30 January 2009

The second tender.

Hello World.

We got the new tender today. Time for a little background: we love the idea of having an al fresco area outside near the family room and the rumpus room. It would be great for parties, or even for a summer barbecue. We asked Masterton about it, and got a quote from them fore around $20,000 for it. This was all before we'd remembered to ask about the ceiling heights and selected our façade.

But we think we have found a cheaper alternative. We're yet to get some quotes, but we're going to talk to whoever pours and stencils our driveway and see what they can do in terms of a concrete slab as a base for our al fresco area. Masterton would pour the same kind of slab as they do for the house -- one designed to bear the weight of a house or structure on top of it, and that's not what we're going for here. We're still not sure what we're going to do for a covering over that slab, but we don't need to decide that straight away.

So... changes we requested and are included in this latest tender:
  • a 900mm oven instead of the standard 600mm version,

  • removal of the spa bath in the en suite, replaced by a double shower (sheer indulgence on our part, and one our salesperson has included at no extra cost),

  • swapping the sliding doors from the rumpus room (which is going to be our TV/media room) into the family room,

  • adding double sliding doors between the rumpus room and the rest of the house,

  • added an under the stairs storage area (aka "Harry's room"),

  • 2700mm ceiling heights on the ground floor instead of the standard 2400mm,


and a few other items, like a larger capacity solar hot water heater. The standard was a simple 135 litre tank. We're a growing family, and we already use a 315 litre tank. It's no small stretch to see that the standard tank was not going to be sufficient.

All in all, our variations have increased the total tender from $290,000 to $299,000. We were pleasantly surprised by some things, like the 2700mm ceilings -- this is going to cost more in terms of bricks (extra rows), extra paint, you name it. That little detail only cost us an extra $5200, and we were expecting it to be a lot more.

We're off to meet with Masterton tomorrow morning to answer a few more questions. Then it's off to the bank this week to see if they'll loan us the money to do all this.

2 comments:

  1. Hi there Lizzy and Ghost,
    Just wanted to pop in and say Hello.
    and let you know that we have had nothing but quality service from Masterton. And i am shre that the guys and gals at Masterton will be as helpful as they were with us:)
    we are building in yass N.S.W where are you building?
    any how chat with you soon
    Ps. do you go to the Home one forum ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Browns! So glad to hear about your experiences with Masterton. So far ours have been pretty good too and I'm hoping they remain so.

    What is the Home one forum?

    ReplyDelete