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.

Shower and Basins Upgrades

Ensuite Shower
I (Nathan) was very keen at our last house to upgrade our standard shower head to a large (20cm+) one. Preferably, I've wanted the 'rain shower' kind of experience, though I believe to get those properly costs thousands of dollars, so a large shower head would have to do. This time around, Suzy encouraged me to have the shower how I wanted it included in the build. So I did!

Communication from Porter Davis was pretty poor in this area (in regards to bathroom choices in general actually). We got told, variously, from different staff, that 1) we could choose any Tradelink product from our local Tradelink supplier website; or 2) we could choose any shower head we saw at any PD display house; or 3) we would be shown a catalog at our colour appointment and have a range to choose from. However, none of that was true. It turns out that as we are building a Lifestyle range house, we can only chose from Lifestyle range products (they have different suppliers for Access and Prestige range houses) - although I read in another blog on building the Drysdale 30 that they were able to pay extra to upgrade to even Prestige products... who knows? In the end, very disappointingly, it appears we only had ONE choice in this regard (or so that's what our colour appointment staff told us) and they couldn't even show us a picture! Unbelievable! Fortunately, I have now Googled the one we should be getting and I am very happy with it. And here it is:

The Tiber Overhead Rain Shower, 250mm, by Dorf

We will also have it coming down from the ceiling on a 200mm arm - the arm is quite chunky which I like.

Suzy has always liked the adjustable hand-held showers, and we got the upgraded Olympic 5-function shower included in one of the upgrade packs we chose, so we decided to keep BOTH. We had a 'diverter' included ($86) so you can chose whether you want to use the overhead rain shower OR the wall mounted hand-held shower. We also chose to have the hand-held shower in the main bathroom too, as they are much nicer than the standard shower head seen in millions of homes and only a small upgrade cost.

'Pulsar' 5 function shower with adjustable arm.

We have to follow up with Porter Davis as to whether we have a 'mixer' AND a 'diverter' as that's the way our documents appear at the moment. However, the diverter appears to the job of both and it would look odd having a mixer that looks different.

Raymor Torino Mixer/Diverter - appears to be both a mixer and a diverter.

Caroma Acqua (yes, with the 'c') Mixer - a  very different style to all the other objects in the shower.

Bathroom Basins
At our previous house, we had lovely above bench basins with gooseneck taps, see below:

Porter Davis offer a very similar option in the Lifestyle range. However, we decided to go with a different sink that still is slightly above bench, but not completely, see below:

Porter Davis display home photo, showing Valentino 420 Stepped Vessel basin

This basin is an upgrade. We also chose the same tap as the above photo, which is the 'standard' option for the Lifestyle houses.

Toilets
We did also upgrade the toilets to the all-ceramic option. It's also slimline, but we weren't too fussy about toilet selection!

Prices:
FYI, here are some of the upgrade costs you can expect for bathroom upgrades (as at July 2013):

• Tiber 250mm rain shower head AND 200mm ceiling arm - $501
• Caroma Acqua wall mixer - $56
• Raymor Torino wall mixer/diverter - $86
• Valentino 420 Stepped Vessel Basin - $144 each (3 basins in the Drysdale = $432)
• Toilets upgrade to Raymor Andorra - $34 each
• Upgrade main bathroom to hand-held shower - $40

Total Upgrades List

This is the part we found the most helpful on other people's blogs. The cost of upgrades. Writing this is NOT meant to be 'ooo look what we are getting' but more of a way to show others bulding the drysdale what can be upgraded and what they are looking to pay. We were pleasently surprised though, we came in a bit under budget, although we are still waiting for a confirmed cost on a few thigns, so that will most likely push us over. so here goes.....

1. carpet pack: $7199. This is for Bolero floor boards and carpet. Tiles to wet areas are included in the base price
2. Function fancy pack: $999. this included hand held shower to ensuite, laminate extended benchtop to laundry, laminate laundry cabinet with everhard white insert trough, fly screen, locks to all openable windows, internal access to garage. This was well worth it!!
3. rear alfresco $5596
4. automatic roller door to garage $670
5. extended window in theatre room (double the height) $171
6. flysceen sliding doors to both the sliding door from rumpus and living areas $688
7. 3 internal doors, to theatre, ensuite and rumpus room $569
8. 1/2 linen and 1/2 broom cupboard as extra in laundry $789
9. overhead cupboards in kicthen $1155
10. laminate in lieu of melamine in pantry $752
11. pot drawers, 2 either side of oven $377
12. drawers to vanity in ensuite $252
13. ceiling dumper to ensuite, 250mm $389, divertor for tap $86
14. two external garden taps $252
15. capped hot water point to alfresco $125
16. Capped waste point to alfresco $212
17. Capped cold point in alfresco $125
18. 900x1200 shower in ensuite in lieu of 900x900 $226
19. upgrade to 4.3* brivis zoned heating, 3 zones. $2600
20. essa stone to island bench in kitchen and opposite bench $2878
21. upgarded handles throughout the house, @ $7 per handle
22. deadbolt lock to front door, with a much nicer handle etc $186
23. upgrade to nice doors, 4 panel $484 for all internal doors
24. upgarded toilet $34
25. upgraded to hand held shower and mixer in bathroom $100ish
26. upgarded vanity basin $144 each. we got three
27. upgraded underlay, to grade 3 $306 throughout the house. 
28. upgraded tiles and feature splashbacks, came in at just under $1000. The main costs here were the feature splash backs in bathroom and ensuite, as well as tiles in the pantry (as a splash back) we upgraded to bigger floor tiles for wet areas and it was really cheap, only about $100 for the whole wet areas!
29. we also spent $1600 on eletrical, $43 per extra power point. $100 for external power points, $170 for a wired in door bell, $140 each for under cupboard lights in the kicthen, $70 for TV and phone points. 

 phew! all done!

looking at all those upgrades it comes to mind if we should have done it all!!! but i dont regret it. Its still all within budget as Porter Davis was so much cheaper than other local builders!.

although we are still awaiting prices for soft close pot drawers and cupboards, upgraded oven and rangehood and cooktop, as well as a dishwasher. So these prices will come soon, hopefully!