Choosing "STUFF"

Tom and I have decided that will we will build the Longbeach Q2 from Plantation Homes. 

It has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a double lockup garage. The kitchen, dining and lounge open up to an alfresco area that faces north. Our master, has double sinks, large shower that Tom can actually fit under, separate ventilated toilet, and a VERY large walk in robe. The Longbeach is about 2 times the size of our flat. And has storage that we could only dream about. 

I will have not only a walk in pantry with a window, but two linen cupboards!

After 14 house plans, 3 locations and 2 builders, we have a lot more "stuff" still left to choose. 

Door Handles

Building a house is stressful, time consuming, a little daunting, but largely whole lot of fun. You get to pick stuff. And by that we mean everything. From all those door handles you never think about to the kitchen bench tops and facades you'll see everyday. 

When you build you choose the lot. This is your time to pour your heart and soul into the design to make it something great, worthwhile, and to completely avoid comments like "OMG WTF where they thinking?!". 

This is where years of dedication to the Lifestyle Channel, Sarah's House (All Fours Seasons), Design Inc, Backyard Blitz, Better Homes & Gardens and a good four or so magazine subscriptions to interior design mags, will pay off (or so Tom hopes). 

Upon "finalising" our plan and facade selection, we were given a guided tour of the Cosham Interior design studio, to help prepare us for our 3 hour design selection meeting. Our tour was to take approximately 1 hour. We began at 10am. We left the Plantation Homes/ Cosham Interiors design studio at 1:30pm dying for food and drink. We then headed over to Beaumont Tiles for another marathon effort... 3 hours of tile selection. We had selected just about everything. And then we needed to Vote! No, not just on stuff, but the local Mayor. 

Mood Board: Colour Selection Round 1....   (Fight!)

Here's some of our selections:
Walls: Dulux Dieskau

Architraves/skirtings: Gloss White

Carpet Selection

Ceiling: White

Window trim: Pearl White

Internal Doors: Gloss White

Benchtop: Quantum Quartz Polar

Lower cabinets: Licorice Linea

Upper cabinets: Platinum Micro

Splash-back: Land Rover White Gold

Wall Tile: Sector Satin White (200 x 400) Matt finish 

Floor Tile: Lifestyle Charcoal (400 x 400) Matt finish

Timber look flooring: Chocolate Charcoal - didn't actually give me a name, so this will do. 

Carpet: Sandypoint, Gecko (Nylon goodness. Tom assures me I can replace it in 5 years time when the warranty runs out! Then it will be "Bah Bah Black sheep, have you any wool". )

And these are all just finishes - which sink, which tap, which handle, which kick plate, which front door, which garage, which coloured render, which Colorbond roof..... and the "whiches" continue for another two pages.  

Naturally there is a plan to all of this. And a mountain of research as well. Here's a few of our considerations.

Inspiration

We both have dark hair; we have two cats; we hate cleaning. Darker floors it is.

We wanted colours that started dark at the bottom and graduated to  lighter tones on top. It seemed more natural to us.  Much like the sky is darker the closer to the horizon.

We wanted a colour palette that was both traditional and contemporary. After watching many episodes of Sara's House, we both fell in love with a her use of White, Cream, Grey, and Walnut tones. The picture to the left epitomises what we were trying for. I think we came pretty close. 

The pictures above aren't quite crisp enough (iphone in low light) to capture the true colours. I promise we will take better ones when we have our final selections sorted out. 

This weekend we are finalising our lighting design and attempting to put together our landscaping design. Thankfully I married an electrical engineer who did landscaping to get through uni.

Lighting is daunting for me. How do you space everything properly? What size fan do you need to do a kitchen, dining, and lounge room? Will one be enough? Where do you put it so that it doesn't throw your pendant light out of whack? Do you want down lights? Do you want a wall switch or a remote or both? Thankfully Tom is being very patient (yes, even more than usual). Let's see what the Labour Day Public Holiday brings... hopefully consensus.