Thursday 9 May 2013

Finally.....We Have KEYS!

Well we were supposed to have handover LAST Thursday but instead we had it yesterday, still Thursday just the wrong one. The valuator held us up and didn't come out to valuate our house until Monday which was frustrating plus there were two big scratches on our wooden floors! Needless to say I have sitting around moping eating chocolate and getting fat instead of packing as I took time off work.

 An unofficial handover still went ahead last Thursday even though the final payment wasn't being made, so hubby met our SS and a lady from Metricon at the house for final documents and warranty things to go through. They made Stu wait out the front for 10 minutes to get things ready and upon entering the house my husband was met with two large scratches on the floor where somebody (plumber) had scraped the floor getting our oven in. Husband as you can imagine was not happy at nobody mentioning it to him before he went in, it was kinda like the last straw really and made SS call Andy from Carpet Call immediently to have someone come out to fix it. We also realised later on that the two cabinets either side of oven had marks as well and will be fixed. Way to put a downer on handover.

So flooring ended up being replaced in that spot, they couldn't touch it up and cabinets will be looked at on Wednesday as kitchen company is coming down with two replacement doors for another area of our kitchen. We still have an ongoing issue regarding our gutters at the front that still have not been rectified and has been a source of great stress for us. This issue was picked up by our inspector at framing stage and was at the time thought to be a minor thing, we told at each stage it would be getting fixed by chippie but it never happened and now what was once a seemingly simple problem is now in our eyes not. SS did have the framers out to readjust the guttering but it is still not right but our SS disagrees and sees nothing wrong with the guttering and we have had to take it further up. After photos were sent and an email it was agreed to have the framers back out but were then told by the framers that there was nothing further that can be done. This was so maddening  as we know that there is an issue as visually it doesn't look right, so just fix it!

SS was not there for the second handover yesterday as he is away as his wife is due to have a baby. Let me say he was not missed by us. Instead we had his boss and my husband told him to get up on the ladder and just have an actual look to see what the issue was and to try and make them see sense that it needs to be rectified. He agreed to have someone else to come out. I'm not sure how much faith I have about this as this will be the second time but we will see.  We have already rang HIA and if it is not rectified we will be seeking their assistance.

So that is where we are at. Whilst we are happy we have keys it has been overshadowed by this gutter issue. I will admit I haven't been out to the house since our first PCI  so I have no idea what the end result is, I decided to just leave it to husband and the house building gods. I will say that Metricon have been good about rectifying just about anything else that has popped up as things do when you build and have always abided by everything in our contract, no complaints there. They have told us to call if there are any major issues. Doors and locks were adjusted  yesterday by a lovely guy from A&L and garage door was having a service this morning too.

So moving day is today and I have only packed a quarter of our stuff. I know shock horror. I have been selling of lots of our stuff as I decided I would rather move in with nothing and have empty rooms and start afresh when budget allows. The thought of what work is still to be done like landscaping and lights still to be put up, we don't even have a mailbox or clothesline yet is overwhelming but we will get there.

So after many arguments between my husband and me (we had a beauty yesterday, you know the type where you bring up things from 10 years ago) we have keys. I'm off now to do some rushed packing as I have a ballet Eisteddfod all day Sunday and also need to drop off a bed to a buyer. Eeep!

Thanks for following along and I'll still keep posting about our journey post build if that's alright? It should be marginally interesting with no budget. Perhaps a name change too now that the build part is over.

Tash xx


Sunday 28 April 2013

Hand Over Thursday!

If all goes to plan we should have the house handed over to us this Thursday. To be honest with husband travelling and me working everyday and the girls after school activities I have no idea whether everything that needs to be done etc bank valuations and final payments will all be lined up and done by then to make this happen but this is the plan. After waiting so long it seems I am completely disorganised and really I think I have just run out of steam towards the finishing line and I am just leaving it to Stu to organise everything.

