4 Mar 2018

Changes We Made To Master Builder's Home Design

I've joined a Facebook group of members who are also building with the same master builder as us. I've found the group useful especially when I had questions in the early phases of our build and supportive with most people willing to share their insight. I also discovered ideas and inspirations from what other people have done to their homes and I also realised there were so many other things we could have done if we had thought if it at the time. 

Like I've said before when you go to a display home what you see in these amazing homes are most likely upgraded options, therefore, the base design may be very basic. And to add the spaces and features you saw in these display homes are most likely an upgrade option.

I thought I'd document the changes or upgrades we made to our base Parkhill 36 home. 

  • We choose the Oxford facade. Not going to lie it was the cheapest facade, but we rather spend money on internal upgrades. We just wanted a very basic facade so we did modify it a little by removing the centre panel their Oxford facade normally has. 
  • Cornerless sliding stacker doors. Our home has an L shape element to it. Where two walls meet we removed the connecting corner beam so that when both sliding doors are opened it creates an open living space.
  • Third garage. All two-story homes come with a double garage as standard, but we added a third garage with a garage door opening at the back of it. We also changed the garage configuration so that garage closest to the house is a single and then the two other spaces is a double. We did this because assuming we needed to put something large at the back of the house there won't be a structural beam in the way. 
  • We combined the study and lounge rooms in their standard design, therefore removing the wall between these two rooms making it into one room as this will be our office space. 
  • We made Bedroom 3 bigger by extending it closer to the front. 
  • Changed all built in wardrobe doors in sliding mirrored doors.
  • We created a separate room for the ensuite toilet. In current base plans, the toilet in the master ensuite isn't separated by a door. We added wall and door so that we can do our business in private. 
  • We did floor to ceiling tiling in all our bathrooms. 
  • We moved the fridge cavity because we wanted more kitchen cabinetry and bench space. Previously it was on the same side as the stove top but we moved it next to the pantry door. 
  • We added a glass window in our pantry for natural light, since the laundry room was no longer next to the pantry, therefore, no natural lighting.
  • Added a shower to the downstairs bathroom. 
  • Most of our windows are awning style and three panels. The two side panels open but the middle is just glass. We also choose very large windows, which I'm really happy about. I love natural lighting.
  • We extended the ceiling height of the ground floor to 2750mm.
  • Added a sliding door between the meals and theatre room. 
  • Added this HUB which will set up the house ready for NBN, telephone and antenna connections. I don't know exactly what it is, it's Hubby's domain but he said we needed it. 
  • Mostly square set cornice for downstairs, presto cornice for upstairs and cove for spaces that aren't really rooms like linen, garage, pantry and laundry.
  • I thought because we opted for the Diamond Range kitchen we could have any stone top and it wouldn't be extra. I was wrong. It's funny how the standard stone tops colours and finishes are one's no one would really want and all the colours that most people would actually want is an upgrade. So the plain light grey stone top we choose was extra which you pay by the metre. We got the same stone throughout all bathrooms too.
  • The front door we liked was extra. It was extra because of the size (due to increased ceiling height), and because we opted for a hinged door with pull back handles.
  • We increased our island length and width. I can't remember what it was originally but we will be getting a 1000mm x 3000mm island.
  • We changed the door to the pantry to a translucent glass door.
  • Our small balustrade will be glass instead of a half gyprock wall like it all the display homes. 
  • We upgraded our air conditioner from the standard to the next option up and added 4 more zones with the standard 6 that is offered. 
  • We added a feature wall tile in all our showers where the niche will be. Other than that upgrade we stuck to our tile range to avoid paying more for tiles. 
  • We removed flooring from Clarendon's scope as we decided to do this with someone else to achieve the flooring look we want. 
I won't go into our electrical because that was always going to vary depending on what we wanted to achieve with our lights and where we wanted electrical points. We didn't go too crazy but we did make sure there was at least two power point port in every room and sufficient lighting and electrical points everywhere. 
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Share Buttons

Share this post with friends