It has been a while since last update. I have been busy, and future hubby has been lazy..lolz
Our plan has been submitted to the council for a week now. We went through the electrical appointment a few days ago. And now all appointments are completed, just waiting for the council approval for construction.
Let's continue with internal colour selection, didn't upgrade much.
Kitchen can be another pricy room. The window splashback as shown below in the display home costs $2,000.00 and needs to be added in the first tender! That's a structural change and need to tell the salesperson to add this in at the very beginning.
It allows more light coming into the room and it just look awesome. It is non-openable, as no windows are allowed near gas stoves. However, I love cooking, the grease from cooking will damage the rubbers of the window/wall joints in the long run; and it needs a lot work to keep the window clean.
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| MJH display home |
*Benchtop
- We chose white shimmer Caesarstone, to give a bit shine in the open area and hopefully can hide some bread crumbs he leaves on the kitchen bench
- We chose SMEG build-in gas stove and oven. Although the build-in over is smaller than the free-standing, there will be no gap between the stove and the bench, meaning no food crumbs/grease and no cockroach. And there is an extra drawer for storage.
- Free standing stove has 2 styles. One is with leges, the other is with kickboard a the bottom to over the leges.
- 20mm stone benchtop thickness is standard and there is limited range of Caesarstone come in free of charge with the impression upgrade. Marble (engineered) benchtop costs $5K (not 100% sure)extra. 40mm cost $2.5K and waterfall is another $2.5K, as what I heard from other people (depending on the size of the bench, of course)
- I requested sink to be shifted to one side, so I can have more bench space to work on.
- We chose the most popular sink - Clark Monaco undermount double sink with accessory. This is the deepest sink in the impression upgrade and it comes with accessories (chopping board and basket drainer).
* Cupboards
- Default cupboards are in matte finish, gloss finishes cost extra, sorry didn't ask the price. And the wooden look finish goes horizontal, and vertical cost extra depending on length of the cupboards. We got white matte finish to match the white shimmer benchtop, and to make the area brighter.
- Soft close cost extra per drawer, all I remember now is 'it isn't cheap'.
- Our kitchen bench has 3 cupboards on each side of the stove as standard. they can be upgraded to 2 pot drawers on each side. Each pot drawer costs $250. We only did 1 pot drawer on each side, no soft close (it takes extra space on the side of the drawers) and the consultant helped us to re-sized the pot drawers so we can fit in 2 skinnier cupboards (with doors) at the ends.
- There are 3 wall cupboards on each side of the rangehood as standard - with handles or with overhang lips (without handles), we chose the no handle option
- If you'd like LED lights underneath the wall cupboards, you'll need to upgrade the bottom of the cupboards to a thicker version $350 in total and another $75appx for each cupboard light. Emmmmm.... let's skip it..
- All cupboards can be re-allocated free of charge, which we did after rearranging the sink position.
- There are few choices for fridge overhead cupboards, as far as I remember, they are:
Regular cupboards (our choice)
Half cupboard and half wine rack
Full wine rack
- For people who has a big island bench like below, please note the cupboards on the chair side are not standard.
- BTW build-in rubbish bin cupboard is available for $500 appx. Yes, $500, I'm not adding extra zeros. I'll pay $5 to add some quality hooks in the sink cupbard, Yes, $5, I'm not missing any zero.
*Ducted exhaust
Last upgrade item we have on the list, expensive but necessary for me. I love cooking, but hate the grease smell on clothes or furniture, $790 is worth spending. The outlet is on the back of the kitchen, and it looks something like below, if I understood the consultant correctly.
*Kitchen splashback
- Glass splashback is included in the impression package, but lowest range with normal glasses. White colour glass looks like minty blue rather than white. It cost about $800 to upgrade to better glass, where white looks white.. and more $ for metallic finish, which looks super cool. But we are happy with the standard grey colours and it matches rest of the home. Hope it will look as nice as this, which the kitchen is finished.
That's pretty much it for the kitchen.