Stu went out about 3 weeks ago now and had another walk through with the SS to see if there were still any issues, I didn't go this time but he seemed to think it was all coming together. I haven't been out to the house since the first pci walk through so haven't seen the kitchen handles on or our kitchen pendant lights up only pics. Really I have no idea if everything is up to scratch. I will say that the SS was quite thorough with picking up paint defects some of which we were not really concerned about and then were some other issues that he didn't feel was such a big deal that we wanted fixed. I have to say having an inspector with us was invaluable and he picked up so many things that we were all missing and by the end of the day (we were there all day) I think the SS had had enough of him lol. 

 I think I just kinda decided to step back from stressing out about everything that needed doing and to just let be what will be with this house. With my last post I think I was just at that final stage of house building where everything is mostly done but yet at the same time so many little minor things still remain that you feel it's never going to be finished. Stu and I have never really been impatient to get into this house, right from the start we just wanted a quality finish that has always been the most important thing. We could have actually had handover a week ago but due to Stu travelling for work we moved it back to this Thursday.

The painter had been out there I think for about a week and even worked Saturday and Sunday prepping. We were very happy with M's choice of painter and he was a lovely guy. Our tilers too were fantastic.

Our fence has gone up. Husband did a great job of organising this for all our neighbours, he chased up names and  phones numbers of everyone who had an adjoining fence to us and organised a quote from a fencer who had done the neighbours across from us. He seemed to do a decent job we noticed and his quote came back very reasonable. I think we share fencing with about four other couples so Stu organised to have it quoted for each couples share of fence. It has worked out great except for the young couple up above us who have still not paid and have had their mother corresponding questioning the amount. I think it is around $400 so hopefully it sorts it self out and they pay for their portion.

Our stove and dishwasher have been put in although last time Stu looked our stove was connected but not sitting in its spot, this is due to our skirting running along underneath it and the kitchen company needs to build a shelf or something to sit underneath it so it is level with our benches. Range hood of course will go in after handover, this is another detail I have left to my husband and I have no idea if it will slot in and line up with our already laid tiles.

So that is kinda where we are at, husband should have wrote this update as he is the one who has been out there and knows what is going on. I do know the house is having another clean the day before handover too. There is still so much to do and I have so much furniture that I want to sell off so that I don't have to move it out into the new house, I would rather move in with no furniture then a lot of stuff junking up the place that I just don't want. I need to purchase quite a few things too but I am too indecisive and also I don't have the budget right now. Concrete people is soooo expensive and I could go on an extravagant overseas trip with what we are going to have to shell out, heart stopping numbers. I just think of all the furniture I could buy or concrete, not fair. Not to worry we will eventually get there.

How about a quick iphone pic husband took of our kitchen pendants.



Should also say that our kitchen guy that we have been dealing with rang my husband to tell him he had finally seen some pics of our kitchen and he loves it, in fact apparently everyone there loves it and I think they are pretty proud of themselves with this being the first time they have done this style of kitchen.

Also I just wrote this big long post and forgot to say that the SS also rang to say that some head guy or quality checking type person came to look at the house and gave it 100% score which is apparently the first house in Toowoomba to get that score. Makes me feel good but I am also a tad cynical (I can't help it it's in my nature) and think he tells that to everyone but still it was nice to hear...I think he must have just liked to finally see a M house that looked a bit different.

Tash xx 




Wednesday 27 March 2013

It is slowly turning into a nightmare

Just what the title says. Why did we not just go with a local private builder? Why? Why? We had a walkthrough with ss which is a pre pci walk through to pick up any issues and problems and there are many. It took all day and ss did not have time to do the outside walk through with us so that remains undone and has just informed us that he does not have time right now to finish it off. That's basically how we have been treated by this company from the start. We are over our contract time even including the extensions that they asked for but ss is now claiming other extensions to our time that we would have thought we should have been notified of in writing not just over the phone in response to us asking the question. So who knows when we will be finished at this point, probably still at least another two months away and with no compensation for it. We have watched house after house go up around us and finish and it is really becoming heartbreaking. We are talking of selling and just losing the money on this house.

