Blinds, Shutter, Venetians....so many selections

Well, this is a topic I knew nothing about and now....... I know soooo much more.....

I am so happy that I waited until we were living in the house until we decided on what we wanted for window furnishing.

Temporary Blinds

I ordered temporary blinds from ezyblinds.com.au at around $60 a box (6 in a box) - I bought 2 boxes.  These are paper blinds - NOTE - stick them to the glass or aluminium frames, NOT the painted timber!

Anyway, we very quickly discovered that when the windows are open, these do move in the wind and can make a bit of noise.  I ordered black ones to aid in blackout of the light and they are doing the job enough for us.

Temporary Blinds - 7.00am

In Kids Bedroom, I don't have it covering the whole window.
The middle panel is stuck to the frame so that the sliders can
slide over the top of it.

QUOTES

I was originally planning on roller blinds in the bedrooms, but due to the noise with the temp blinds, we have now changed our minds.

So, after having 5 companies come through to assist with blinds and quotes, I discovered the following:

Roller Blinds

We are putting these in our open plan Dining area, over Bi-Fold Doors, Family room and Playroom.  So there are a lot of choices here:

• Sunscreen/E-screen blinds
• Light-Filtering
• Blockout

I have ordered solely blockout blinds only because in these areas I don't have any concern with people looking in, the area is quite private.  It is only in the Dining area that we are affected by the sun during meal times, so need some protection at this time - perhaps 1-2 hour period.  So we will assess how the blockouts go and if needed will add sunscreen blinds down the track.

Have chosen a fabric called "Studio Dawn".

Plantation Shutters

Well I never knew how many different types - timber, painted timber, PVC, ABS, Customcraft, Basswood, Cedar, etc etc.  So this totally confused me and left me not wanting to make my decision for a few weeks whilst I processed this.  We decided that to deal with noisy roller blinds in the bedrooms flapping in the wind, that we would go for plantation shutters.

Have selected Customcraft which is an MDF wood that is then coated with a polypropylene that is heat sealed onto the wood.  These won't fade, are extremely hard (wood can be softer), not subject to warping and moisture resistant.  However saying that, I am using a different product in the Ensuite - ABS.  It is designed for moisture areas.  

Then there are different ways they can be attached to the window frame.  We have having the shutters hinged straight onto our frames.  Some companies won't do this and put a frame inside your frame to attach the shutters.  This just takes up more space and light.

Timber Venetians
The Sales person suggested that for the Children's bedrooms, instead of using plantations, how about Timber venetians, they are more streamlined and will let in more light.  The will look very similar to the plantation style/colour so still in line with our other choices.  Great idea I thought, no one else made this suggestion.  As I was worried about them rattling in the wind, the venetians can be clipped tight at the bottom.  I can also just reach through to open the sliding windows - easier than opening shutters.  Another great thing is that they are cheaper than plantation shutters.

I am purchasing through www.timbershades.com.au 

We are having the final fit and measure on Tuesday.  Venetians and blinds should then take about 4 weeks and the Plantation Shutters around 8 weeks (end Jan with Christmas!)

My recommendation is that you may want to wait until you are living in your house to see exactly what you need.  Everyone tries to sell you Sunscreen blinds, however you may not actually need them.  You also might need them, but you only know this by being in the house and seeing how the sun affects your living areas.

What we Love and What we would do differently....

Things I would do differently on the Wembley 35 - 

• Bed 3 - I would have changed window location to be facing backyard, this would have assisted with a larger window and saved overlooking issue.
• Guest Bedroom - pay close attention to where the BIR is placed. Due to us choosing the Balmain facade, it is in a strange location just inside the door, but right in front of a feature window. It would fit perfectly on the far outside wall, however you are then looking straight into the cupboard and then a bed would have to be on the wall just inside the door (on the hall wall)
• Laundry Chute - Love having it, it is super, however they have struggled with it the whole time and still need to fix it up.  The actual hole for clothes is 250mm x 250mm!!!!!  I was trusting that they knew what they were doing, however no-one knew what to do.  Big balls up.  Still ongoing.
• Bifold Door to Alfresco - we have a 4 leaf aluminium door and it doesn't have a single opening door. Very strange design. Wish I had realised this in the planning stage as this we should have read on the plans. Also put in retractable flyscreens if you can or at least get a quote. We didn't but I found out later on that others have got them installed.
• Pay close attention to the size of the cupboards in the kitchen, especially if you like them all uniform. One of ours on the plans was 350mm and all the rest 400mm, ridiculous that they do it that way!
• Laundry Bench is 3800mm long.  Found out laminate/formica is only in 3600mm lengths, so therefore ugly join on the bench top.

