Bathroom Selections (Cook's Plumbing and DiLorenzo)

Bathroom was covered by "Cook's" Plumbing for all our tapware and basins and the DiLorenzo for the tiles. 


Cook's Plumbing Services
We first saw cook's at our HOG appointment. Peta was lovely. So helpful and nothing was ever a bother. I lost count of how many times i asked her to quote on something for me, whether it be the kitchen sink mixer, an oven or the ensuite tapware it was never an issue.

There was never any threat to "Hurry Up" and finalise the variation. and never a mention that the constant changes and asking for quotes would cost admin fees (not like KC but more on that one later)

After many quotes and emails i had finally reached a decision. It was fairly easy in the end. I just stuck to my budget for the tapware and didn't really choose anything that was overly expensive, so i could make my little changes for minimal costs. It was nice to have upgrades only cost $20 and $7 rather than the $$$$$ that KC and HSI charge for the smallest of upgrades.

Here are the final selections:-

Main Bathroom

part of the luxury upgrade package was the Irwell YUKON tapware range. This range was through out the house but we kept it for the main bathroom only.

We then changed the basins from the large above counter square ones for something as small as posisble. Our vanity was only going to be 750mm, which is tiny, so i wanted the smallest basin i could get, and it was this one, the "Cara Diablo" which measures 41cm across. Because its square i didn't mind matching it with the Yukon tapware range.

Featured in the HOG showroom

We also added another single towel rail to the range. The rails that were included in our package were the DORF ENIX range - these were included in both ensuite and the main bathroom.

The vanity (Designed through KC) will be standard, 2 cupboards. The draws were about $300 to upgrade so we didn't bother. We did upgrade to the Essastone benchtop and the colour chosen is "New Crystal Salt". The vanity doors will be in Mushroom Linea

Ensuite

Our standard house plans included a double basin vanity in the ensuite. We have decided to remove one of the basins so we can have a long bench with plenty of space. We removed the included above counter square basin for a round basin, and something not quite as large. We chose the Caroma Orbis Inset Basin.

Featured in the HOG showroom

I also wanted some different tapware in the ensuite, and something round to suit the shape of the basin. I decided on the Novelli Dynasty basin mixer and shower mixer. The total upgrade was around $30

The vanity was once again done through KC. We did upgrade to stone aswell, and chose "Crstal Chalk" for this. the Laminex colour is Noccturine Oak. 

The hardest thing i found with cooks was when i wanted to change the basin to a single one in the ensuite you then have to check with KC to make sure it wont effect costs to the vanity, and also speak to EBH about the refund on the basin. So you end up sending 3 times as many emails to try and get the right answer from teh right person. A little frustrating at times as the most simple of questions could take a few days to confirm.

No complaints what so ever dealing with Peta. The selctions on the day did take longer than expected there are a lot of taps on display and then you can pretty choose from any tapware range in any catalogue from numerous brands, so the choices are endless. Emails were answered promptly and changes were never a problem, by far the best asset that HOG have going for them and the other companies could learn alot from cook's and how they operate.

DiLorenzo Tiles

The tile selections took a couple of hours. I thought that we would get a little bit more guidence from our consultant about what colours go with what. I found the whole tile experience really frustrating. Most of the tiles are stuck to the wall and if you choose a tile from one end of the showroom to go with a tile up the other end you cant see them together unless they happen to have a spare one floating around. On some tiles they did and others they didn't. How can someone be expected to choose the tiles for their house if they cant see the full story together to make sure the colours ompliment each other. And without much guidence from our consultant we had no idea if the colours we were choosing were correct.

DiLorenzo seem to pride themselves on the porcelain tiles. 3/4 of the showroom is expensive porcelain. Im talking $110+sqm plus the extra laying costs. a porcelain upgrade to tile our house would of cost in excess of $9000. The ceramic tile range is small. They class the 40x40cm tiles as standard floor tiles and the 20x20cm floor tiles for the bathroom as standard. Everything else is an upgrade and you pay for it too! lucky the bathroom and the ensuite are small enough that choosing an upgrade tile in the end was only about $200-$400 for each of the rooms.