I wish I could say it was going to have a happy ending building with M but I can't see it turning around.

Tash

Saturday 23 March 2013

Range Hood Decision

This range hood business has caused a tad bit of stress. I think once the kitchen was installed I really thought that the triangle shaped range hood I had picked out just didn't seem like the best idea. Since the kitchen company had done such a great job on our island gables I got greedy and had the idea that they could also perhaps do us a built in range hood.

The issue has been though that our overhead cupboards have a bigger gap then our 90cm oven and we weren't sure how we would go about slotting something in there. Between the kitchen company and us we came up with around few ideas. One was to add two little skinny cabinets at either end of the overheads to fill the gap and then that would leave us with a perfect sized 90cm range hood or alternatively we could put them either side of the range hood....hoping I'm making sense here. Another option was to just take all the overheads down and start again, this seemed like too much work and too much money. In the end we have just decided to make the range hood fill the whole space which means that the range hood will be quite larger than the space down below for our oven. We have drawings and it looks pretty good, just hope in the flesh it doesn't look too silly being a lot larger. We based in on Mel's from Georgica Pond as it is simple and achievable for our space and budget but I also checked out White Verandah's hood and the way that one was done was really interesting.

This of course will have to be done after handover as ss would not even let the kitchen company install the carcass of it so that the tiler could tile exactly right up to it. It now means that the kitchen people will have to come back install our new range hood and then we will also need an electrician to hook it up and I'm thinking a tiler to finish off the tiling. Gee I hope I made the right decision. I did look around for another range and quite liked the squarish one from Ilve but it was around another $1000 which was dearer than the getting the custom one through the kitchen company so husband wouldn't hear of me trying to back out to purchase it.

I have been really torn about whether to keep the range or to do a built in one. If I was able to get a beautiful one like the ranges below I definetly would have done a big beautiful stainless steel one but the options in Australia are so plain. Fingers crossed it looks okay.

There are so many different types of ranges that just don't seem to be available in Australia, so many shapes sizes and colours.


Via Georgica Pond nice and simple







This will hopefully be similar to ours


This has the skinny cabinets I mentioned either side but in the end we went the simplest route of just having one oversized range.
House update - We have our first walk through on Monday to dot any imperfections. We will also have an inspector there to help us out. We went out on Saturday and the house already has een covered in dots, seems they have been more thorough then I would have been. I didn't go in but as husband described it there are dots all over the place. He also was not happy to note that the chippies who came back to put our skirting on now our wooden floors are in seemed to botch the job and had to pull it and reattach in spots, leaving patched up bits on the walls. These skirting boards throughout the house are the one thing I am not happy about.

Penny rounds have finally gone up in the powder room as well as our shower screens, mirrors and sliding doors. On sliding doors, they are glass and I know I will hate them...don't know why I didn't change them to panelled sliding doors to suit the house but it is on the list when budget hopefully allows to be changed.

Tash

Tuesday 19 March 2013

Long Overdue Update

I know I haven't posted anything for weeks but I just haven't really had the energy. This building business just sucks the life out of you at times. We have had lots happen but at times it still feels like so many little things still to go.

With so many weeks and weeks of rain here it was turning into a giant mud pit out at site, inside and out and I avoided going out there as the mud all through the house was just too much for me to look at. Sometimes I just prefer not to see the "in between" bits of the build, I prefer to just turn up and "taa daa" it's all nicely done.

I had to go back and see that the last thing I posted was our range hood dilemma, after this post I will update you all on what is happening there.

So last update on house was that the kitchen had gone in and all our vanities. We have since had all our taps and basins put in and our caesarstone has gone in...and some of it out haha. The back bench in the kitchen was the wrong thickness and a last minute change to our bathroom vanity must have meant somebody didn't get the memo and they cut the hole for basin in the wrong spot so that went and came too. Shower heads are in too and look very schmick.

