We had our WOS appointment late last month, but things have been hectic lately, haven't had much time to write about it.
Firstly, I'll say that everything went smoothly, and we came out below budget with a whole bunch of upgrades we hadn't planned on, or thought we couldn't afford.
At the bottom of this post is a breakdown of our upgrades.
We started the day (way too early!) and drove through terrible peak hour traffic to get to WOS.
It was a whirlwind experience, as I'd read on other blogs and forums, they really do just whip you around the place, hand-balling you to the next consultant.
Our first appointment was electrical. The big one; the one we were least prepared for.
We had a trainee and her supervisor, which made things better, we thought - two people to bounce ideas off. We were presented with the standard electrical plan and built from it, doubling (tripling in some rooms) the data and put power on almost every wall in the house.
We added downlights to all areas except the bedrooms, and was so surprised that we were a few hundred dollars under budget.
We were glad to learn we were getting Cat6 cabling, and included a few noggins in the roof for pendant lighting above the kitchen bench later.
Second was tiles.
We visited WOS three times before this appointment, and although we had a clear idea of what tiles we liked (from the PD display homes) we hadn't located them during our visits.
Turns out they are discontinued (all 3 kinds of tile!) but we found some pretty decent ones.
The sales rep was lovely, we had a good chat about dogs (and bushfires for some reason) while she drew up the plans, and made some really good suggestions.
We didn't end up going for subway tiles in the kitchen, but instead are having them as a feature wall in our ensuite.
What we chose for the kitchen are some large rectangular tiles that are very dark but textured, and a similar but smaller tile for the bathrooms.
Third appointment was wardrobes.
We requested an appointment (not part of the standard Access range?) and cancelled our windows/blinds appointment and are glad we did - the quote for our WIR was less than half what we were quoted from IKEA.
The staff were both very friendly and helpful - just note the coloured wardrobes added ~$800 to the price.
We broke for lunch and trekked over to the market and found a cute meatballs stall. They were amazing! I had 2 of each kind available. Be sure to stock up on food and drink! The day was half-way through and we hadn't done the hard part yet (kitchen!) and were already exhausted.
After lunch we had a quick check-up with the electrical consultants who seemed to have a bit of trouble printing our plans... Then we met with our interior designer (who despite being very confident was a bit of an idiot)
This appointment was a breeze because J and I both have similar tastes and had decided on almost everything beforehand. We allowed the interior designer to show us a few things but ultimately I think we stuck with our original ideas.
We opted for a larger entry door - they couldn't confirm the price for us at WOS but it wasn't a great deal more than expected (i forget how much now, maybe $400?)
Lastly we had our kitchen appointment.
Oh the stress!
We had been tossing between white benchtop vs black benchtop for months - it was finally crunch time. We'd said that if we were under budget we would splash on the kitchen because it is such a focal point in our home and with our families too. We had heard the pure white benchtops were expensive, and the black benchtops even more so.
We chose a Cat2 benchtop, which really wasn't as expensive as the sales rep at the display home had told us - nor was it nearly as expensive to do the waterfall edge.
We opted for some drawer upgrades to either side of our cooker and immediately made amendments to the overhead cupboards we'd chosen with our interior designer once we learned they were over $350 PER DOOR! No thanks, back to silk laminate please.
Overall we though our WOS experience was very organised, stressful but totally manageable, and overall positive. We left feeling as though everything we wanted had been selected, or compromised appropriately. We'd managed to get more downlights, a better kitchen, and a good carpet/flooring package sorted. Now all we had to do was survive the contract appointment.
Upgrades:
600mm entry door handle - $181
Privacy locks on WC/bathroom doors - $5ea
Stainless steel laundry trough - $79
Kado Arc basin - $24
Kado lux basin - $52
Mizu Soothe bath mixer - $46ea
Posh base shower rail - $35
Mizu drift bath outlet - $79
Mizu square ceiling dumper - $105 (+ arm $35)
Cat 2 carpet - $1608
Cat 3 underlay - $150
Bolero flooring - $5336
(Here's to hoping this can be packaged for us)
Wardrobes:
4 modules - $1863
(White is heaps cheaper than this!)
Kitchen Culture:
Silk finish laminate - $766
2x pot drawers with 50kg reinforcements - $340
Cutlery tray - $89
Cat 2 essastone (new crystal salt) - $1818
20mm overhang to overheads - $110
Waterfall edge to island bench - $830
Silk finish laminate to bathroom - $187
Silk finish laminate to ensuite - $261
Electrical - $4621, which included downlights to all areas except bedrooms and laundry, lots of extra power, noggins for future pendant lighting and 1-4 data points per room.)
Tiles to wet areas, kitchen splashback and feature tiles to full ensuite wall - $2053
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