I ended up visitng DiL atleast 6-7 times to double check my selections, and in the beginning i struggled to even find any tiles that i really liked. But as our colour selections came together i found some tiles that i liked and now im really happy with our selections and cant wait to see them in the bathrooms.

I had some ideas that i wanted to follow from photos id found off the internet on how i would like my tiling to look

We will have the mirror that extends over the bath too. and the tiles to be at vanity height the whole way around for a streamlined look

I loved the colours of this bathroom

Main Bathroom

First we chose a large 40x40cm floor tile and a 20x60cm wall tile but then after thinking about it for a week we thought that our main bathroom might be too small for such a large tile. so we went back the following weekend and re-selected our tiles and chose a 30x30cm floor tile and a 20x40cm satin finish wall tile

First choice....

Floor Tile 40x40cm - White Internal

Wall Tile 20x60cm - Grey ORGGY26

Feature Strip 15cm - Ash FLO043

Essastone - Crystal Salt

Vanity - Mushroom Linea

Final Choice....

Floor Tile 30x30cm - "Canapy"
Wall Tile 20x40cm Satin Finish "Bone"
Feature - Ash 

I love the look of the satin wall tile over the gloss. It looks so natural and earthy. Its something totally new and not really seen before - well ive never seen a wall tile that isn't a gloss. But this matches the sheen of the floor tile. and i CAN NOT wait to see this in the bathroom.  I was going to change to the darker vanity colour like the ensuite but decided to leave it as the mushroom linea. I was able to view the mushroom linea in the laminex showroom in prospect and its a nice colour. Not to light and not to dark i hope it will compliment the tiles nicely.

 

My bathroom colours with paint colours and carpet (even though carpet wont be close to this room)

Bathroom colours against the flooring

Ensuite

We selected our ensuite range from the upgrade tower at HOG. Standard tiles but they were larger in size so we had to pay the extra fee for the underlay - maybe just an excuse to get more $$$ :P

Not to sure on the names of this range but floor tile 30x30cm and the wall tile is a whooping 30x60cm. We will have the plain "walnut" glass feature strip similar to the main bathroom. These photos dont show the colours properly, but the floor tile is brown tones where as the photo makes it look grey.

Toilet - Will be the same as the bathroom floor tiles

Laundry - we chose a 40x40cm tile from the standard range for the floor called Smooth and the splashback tile was just a standard tile called smoke. We will be getting a laundry fitout done after handover so wasn't to concerned abotu the splashback tile.

Kitchen Splashback - We chose a 20x60cm tile called "Trio Flax" its a grey tone to it and should compliment the sarsen grey laminex colours nicely. Gone for fairly neutral tones and hopefully in years to come wont be regreeting that i have gone with a grey over something like an off white colour. The bench top is very neutral so i think the splashback will add some constrast and give it a lift.

This photo shows the kitchen tile (top) and the main bathroom tile. Its slightly darker but not that much.

Showing the splashback tile, kitchen cupboard Sarsen Grey and the 2 bench options i had which was "New Crystal Salt" and "Crystal Chalk" We have stuck with the crystal chalk i think it suits the other options better as its a similar tone and  a bit warmer in colour than the crystal salt.

Ignore the striped tiles on the left, but the one next to it is another shot of the splashback with kitchen cupboard colour next to it.

Colour Selections - HOG

Another appointment we had was our general colour selections for the house which included anything else other than plumbing, electrical,kitchen, landscaping.

We had to choose our external colours quite quickly so they could be used as part of the approval process through stocklands. For this we had to firstly visit PGH Bricks in schofields and run through with them the colours we wanted to go with. I didn't really find them too helpful. We pretty much told them what we liked, said that we didn't want to do anything other than standard and the lady we had just wrote it all down. She didn't offer any guidance or anything, which i was hoping for even though i knew what i wanted its still nice to listen to other ideas, and as long as it was standard i may of been willing to change my mind.