Stone cladding was done to the bottom of our pillars at the front, this was delayed by us as we wanted to wait till hubby got home from trip so that we could discuss it. Tiler was able to send us to another house that I had coincidentally had been looking at as it had a similar stone cladding to what I was hoping for. The did a great job with it and I am very happy with how it looks, blends it nicely with our house but just adds a little bit of texture to the outside.

Our cupboards in bathrooms have been changed over to panelled doors and ends to match kitchen and I have only seen pics of these off husband's phone but gosh they look so pretty, worth the extra cost.

Somebody must have been listening to my wishes regarding our carpet choice as I had been hoping that somehow we would have to re pick our carpet and that is exactly what happened. I ended up hating our original pick, don't know what I was thinking. This ended with us spending two days in the carpet store agonising over what to choose. Carpet is so hard to choose as it changes colour depending on the light. Alot of our choices were discontinued (don't know why they had them out in the showroom) and it eventually came down to one choice really. It ended up being an upgrade to the Platinum range at no extra cost, finally a win for us! Just so thankful I got to change, I really dodged that mistake as my original choice was horrible.

The wooden flooring has been laid and I at first thought it was too dark but now I have adjusted and I am happy with it. We thought we were going to need an expansion gap, something I have only just heard of but thankfully that didn't happen.

We are not happy with some of the gaps under our skirting boards and that will be brought up, not sure how that can be fixed without creating more issues?? Not everything goes smoothly does it in building? But it looks pretty ordinary.

Downlights were all put in but not any of our lights as we just are still unsure what is going where so we thought what the hell we'll wait and maybe have to get it done down the track.

After that long post how about the most important thing....Pics!


Antiqua mixer from Restorations Online. Great service we received this the day after we ordered it.  


Cheapie mixer from Bunnings as I didn't fancy the square modern one they were providing us with. You will notice that this is not the round sink I posted in my kitchen selections, somewhere in our contract it was changed to this. Lucky I am happy with it as there was no changing it. Our kitchen sink was also wrong as we ended up with a 11/2 sink set up instead of the full two sinks. We decided to keep it and take the credit for it, I wanted to say something to the ss about how flexible we were as he has been very inflexible to say the least.


Bath that honestly no one will use but it looks pretty


En suite, panelled doors are not on in this shot. We deliberately didn't tile to the ceiling as I wanted to see the grey paint against the white tiles.


Main bathroom


Same Dorf shower head in both bathrooms


Kitchen after floors had been laid and caesarstone on. Extremely happy with how the caesarstone colour works with our cabinet colour, no hint of cream just a hint of grey in the bench top.


Looking into the kitchen as you walk from the front door.


Subway tiling to pantry before it was grouted, all of this is now completed although I haven't seen it yet. Just can't get over how much I love subway tiling.  


Love, love , love the carpet...it came out just the right wheat type natural colouring I wanted. It is 100% wool which didn't matter to us really just wanted the right colour and something that was soft underfoot. It was called Olives.


Stone cladding to front




Tash

Thursday 21 February 2013

Last minute change of heart

Aargh why do I do this? I am having second thoughts about deciding to go with a rangehood, I think I should have done an undermount and just went cupboards all the way across. It would have looked simpler and cleaner. I still love ranghoods but just looking at my kitchen today I just now think it's not a huge kitchen and I think it will just look too overwhelming for the space. I like things to be simple and this last minute regret is really throwing me. Other than ripping out the top cabinets again (not likely) it looks like I will just have to go with it now, totally my own fault. Talk about an eleventh hour decision. Worst comes to worst I will see if we can just leave of the ranghood and install later after I have decided.

Stay tuned.....