Things we LOVE:

• Green Splashback - Dulux Mangrove Leaf - very fresh, everyone comments on it.
• The extra "media unit" that extends from the kitchen along the dining wall under the window. Everyone that walks into our house comments on it and how wonderful it is. We put draws instead of cupboards. Great utilisation of space and worth the money.
• Laundry size - with changing the lounge to a guest bedroom, the reorganisation of design makes a wonderful massive laundry - LOVE IT.
• Grand Alfresco - fantastic if you can afford to do it.
• Happy with our selection of lighting. We have 5 wall lights round stairs, probably only needed 3.
• We went for the Amended Pantry Option for kitchen same as the display.
• Size of the Pantry
• Size of Parent's WIR
• Tiling - Tiler did a fantastic job.  Very Shmick.  The Cat 1 Subway tiling is great, I have had lots of comments on them - they are in laundry splashback, round bathtub and quest ensuite shower.
• Casement Windows
• Double glazed windows
• Hebel - very stable temperature so far
• Bolero Flooring - this has been fabulous with 3 young children and a house surrounded by dirt!

Landscaping Backyard - part 1

Loving that we extended the garage and put in a roller door at the back - fits the little dingo through (next to all our boxes) to be able to work on landscaping.

Levelling out getting ready for turf.

Pool Fence now in, cover off the pool and
ground level on the left, ready for turf.

Pool (under corrugated iron sheets) - waiting
for pool fence.  There will be crushed rock put
in the rectangle sleeper area above.

Time Flies - Where do I start?????

Hi All, well it has now been 5 weeks since handover and I don't really know where to start with some updates.....Okay, perhaps Settlement/Handover.

It was all fairly non-eventful on the day.  Some little things being attended to and some things to be fixed in the few days following.  Still waiting for some things to be attended and making my list ready for 3 month inspection - nothing too major though.
Took about half an hour going round with SS checking everything.  Then headed to Narre Warren office for handover to get all the keys.  Also opportunity to discuss any feedback with Customer Service Manager, complete a survey and received a little gift with the keys....

Stove Installed - LOVE IT (just takes a while to warm up to temperature...)
PS - still totally in love with my splashback.  Soooo many positive comments from friends

Dishwasher - Super quiet (Eco cycle is over 2hrs though!)

Present from PD on Handover

We moved house over that first weekend as we had one week cross over with our rental, so it all worked out pretty well on that front.

Here are some tips on things to prepare for in preparation for Handover Day and the first few weeks to make them smooth:

Telephone/Internet
Work out which provider you will go with.  It is the owners responsibility to arrange the connection of your phone line from the street to your house (I wasn't quite aware of that).  You don't have to select Telstra to do that, you can go with other providers and they will arrange the connection for you through their company (cost is max $299 for this connection, maybe cheaper).  This connection can take 5-10 business days.  You then need to wait for this connection before you can then check the line and set up an internet connection - another 5-10 business days.  So try to arrange for the Line Connection to your house as close to Handover day as possible.

TV Antenna
Reminder that this is something you need to arrange.  I did lots of research as it seemed on doing reviews that there are some dodgy people out there.  Rough cost should be around $260 for installing digital antenna - we have 3 points, some people seem to be ripped off with $1700.  Once I made the phonecall, it was 3 days later we had the connection.  Remember this can be weather dependent, if you have colourbond roof and threat of rain, you installation will be delayed.

Utilities
Check all your providers.  I started to check, but ran out of time, so I just signed over to Energy Australia straight from PD, but am not locked in to any contract so I will now start to look into what is best for us.  

Other bits and pieces have happened, will post separately.