They set up a little display as per below so you can see all the colours together. If you head to a previous post about external colours, you will see some more info on what we have chosen Click Here

At HOG we had Sarah to run through the external selections with. She was so nice, and offered some really good opinions and guidance. We had to choose the eave colour, the colour of our front door, whether we wanted off white mortar or natural mortar, what type of finish we wanted - we went with Ironed. I wanted the flushed finish but this is an upgrade for Eden Brae. Actually, they dont even recommend it, apparently they had some quality issues and sarah said if we wanted to select it then besides paying extra we would of had to sign a form to say that EBH are not responsible for the outcome of the work - so with that in mind we declined and went with ironed finish instead.

To finish off externals we had to also choose what colour our rain water tank was, downpipes, electrical box aswell. We chose the same colour as our gutter - monument. We also opted to upgrade our clear glass on the front door to translucent, and also changed the handle to the omni trilock handle. A massive big handle to go with the massive door that hubby wanted.

The internal colours appointment was a lot more involved as i couldn't be prepared as i was with knowing what we wanted for externals. First of all we went through the wire shelving in the WIP - REALLY NOT AT ALL impressed that EBH only offer wire racking in the WIP - i have never eer seen this in any house i have been into! stupid standard inclusion and something i think they should atelast offer is basic melamine package. For us to upgrade our WIP was going to be $807 - uuummm no thanks! we will stick with the wire and get something done post handover.

Wire shelving in the linen press im ok with, so that will stay. Wire racking in the robes also not a fan! surely EB could step up and offer this as standard like masterton do! it looks so much better when you walk into a house and see a proper built in with the proper shelving and not just a basic wire rack. We will update our robes to some decent shelving, racks and drawers post handover. The credit we got back was minimal, so for now we will leave it all in and atleast we can hang our clothes when we move in, just in case money is tight and we can update straight away it will serve its purpose.

We chose all our handles. there were only about 3 too choose from. They were ok. Nice enough. Gainsborough "Liana" are the handles we have through out as part of the luxury upgrade.

We chose all the privacy locks, cavity slider pulls, door stopper, deadbolts, patio bolts, upgarded the size of our mirrors in the bathrooms to one piece that filled the space from vanity height to line up with the tiling on the shower. The ensuite comes with 2 mirrors for each basin, we changed this to one big mirror instead. We also discussed the fly screens and will get pricing on the superscreen for the front entrance to it looks nicer than the diamond grill ones. We need a screen on the front due to the BAL19 rating.

We then moved onto paints. This was hard. all the colours looked the csame under the light. I had agonised for weeks over the paint colour. You are limited to only certian paints they call "2 coat paints: a brochure received at tender listed the paints, and once we remove all the yellow tones, and the really dark ones we were left with maybe a dozen to choose from. All of which look the same of a piece of card only an inch square. I had to try and block out what they looked like at HOG and run with the ones we picked at home under natural light. In the end we chose the taubamns Marble Mist, and Tahira white for the skirtings. I have since painted a canvas with the 2 colours, and even though the Tahira White looks too white atleast its neutral so it will go with everything and its something that can be changed easily so im not fussed at the moment.

Paint colour with our flooring and our carpet colour. It has a grey tinge to it, hint of green in the colour too, which should tie in nicely to the sarsen grey laminex for the kitchen. I went to bunnings and asked for the code to see what the undertones are, i wanted to make sure we didn't have a yellow undertone. The Marble mist is made up from Raw umba and Orcha, they are both relaly earthy colour the raw umba is a relaly dark green, almost black, and orcha is an earthy yellow. Seeing it with my flooring i love it. I have no second thoughts about it at all.

This photo gives you an idea of the sarsen grey kitchen cupboards, essastone Crystal chalk bench top, the timber look panel represents the flooring, and then the paint colour. Looks nice and neutral and the floors will be the feature.

Once all the colours were selected we then waited a couple of weeks for EBH to email through the PCV with all the pricing. It would be great to get the pricing straight away as its a long time to wait when all the other pricing comes through so quickly. And any major change you want to the prices that come through then take another few days to a week to receive the new quoted price. Its a long drawn out process. Then because the PCV's are raised, you have to sign them, but then you have to write another email to say you want them removed and another PCV is sent through with the removed items. The paperwork/admin side of things is crazy! Ima highly organised person and it still did my head in, i ended up getting a folder to put all the paperwork in to kee it in order as there was paper everywhere.