Wednesday 20 February 2013

Finally Kitchen Arrives

Well as the title suggests our kitchen finally turned up. We got a heads up that it was turning up last Thursday and sure enough when we went out late Thursday afternoon there she was sitting in bits and pieces all over the family room floor. We were able to get in too and check her all out.


 
 


As you all know from my previous post this is when we discovered the profile of the doors wasn't quite right. We have decided to keep them now that I have seen it all up as to me it is such a tiny little variation and the doors in the bathrooms will be changed over to panelled to match the kitchen. It seems that this was an M paperwork issue and not the kitchen company as such. So glad we made the last minute decision to have panelled doors in the bathrooms as I think the panelled just looks so pretty.

Kitchen will be installed in two bits, they will come back and put on the island skirting once our floors are put down.

The kitchen must have been put together on the Friday but I was unaware as I thought due to the door issue that it would not go up, it wasn't until very late Sunday that I made a last minute decision to duck out there just to check if our water tank had turned up and I also had a mat that I wanted to check the sizing of for the laundry. I was literally standing at the back bifold doors trying to see if they were open not even seeing the kitchen. I got quite a shock when I finally noticed it. Luckily a window was still open and the girls and I were able to get in to look. I'm such a chicken I made my daughter look it all over before I would actually myself look at it haha.


Our new kitchen


As you come down the hallway from front door.

Love  


Island end gables with skirting detail

 


Over head cupboards.


Banks of drawers either side of oven.
 
 
 The pantry looks much bigger than I realised. The upper bit will just be some open shelves to put pretties on. This is the side with the benchtop and sink. Sorry this pick is blurry.


 
                                                                Other side of pantry



Open shelving above fridge space.

 
The laundry was something my husband and I came up with. I love open shelves to store baskets in. There is also a shelf  in the middle up the top and underneath that we will put a rod to hang ironed clothes onto. I am so happy with this and can't wait to start doing laundry haha. It's missing doors on top on the far side and the kitchen company is going to pop them on after the build is over.


Shelf on top and rod to go underneath to hang things.



I am thrilled with it. The gabled ends and skirting feature on the island are perfect and exactly what we were hoping for. To think that we struggled to convey to M what it was we wanted and it was all up in the air on whether it could be done even right up to the day our block was being levelled. Overall happy with everything I am quite amazed really that we all managed to do this via email and  pictures and that the kitchen company had never done this style of kitchen. Island is a great size and not so large that it obstructs the walkway to the front door.

Relieved!!

Hope no one minds but I will probably post all these pics again once the caesarstone is on...and probably when the pendants are installed too. Caesarstone is due to be installed on the 25th of this month, woohoo!

In other amazing news we are booked to have our walk through on the 8th of March! They will then take 2 weeks to do any fixups needed and then they are allowing another 2 weeks for our bank to do their thing. Too exciting and I have so much I need to get ready still.

Hope everyone enjoyed the pics (sorry for the blurry ones) I'll keep them coming.

Tash




Sunday 17 February 2013

Juju Hat

Must have one! Saw it on The Block last night in Phil and Amity's bedroom, never heard of them...where have I been?

 
 
 
 
 
 

Saturday 16 February 2013

I Got One!!

What you are thinking? I finally got one of those overpriced ceramic drums except I only had to fork over $40! I was doing a happy dance when I picked them up and totally embarassed my daughters to which the little one asked "what do you do with them?"

I was tipped off last night whilst browsing a thread that mentioned that the Reject shop had them for sale again and after checking out the catalogue sure enough there they were on the front cover so I madly dashed down to our one and only store here in Toowoomba only to be told that a lady the day before had purchased all the white ones, 6 in total. Gosh I was peeved at that lady, there were some mutterings of "greedy people" under my breath haha. So I tried Gatton which is around half an hour away and they had two white ones left, quick girls trip out to Gatton and they are all mine.

