at the rear to open it all up it should provide a grand entertaining area. We moved the fridge recess from inside the butlers pantry and reduced the size of the powder room (it was actually two rooms in the original plan). That way it will be central to the kitchen and also allows us to have more space in the butlers pantry for preparation if need be

This is the ground floor

This is the first floor

There are a few little things that are yet to be updated on the layout. The first floor bathroom vanity has been extended to the wall. The Master Ensuite also has a freestanding bath. The dimensions of the house havent been updated on the master plan either. The original size was 35m2 but would now be in the vicinity of 38m2 or possibly more

*the doors are highlighted as they are being upgraded.

We have a meeting with Haydn at the Selections Gallery in town on Sunday evening. We should be able to have a more in depth look at the options available and hopefully take a few samples home with us so we can start planning the colours and textures we would like in the house.

Change of mind with the facade, plus added wine storage

Our original plans we had Haydn draw up had included the Oakland Facade as pictured above. This is one of the top of the line facades and cost an extra $6500 to do so. My wife and I liked the sleek lines and it was very neat and presentable but after having a bit of a longer look at the other facades in that price range we thought it wasn't as commanding and relevant to the house we were trying to build. With tall ceilings we felt we needed something that was different but had incredible street appeal with its size......so we chose the Baltimore, shown below.

Both of these facades are shown on another one of their designs, the Harcrest, but will appear extremely similar, with the balcony and porch moving more to the right.

Floor Plan Edited

So this is a rough edit of the floorplan i did while waiting for the actual drafts to be drawn up. The facde will be slightly different with two large pillars out the front instead of the three smaller ones.

Additions Ground Floor:

9ft ceilings

Added a wall to divide the living room to make a home theatre and study. Added double doors to the theatre room.

Converted pantry to a butlers kitchen, with overhead cupboards, therefore changing the window from regular to a thin long one.

Tripled the size of the alfresco. The original one is massive but with such a deep block since we are building upwards, not outwards, we are trying to maximise the space.

Extended the kitchen countertop, made it caeserstone, and added waterfall edges. Upgraded to glass splashbacks, added a appliance tower for microwave and upgraded cupboards and rangehood.

Extended vanities to powder room and added full laundry cupboard set up, all caeserstone
Extended dining room

Added two stacker doors, extended original sliding door by dining room to 3m

Obscure glass to front door and sidelights



Additions First Floor:
8.5ft celings

Freestanding bath, ensuite

Added WIR towers to main bedroom

Semi frameless shower screens to both showers, with recessed shelves

Extended bathroom vanity and upgraded ensuit vanity too, both caeserstone

Swapped bedroom sliding door and window for door to be more central to the room

Privacy glass

Heatlamps to the bathroom

Whole house additions:

Flooring

Reverse Cycle ducted AC

Top of the line bricking

5.0 insulation

Downlights



I dont have the inclusion list with me but theres plenty more

First Stage: The beginning

I'd be lying if i said that this was my first blog regarding the house my Wife and I are going to build. We were originally looking at a Metricon design we fell in love with, but once we received our Construction Quote we knew it would be over our budget and therefore would make life less enjoyable later on. So we always kept an eye open for other ideas. We have already found our dream block of land and were contemplating whether to build our dream two-storey design through Metricon (and struggle to live week by week), to build a smaller design and re-sell for profit, or to keep looking for a similar design two-storey that we could work with and make affordable.

Luckily, on one random adventure down South, we stumbled across Simonds Homes at Seaford. The designs they had there didn't appeal to what we were after for our own residence, but we did notice the way the houses were presented, and the appliances used were very close to the level of standard we had come accustomed to with Metricon. So that's when we grabbed a House Designs book and started crunching numbers.

I automatically fell in love with the Avalon, i liked the floor plan and liked the size. My wife liked the biggest house they had, a 55sq/m monster that, even though would fit on the block, surely wasn't practical enough for the two of us....and i don't think having five or so bedrooms all with ensuites would be fun for me to clean every day if we were to have that many kids.

So the focus was on the Avalon and what options and additions we could make. We travelled down to Simonds Blakeview and after a few face to face meetings with the Consultant there we received a quote for all the inclusions we wished our dream house had.....we literally had three or four pages of extras we wanted, some cosmetic, some structural, but all we felt was what would make a dream house a dream home.

The quote blew us away. After the adjustments we made the house would end up being bigger than the Metricon design we liked, would have top spec appliances and extras, and still be over 100k cheaper. We even got to treat ourselves with adding a few "maybe" extra inclusions in that we thought would be a nice little touch but not necessary.

So this is where we are currently at. We paid the $500 deposit to start the paperwork. The Consultant has been very formal and fantastic with us and we have got an appointment booked in their gallery to view Colour Selections so we can have a more indepth look as to the extras we are after and the available options too. We are in no rush to build, we made that clear with the Consultant, but felt we needed to at least lock the contract price in so we arent faced with a fluctuating price later on when we are ready to build. With the price being cheaper than our actual budget, and cheaper than what we expected, it has bumped forward our projected starting date. We were aiming to start by the end of the next year, but with our current savings and budgetting setup we could be possibly looking at early to mid next year. So excited