I try to subject each email appropriately as i find looking for something later on is a pain if the subject line doesn't detail it properly.

Almost 3 weeks on and im still questioning things through HOG that i need clarification on before confirming. Yawn! its getting boring now - i just want to move onto the next stage.

To summarize the colours appointment if we take out the kitchen and plumbing selections we did on the same day then the colours was a good 4 hours all up, it goes so fast though so it doesn't feel like you are there for that long, its a really long drawn out day, and i went in fully prepared, new our budget (not that it mattered because prices weren't given on the day) i knew the look i wanted which helped. God help those people that walk in having done no research at all, it must take them hours to choose. 

I also thought i would get more guidance from the colour consultant. I was under the impression that they help you choose colours that compliment each other, run through trends and give you general ideas, there was none of that, the classic line of the day was "oh its your house you have to ive with the choices" OR "its all new, no matter what you choose it will look nice".

More random photos, just because i can! lol.............

Internal Doors Through out painted in Tahira White - Upgrade

Changed laundry door from standard sliding door to this glass door, translucent glass

Shower screens for both bathrooms 

Omni Trilock Handle Upgrade

Updated Driveway

Driveway finish - COVE

Driveway Colour options - We selected Gunmetal

Kitchen Selections

Eden Brae use a company called Kitchen Culture to do all their kitchens. This was an appointment through the HOG gallery. We were greeted by Alex on the day and she will be the consultant that draws up our kitchen plans and answers any queries that we have. We didn't want to change the kitchen around too much, and everything was to remain as standard. Normal cupboards, no fancy soft closing drawers etc.

We added in overheads cupboards at tender due to the Display options that we discussed with EBH. We paid $1000 for a kitchen upgrade package which gave us the essatone 20mm benchtops. I wanted to add waterfall edges to the island bench as well. The chosen stone was Crystal Chalk.

One thing we did discover at tender was that the kitchen promo only included the New Cairo and the New sable Luxe as the only 2 choices in the stone as standard. So not only do you pay for the upgrade of the stone, then if you dont like the standard stone colours you are stuck paying for another colour option - not very good advertising i dont think, EB should be letting their customers know it only includes the 2 stone options so there are no nasty surprises.

I then found out that the house plan standard width bench is only 800mm wide, even though EB display home is 900mm and NO ONE ever had told us otherwise, not even during the walk through to discuss the upgrade options, was not happy about this what so ever! and was slumped a $270 charge to change it to a 900mm bench width.

We then discussed 2 tones - i wanted to have laminex SORELL on the barback of the island bench to break up the colour a bit but at over $500 to do this they can forget about it! I don't know why they charge this! but its robbery! Ripping off customers! 

We made our cutlery drawers wider - from 450 to 600mm and this was just over $100, i think a worthwhile investment. My cutlery drawers are way to over crowded.

We were offered a poly matte finish for $3000 - forget it! or even a silk finish on the laminex instead of the natural finish. A really nice finish, and means the strip edging is only 1mm instead of 2mm but it was over $1200 so passed on that. Past on pot drawers! those things were way to over priced! just standard all the way for us thanks! i wasn't going to spend up big on upgrading things that were 3 x over the industry standard pricing

We will be putting in our own dishwasher after hand over, and also our own oven aswell so we didn't have to worry too much about those (although appliances is discussed with cooks plumbing)

The Cooktop i had changed from gas to the ceran 900mm cooktop. Not much choice, and ill probably hate cooking on it! cheap and nasty brands! its a baumatic cooktop. Hopefully atleast it will heat up and do its job ok.

KC went on to charge us $88x2 for a sheet of extra melamine to simply be placed inside the over head cupboard for future LED downlights - RIPPED! was not happy, and when asked if they could reduce it or atelast throw in for free they wouldn't have a bar of it! disappointed.

We wanted to extend the over head cupboards as we have raised ceilings in the kitchen. $700 mind you! had to pick my jaw up off the ground - get out of town! i could feel my heart palpitating by this stage, i was just over it! id had enough and wanted the appointment over!