I know a little obsessed about these but I'm so happy I didn't have to fork out for the expensive Matt Blatt ones. If anyone is looking for one of these, check out Reject right now as I know there were a few of you looking for one too. They only have them in red, black and white...white if your lucky and quick it seems.

Great day all round as I also picked up a gorgeous rug in a turquoise chevron, herringbone type pattern for her bedroom from Loot.



$40 people!!

Tash

Paint Pics

The house has been painted inside and out now for a couple of weeks but I only finally saw it last week. The interior is still a little too dark for me but I think I just need time to adjust to seeing colour other than light cream on the walls. The exterior is perfect, I'm happy that it doesn't look too dark.

 I think now seeing the front door painted white we will now at some stage paint it a pretty light blue after seeing so many other blue painted doors around on other blogs just to add a splash of colour to the house. Wouldn't a lovely pistachio type light mint green look lovely too? Kinda like the pistachio Kitchenaid mixers.

The exterior was painted in Dulux Milton Moon and we were actually lucky enough  to know of another house painted in this colour so we were hoping it would work for us too. I actually now would have also used Silkwort and maybe one day when we repaint that colour will still be around to use. All the trims on the outside are in Dulux Lexicon, M would not allow us to use any other shade of white not even quarter Lexicon.

The interior is Dulux Tranquil Retreat for most of the walls and in the kitchen, family and dining room we opted for Spanish Olive. I first saw this colour via I think the House of Turquoise blog which featured the most gorgeous house ever which as it turned out led me to the Georgica Pond blog where the same colour is used. I quite like it but I just wish that with the tranquil retreat I had gone only 50% strength. Painting is in our future! The trims inside are all Dulux Vivid White which is a beautiful crisp stark white with no hint of any other colour. The ceiling and cornices were M's standard, Lexicon Quarter.

For anyone looking at the colour samples I have provided below or even pics of my house please get sample pots and then view them in all different types of lighting as the colours on my computer screen  do not really match up to what they look like in real life, I don't even think the white looks accurate on my computer.





Family room in Dulux Tranquil Retreat
 
 
 

Front bedroom in Dulux Tranquil Retreat
 
 

Dining, Family and kitchen area all in Dulux Spanish Olive



Internal door to Main Bathroom
 
 

Entrance ceiling
 

Dulux Tranquil Retreat


Dulux Spanish Olive
 
 

Side of house
 
 

The front - a splash of blue would be perfect
 
 

 
Milton Moon


So there she is all painted up and I think she looks a little Hamptonish (new word), not the main house in the Hamptons more like the pool or guest house out the back out of view, haha.
To be honest I think everyone in Australia just uses the word Hamptons to describe any painted weatherboard house but I'm happy to use it no matter how far off I am.

 I want to do a post showing a pic of our house side by side against M's promotional pics, I think they look like two different houses.  


I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

Tash
 
 


Friday 15 February 2013

Kitchen Selections

Ok so this is long overdue considering my kitchen is already here in frightening little pieces on the floor of our family room.

So I am going for a "shaker" style kitchen I guess although I have no idea what that really means but to me I always think a kitchen with square panelled doors, this is a look way off from what I nearly ended up with and it was a blog post and a few other blogs that changed not only my kitchen but the look of my whole house.

I originally was going to have a super modern house all rendered with a two tone kitchen, think black or wood veneer on bottom and white overhead doors with possibly a mirrored splashback or a soft grey splashback, no handles. That was until I discovered  A-M's blog and her beautiful house, it changed my build all around. I then discovered the two other blogs with the most stunning kitchens, Georgica Pond and White Verandah and I knew that that was what I really wanted my house to look like too and modern went out the window. Ruby and Belle's kitchen is one I have looked in on too for inspiration and if anyone hasn't read these blogs should pop in for a look.

It has been an extremely difficult process trying to explain this kitchen, it has made me wonder if they had ever had a client do a similar thing? or has it all been modern flat doors? We provided them with numerous photos of every detail we wanted and were assured we would get to speak to the kitchen company once they knew who was doing it, this is not the case and anyone building with M should know this. So the best I could do is provide pictures and hope I end up with something like I want. Very stressful!

