Council Notification period ended

It's been about a month since all our documents were submitted to the council. The notification period has ended now so if there are not many complaints or concerns submitted by our neighbours, hopefully the council will start working on our DA and get ours approved fairly quickly.

Our pool DA went in a few days after the main house DA, so that one should be out of notification period now too.

Bathroom fittings

After thinking about if for a while, we have decided to change our ensuite bathroom layout. Originally we chose to go with Option 2 of what the colour consultant suggested, but we have gone back to her and told her that we would like Option 1 instead now.

Our original choice: Option 2

Now changed our mind to: Option 1

Now the bath will be at the end of the room taking up the whole east wall, and the vanity (although it had to be shrunk back from 180cm to 150cm length) will be in the middle of the room, which will have more natural light when you look at yourself in the mirror. Sadly we can't increase the window size back to 150cm now, as we submitted documents to council with a 90cm window. We'll probably put a few glass shelves to the left of the window to balance out that wall. Shower will be slightly bigger (120x90cm before, 130x100cm now) too.

Part of the reason we went with option 2 originally was because we didn't want to reduce the walk-in-robe space. Now that we are going with option 1 we have less WIR, but with that sacrifice we hope we gained more useable layout in the ensuite. The shower is noticeably bigger which is great, and the bath and its surround will be a nice spot to place decorative objects and orchids.

Ensuite Bathroom Fittings

150cm bathtub with tile surround

150cm caeserstone vanity top with darker laminate doors

Floating vanity

130 x 100 cm shower (semi-frameless)

Family (Kids') Bathroom Fittings

170cm bathtub with tile surround

120cm caeserstone vanity top with darker laminate doors

Floating vanity

110 x 90 cm shower (semi-frameless)

Bathroom tiles are to be chosen later, but we are thinking white large wall tiles and brown/grey 30 x 30 cm floor tiles (budget permitting).

Colour and Material Selection appointment

We had another appointment with the builder's colour consultant today. We have decided on the internal colours and fittings for doors, trims, and bathrooms.

Colours
Entry foyer with raked ceiling: Taubmans "Princess Bling" (3 coats) - It's white, but not clinical white. Should brighten up the foyer and emphasise the tall ceiling and the feeling of open space in our entry hallway.

Walls throughout the house: Taubmans "Ocean Pebble" - It's a neutral, mushroomy beige.

Feature 5m wall in vestibule: Taubmans "Colonial P196-N4" - It's darker than Ocean Pebble but in the same tone. We plan to light up this wall with spotlight, and dress it with lots of black & white photos in white picture frames.

Skirting, architrave, window frame: Taubmans "Stoney Brook" - It's  an off-white colour, and is a lighter version of Ocean Pebble.

Ceilings and cornices: White

Fittings
Front door: Corinthian Infinity INFWS8G Pivot Door (1200 x 2340 mm) and side lights. Glass glazing is "Translucent" which is not transparent.

Front door lock: Gainsborough Angular Trilock BC in Bright Chrome finish.

Laundry door: Corinthian Backdoor Style TH7 (standard height). Glass glazing is "Obscure". Painted.

All internal doors are plain hollow core doors, which we are not completely happy about, as we wanted solid core doors for minimising sound. We will need to install taller doors for our Ground and Lower Ground floors, and we would have had to custom order the style of doors we liked to make them taller. So we've decided to go with standard hollow core doors at this time, to keep the budget blowup to a reasonable level. Doors are relatively easy to change later by ourselves if we really can't live with noise coming through doors.

Internal door handles: Gainsborough Carla Lever in Satin Chrome finish.

Kitchen appointment next week!

We have our kitchen appointment next week. Mrs Sasanqua has been doing research on the colours and materials, as well as placement of appliances in our new kitchen. We will see how much upgrade we can afford. Our kitchen is not very big (about 4m by 3.2m) but we will have the butler's pantry (about 2.1m by 4.5m) off our main kitchen, so storage should not be a problem we hope.

Here are a few sketches we did with our 3D mockup program.

Kitchen viewed from living entry.

Kitchen viewed from TV area. That pillar on island bench is structural and need to be there, but we don't like it!

Kitchen island viewed from dining area, doorway to the right is butler's pantry.

Kitchen island viewed from buttler's pantry entry.

Inside butler's pantry. Window, full cupboards, and large sink.