Franke, Frankly.

Just a little note to let you all know that our Franke tap has arrived from WWW.SINKS-TAPS.COM; very pleased! It was a little larger than we expected even having the dimensions, when you see it BAM! Huge statement piece :P The postage -was- almost as much as the tap itself but well worth it and far less than we would have paid locally for a similar Franke tap.

We are of course yet to install it and will pop up some real life pics when we do that. Our experience with Sinks-Taps was awesome; the removed the VAT for us and the shipping was lightning fast with UPS (isn't that the guys wearing the brown uniforms?).

Colour Palettes

This will be a quick one. Pics speak for themselves??

Bathroom Tile - Stone Ash Matte, same tiles on floor and wall, Stringybark Laminex vanity doors and top with white being featured in the aluminium windows, square basin and skirtings etc..

Austral Access Fawn Brick with Surfmist Colorbond Roof, Dune Gutters and Downpipes with Woodland Grey Fascia

Kitchen Colours: Silk Finish Polar White Laminex Cupboard Doors, Ice Snow Caesarstone Benctops, Milton Moon Starfire Glass Splashback, Pure Mineralstone Laminex top the pantry, paint sample is Solver Knave and finally flooring Bolero laminate wood in Dusty Rock.

Soil testing

Hooray! Evidence of soil testing at the block. Site costs are one of our biggest question marks and could possibly put a spanner in our works.

and another.

What a test hole looks like..

Turns out there were 3, so we did miss one.

Asked for our soil report and we were pretty sure that we had under 1m of fall left to right but it turns out that there is about 1.2-1.4m :/ Now the nervous wait til our engineering comes back.

Dreaming up a kitchen

We have been putting quite a bit of time into our kitchen dreams this week and decided it would be good to share our thoughts. Now for those following at home ;) you may be wondering why I am adding 'upgrade' values. This really doesn't mean much to many, but is an element of the fabulous resource sharing that goes on over at the Homeone forum which we are finding so helpful and we want to return the love.

We believed that Technika was the kitchen appliance range in our standard options (Optima Nuovo), but it turns out that the standard brand is Bellini - so we now are wondering what the cost of this upgrade is going to be?? In any case, an underbench and cooktop set at 900mm will be our choice. Brand etc to be continued..

Too cold to get my camera out of the car tonight but will add a photo of the display home kitchen at Point Cook to show you what the layout looks like. In the meantime:

An idea of our underbench oven - the Technika T948SS

And likely this for our gas cooktop?? -

The fridge we are liking might have an issue, there is a wall on the Drysdale30 to the left of the fridge that could really put a spanner in the works with the french door opening. 

However, hubby is certain this is what he wants - the Electrolux EHE5107SA. It does appear to be getting some good reviews not only on review sites but throughout the forums.

 

We are upgrading our kitchen sink to the Abey double undermount [Stratus or Quadrato?] (upgrade estimate = $850) similar to this: ok well not -that- similar to this because we are after a square shaped bowl and of course our benchtops are different colour completely and our tap/faucet is more 'modern' in style. Anyway an idea of double undermounted sink:

Benchtops - Caesarstone Osprey on Left or leaning toward Ice Snow (right). This is based on the idea that we will be steering for white on white on white and therefore to add texture we will go with Ice Snow. It actually still looks very white (check out the second pic below of a white kitchen with Ice Snow Benchtops).

Matt Polar White Laminex for our doors?

Handle upgrades?! Erk - that one hurts.. very tempted to try and upgrade ourselves post handover.. no value for money in doing so with PD. I think I like Handle No 26 in this shot (it is the smaller of the long matt options and sits in the Builders Handle Range:

We are missing firm ideas on our rangehood and splashback colours but pretty confident to be going ahead with the glass splashback - with young children, running a business and a flamboyant cook in the household, easy to clean is a high priority. Well actually in this house buliding bizzo -easy- is a good general rule of thumb to guide our choices. Not because we are lazy - but because our lifestyle as young parents lends itself more to a focus on living and enjoying life in our home than on unnecessary upkeep of it??

Until next time.. thanks for following along.