Upgraded Carpet

Thanks to commenter, Sam, who suggested we ask at final contract signing about the cost of upgrading the carpet. We did so, and were told that to upgrade from 'Impressions' to 'Superior' (I think) was about $500 and to go up to 'Designer' was about $1000. This is for approximately 100m2 of carpeted areas in the Drysdale 30.

HOWEVER, Porter Davis being Porter Davis - what one staff member says is soon contradicted by another staff member. We raced back to Hopetoun Interiors to choose a different, better quality carpet. But we were immediately told that the Impressions, Superior and Designer ranges no longer exist! At Hopetoun, of course, they could not provide us with any quotes. Their carpet choices are separated into 5 or 6 categories, so we figured we were safe if we upgraded to a Category 2. Side note - we spent about 2 hours just staring at carpet, unable to decide between about 3 similar choices!! Very frustrating!

We were shocked, then, to find that when we emailed our new choice to our Building Coordinator asking for a quote for the upgrade, to be told that it would cost over $2000! That was just for Category 2. Fortunately for us (but not necessarily for anyone else reading this), they said they would offer the upgrade to us based on the incorrect 'quote' we were given based on the now non-existent Superior range when we were at final contract signing.

SO... Lesson for you building with Porter Davis or thinking about it - Upgrading your carpet through PD probably WILL be expensive! See a previous blog post where we compared a quote we had from a flooring store to the PD flooring package. As an updated summary:

• The flooring package through PD is NOW about $8,200. This provides Bolero laminate flooring and category 1 carpet;
• To upgrade 100m2 of carpet through PD is NOW about $2000, which would take the total to $10,200.
• To upgrade from laminate to Timbertop floorboards is a significant cost - sorry I can't be more specific.
• To get 100m2 of vinyl floor planks which were beautiful, including with decorative edgings AND 100m2 of fairly 'cushy' carpet AND very fat underlay, through a flooring store was going to cost about $12,000.

Conclusion? If you want decent carpets and floors and have a little more money to spend, you're probably best NOT using PD but getting your floors after the build.

Fortunately for us it did work out pretty well. So thanks again, Sam.

More on Flooring

Suzy just posted about our external colour choices as well as our choice of flooring. I thought I'd give a bit more info about the flooring, as it was an area we spent a fair bit of time looking into.

Our Flooring Choice
We chose the flooring pack ($7199) and with it got to chose from Bolero timber look floor boards (so laminate) and carpet. We were wanting a light and bright house so chose the following:

Bolero 'Rustic Nougat' Laminate flooring and
Category 1 Godfrey Hirst carpet (can't recall the colour name)

At first we thought we could do better than the standard laminate flooring Porter Davis includes in the flooring pack. A friend of ours insisted vinyl plank flooring was really good (he's biased, he lays it for a living). At first we laughed him off, but eventually we went and looked at some vinyl planking and LOVED it! It is NOT at all like the older vinyl sheeting you imagine in 70s kitchens and bathrooms. They can have lovely textures and look like real wood.

Unfortunately, we got a couple of quotes to do the house in vinyl planking and pretty decent carpet and they came in at around $12,000 for the house (100m of vinyl planking, 100m of carpet). We felt this was too much over the Porter Davis floor package price. However, we still didn't like the sound of laminate either, so we were a bit torn.

But then we spoke to a helpful guy at the Harvey Norman flooring centre on Greens Road (near Dandenong) gave us some insight into what makes a better quality laminate floor. He told us you need to consider the abrasiveness rating (how easy they scratch) and the thickness of the laminate layer. A good quality laminate floor, he said, should have at least AC3 abrasiveness rating and be 8mm thick. Here are the specs for Bolero:

	Wear Rating		AC4
	Structure		White HDF
	Thickness		8 mm [1/3 in]
	Length		1210 mm [4 ft]
	Width		191 mm [7 1/2 in]
	Bevel		2V Colored Bevel
	Surface		Real wood feel Brushed
	Installation System		Angle Loc

So as you can see, Bolero appears to be pretty decent. We then saw a Bolero laminate at one of the Porter Davis display houses and it looked really good. It was textured and has lines (or grooves) in it, so it's not completely flat and shiny like a lot of laminates (and 'timbertop' floors for that matter).

After that we were very happy to stick with the Porter Davis flooring package, although as Suzy said in her post, it did mean we stuck with just Category 1 carpet instead of really plush feeling carpet.