Exterior render and internal fitout

The exterior of the house is almost finished, with the render going on this week and the downpipes and guttering being completed.  The builders have also scraped the front yard for the driveway to be laid, along with the stairs to the front door.  

All of the interior doors have been installed and painted. The air-conditioning units have been installed along with the vacumaid (which I cannot wait to use!) and security system. 

The work in the laundry, bathrooms and kitchen included the laundry tub, taps, shower heads and screens, the toilets and mirrors. Amazing how much difference these little things make to the house.

The bedrooms were all fitted out with their wardrobes (except the master dressing room, which is an fit out with Ikea we will be doing after handover)

The formal lounge room at the front of the house

The stair case - still to be carpeted

The laundry - the tub is finally installed.

The downstairs bathroom

The study downstairs - looking forward to working from home a few days a week once this is all done

The kitchen - still has an oven and rangehood to go in.  There will be shelves installed after hand over where overhead cabinetry would ordinarily be placed. I did not want too many cupboards in the kitchen, which I know sounds strange. But I am so glad we did not get overhead cupboards, We have saved a lot of money on cupboards we wouldn't have used (we have a whole butler's pantry to fill) and  I think too many cupboards overwhelm a kitchen. 

The butler's pantry.  This is all we had installed by Metricon in the butler's pantry, the fit-out will be done by Ikea after handover.  I am glad that we waited before fitting out this area as I have spent a lot of time researching how I think the space will be best utilised and had I made decisions about it a year ago, I would have made some expensive mistakes. 

The upstairs main bathroom - shower screen not installed, not sure why...

Bedrooms

The upstairs leisure room

The master bedroom ensuite - double basin with a bath tub

The master bedroom ensuite shower and toilet

The master bedroom looking into the ensuite

The master bedroom windows

From what I can tell, the interior still has things to go like towel racks and toilet roll holders, the carpet, door knobs, and all the lights, power and TV sockets.  The oven and rangehood are also still to be installed.

Interior Colour Selections

The interior colour selections were much easier for us than the exterior...

We started by selecting the Caeserstone benchtop and working from there.  I think this is a good place to start, because it is one of the more expensive choices you will make and it is difficult (impossible) to change later.   You have a great range of selections in paint, cabinetry and tiles to work around the benchtop, but it is harder to find a benchtop that matches all the selections if you work in reverse.  We took a range of sample tiles from the showroom and sat them on our benchtop at home, walking past periodically to get an idea for what we liked, and was eye-catching.

We selected the Caesarstone Shitake.  These are 40mm benchtops throughout the kitchen and butlers pantry, 20mm in the bathrooms, all with a square finish. We liked this one because it was quite neutral while having the flecks of white and dark brown/black, giving us a lot of options in matching paint, tiles and cabinetry etc. The mottled look is also great for hiding mess, I find that plain benchtops (esp darker ones) show every little spot.

The underbench cabinetry is in a basic Laminex White 200, which I've attempted to post here, but I'm sure it looks strange to post a white swatch on a white page...

The overbench kitchen cabinetry, fit-out in the butler's pantry, laundry and bathrooms will be in the Laminex Pesto Linea

The ultimate look we are going for in the kitchen is roughly similar to these.  Our floor will be tiled and the splashback is glass.

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The interior paint throughout is in Dulux China White

It has quite a yellow undertone, especially against a stark white background, however, we think it is quite warm and matches well with the Shitake benchtop and the yellow undertone in the pesto linea cabinetry as well.  When in use the colour is much more subdued. This is an example here.