Okay selections already!

For all doors and drawers in the kitchen, butlers and bathrooms we have gone with Polytech's Ballerat profiled door. They have a lovely range of doors. It will all be 2pac in Dulux Vivid White in a satin finish as I didn't want them looking too glossy.

This pictured door is exactly what we got delivered and that is where I think the cofusion lies as we requested this door and this is how Polytech shows it on their website but you can opt to have different edge profiles which is what we did. I don't mind the doors with this edge profile but it's when you get to the drawers that the edge profile all joins up that slightly bugs me.


Dulux Vivid White



The kitchen is all pretty straightforward really. We upgraded to have overheads and banks of drawers around the stove area. The island was widened too (not sure if that was a mistake to do yet) The island is just where it got tricky. We kept the part where the dishwasher is etc the same as standard just moved it around a little but the back of the island we added rows of shallow cupboards. The hardest bit to try and explain was the island end bits and the skirting that I wanted down the bottom. They simply didn't understand and it looked like it would not be done and I kept telling myself to just go with the caesarstone waterfall ends. What will be will be though (sigh). I was hoping for a look like this.



This one has a few extra fancy bits going on that I don't want but it is still a little similar to what I wanted. Can you imagine trying to explain this in an email and not actually meet the kitchen company? Also they told us they have never done a kitchen like this not even so much as the panelled doors, their company does not do kitchens like this. My husband and I just did our best and now it will be what it will be. I'm not expecting it look as good as this but I am just hoping for something a little similar.

M provide a glass splashback as standard in our range and we went against the grain and deleted it and instead will have subway tiling. I seriously think they thought I was mad not wanting the glass. We have used the same tile here that we used in the bathrooms which I think was 200x100.



The handles for kitchen and butlers are from Mother of Pearl in polished nickel.





Kitchen, butlers and bathrooms benchtops are all Caesarstone Organic White. 40mm to kitchen and butlers and standard 20mm to bathrooms. Caesarstone was standard throughout house but the colour and the 40mm were upgrades.



The sink was an upgrade. I think it is called Clark Razor undermount sink.

Standard tap for here is a Dorf Jovian ultra modern square one but we will replace with something like this one. Or even the Ikea Glitteran one.






We got a credit for the standard appliances and have opted to go with a 90cm freestanding oven from Ilve and rangehood too. I know rangehood are not popular and are dust collectors but I have never had one as we had a pullout one in our last house and it was a itch that needed to be scratched so to speak. The microwave is M's standard one with trim kit. I have had my Whirlpool microwave since I was 20 so nearly 16 years can you believe, cost me around $450 back then which was a lot for two poor people and I am not sure I can change to this one, we will see.





Butlers pantry we opted to fit out with a row of cupoards and a bench with a small round sink. We have open shelving in there too in just laminex Polar White. It seems in our contract we have mistakenly been given a square Dorf tap for here but we will replace with just a simple gooseneck one.






The laundry doors and shelves will be in Laminex Polar White and will have standard flat doors. The benchtop will also be Laminex Polar White as we deleted the caesarstone in here.

We also opted to have water tap or something (I can't remember the term) for in the fridge space for a fridge with an icemaker that oneday we might have and we also widened the fridge space too I think.


The kitchen apparently will be installed in two bits...all the main cabinetry will go in then they will come back after flooring has been laid and install the island edge bits and the skirting. Just would have been so much easier to talk to them. I do have a pic of one of the end panels to show you and the kitchen company has done so well with it but since the issues with the doors I am trying not to get my hopes up that we might pull all of this off. Just please let it look a little like a proper shaker kitchen! Right now it looks like a shocking jumble all over the floor, seriously never seen a kitchen come in little bits like it has.


Tash