Internal Selections

Here are some of the internal Colour Selections for our new house. We made these selections were, way back in March 2015 at the Orbit Design Studio located at their head office in Ascot Vale.

Kitchen

Benchtop : Caesarstone 20mm : Mitred 40mm Arris – Ice Snow

Drawers, Cupboards, Rear Island : Laminate – Mountain Pepper

Sink : Clark Vital 1.75

Oven/Cooktop : Westinghouse WFE9 14SA 900mm Dual Fuel

Rangehood : Westinghouse Slideout WRH908IS

Bathroom

Basin : Caroma Liano Nexus Inset Basin

Basin Mixer : Dorf Kip

Shower/Bath Tiles : Subway

Shower Base : Tiled

Shower Mixer : Dorf Kip

Shower Head : Caroma Mystic Shower on Rail

Bath : Caroma Maxton 1500

Double Towel Rail : Caroma Cosmo

Floor Coverings

Tiles : Belga Ivory Semi Gloss 450 x 450

Grout : Misty Grey

Carpet : Shalimar – Tempting Taupe

Frame Progressing Well

Good progress has been made on the frame over the past week with all the roof trusses now in place. It is possible that it will be complete by the end of the coming week. However, Tuesday is a public holiday and some degree of rain has been forecast for the other days.

View from the Front

View from the South Side

View from the Back

An Old-Fashioned Frame

We took a trip out to Keysborough this morning on the off chance there had been  some progress this week, and indeed there was. Work has commenced on the timber frame. Interestingly it appears there are no pre-fabricated frames for us. Instead the frame is being constructed on site using lengths of timber by the carpenters – the old-fashioned way. I’m not sure they would have worked on Wednesday when it was 42 degrees here in Melbourne. It not, then they have made good progress in four days.

View of the front from the road

The garage and front entrance

View from the side.
Bedroom 1 with en-suite and laundry on the left

View from the side.
Rear bedrooms and bathroom

View from the back
Rear bedroom and Alfresco

External Selections

At the colour selections appointment you have to make a lot of decisions in a relatively short period of time. Project builders tend to keep the base price of the house low but tempt you with a range upgrades which in contrast are quite costly (often much higher than the retail cost of the item). So whilst the builder’s Design Consultant is encouraging you to select the premium, more expensive items in the name of aesthetics, it is important to consider function and budget. To make matters worse, it becomes expensive to change your mind. Once the contract is signed, most builders a variation fee. In Orbit’s case this is $1,000 per item. 

Here are some of the external Colour Selections for our new house. We made these selections were, way back in March 2015 at the Orbit Design Studio located at their head office in Ascot Vale.

Bricks : Austral Access Chestnut, Natural Mortar, Rolled Joints

It’s surprising how much the colour of these bricks seem to vary in the pictures available on the web. I’m putting it down to the light conditions in which the picture was taken rather than variations in the manufacturing process. Anyway we expect our bricks to look something like this :

Roof Tiles : Bristile, Heritage Blackstone

Black is probably not best choice for the hot summer months – but it seemed to go best with the external colour scheme.

Entrance Door & Sidelite : Hume XN1 – Maple Stained, Translucent Glazing

Garage Door : Colorbond Sectional : Paperbark, Profile Traditional

Rendered Front Piers : Paperbark

Timber Front Windows : Stained – Cedar/Cypress

Aluminium Windows and Doors : Monument

Infills, Fascia, Gutters, Downpipes, Meterbox : Monument

Plain Coloured Paving : Gunmetal

The State of the Estate

Even though the Christmas and New Year celebrations have now over, I understand that much of the residential building industry continue their holidays for much of January. I’m therefore not expecting too much construction activity on our block over the next couple of weeks.

No avtivity on the Southern side of the area bounded
 by Solsbury Crescent

We had a look around the estate a couple of days ago and it seems as though more construction sites are sprouting up each time we visit. Strangely though, they seem to be congregating in particular areas. At present there is little evidence of activity on the southern side of the area bounded by Solsbury Crescent. 

The view down Red Brush Rd towards Church Rd 
from our block

The view down Red Brush towards Westwood Boulevard 
from our block

The view down Solsbury Crescent from our block