Next was the bathrooms, we upgraded to stone in the main bathroom "crystal salt" and stone in the ensuite "crystal chalk" We left the cabinets as standard. Anything too fancy and they charge you for it! A bank of drawers in the ensuite was $350 - uuumm no thanks ill just buy a $5 basket at the discount shop and put everything in there!

Im glad Alex was pleasant to deal with, she answered all our questions, and was apologetic that she couldn't move on prices! i had heard the prices would be expensive, but when you actually sit down and go through it all you really get shocked at what they charge! its way above industry standard and i feel really lets EBH down - they should be monitoring this more closely if they cared about their customers and not let KC charge so much! Or its the fact that there are too many hands in the mix - the joiners fee, HOG %, KC % , EBH % no wonder the price adds up when everyone is wacking on their commission for it

Anyone that hasn't signed the contracts yet or still at tender try and get as many prices as possible if you want to do big changes to the kitchen. as from above you can see we didn't do hardly anything at all and the costs all add up very quickly. Upgrading to stone is the biggest expense, but in my opinion stone is timeless and will never date so its a worthwhile investment. It was one thing i always wanted in my home, and pretty much the only luxury upgrade we went with in the end. But i had my heart set on it from the beginning.

The WIP will just have standard crappy wire (i mean really Eden Brae!!!) shelving and once we save some cash will get a proper fitout after handover! the cost for the melamine shelving through EB was $800 - uuummm no thanks! not for 4 shelves.

Not part of the kitchen selections but ill add here was our choice of splashback. We went with a greyish tone 20x600mm tile. less grout lines, and a neutral colour that hopefully wont date (well not too quickly anyway)

Our Internal Paint is Marble Mist and Tahira White skirtings

Flooring will be Karndean Loose Lay VInyl Tasmanian Wattle or similar

My Inspiration for my kitchen was the 

Porter Davies Drysdale display home

Kellyville Eden Brae Drysdale Display home

We have the raised ceilings in the kitchen like the display home above, hopefully that will create a sense of extra space within the home, as the rest of the ceilings are a standard height. I love the 3 pendants hanging over the island bench as a feature. Cant wait to start hunting for some little pendant lights to hang in this space

Other Upgrades

The only thing that i dont like too much about the natural finish of the laminex is the strip edging, and every single home we saw where a light colour door was used, you could see the dirty line between the edging and the face of the cupboard.

 Here are our colour chosen, Pretty much doesn't show it properly though - lol - close enough i guess!

The best image i could get of what our colours will look like together. From top left - Sarsen grey Laminex | Essastone Crystal Chalk | Woodlook laminex to replicate our flooring and below it is our wall paint "marble Mist" and skirting colour "Tahira White"

This is just to show the benchtop and the sarsen grey with the sorell colour that i wanted for the barback until KC ruined that dream with an obsurb upgrade price!

Our kitchen Sink will be the clark Monarco - its long about 1200mm which i wasn't keen on, it will take up so much space on the bench. But then i put my practical hat on and it will be the better choice for piling lots of dishes up onto it - and believe me there always seems to be heaps!

The upgraded choice was the clark Quarto a beautiful sink, more square in design and about $130 to upgrade. but the drainer section was smaller than what i have now and that was the only thing that made me decide against it. The undermount sinks are over $500 so that was something that i didn't even consider.

 Sink comes with this groovy chopping board and strainer. A nice little inclusion that will defiantely come in handy!

Phoenix Vivid SInk Mixer upgrade. The Goosneck Irwell Yukon is the standard inclusion but i didn't want a sink mixer that really stands out on the island bench. So i have gone with a standard size sink mixer, just one that is a little bit nicer looking. Its been really hard to choose this! I hate that i cant see it and touch it and use the handle to make sure im happy with how it works - ah yes! no wonder im stressing out about things when i worry about how a sink mixer will work!! 

Just to show you the floors to complete the post. Here are some different options in colours, but the loose lay is the one we want and it doesn't come in the huge variety of colours.