Kitchen benchtops, oh the confusion...

Following on from Michael's kitchen post last week, we're going to do a little 'benchtop chat'! This is a topic that's super-confusing because of the amount of choices and conflicting information out there, so here's a little of what I've learnt.

There are many options for kitchen benchtops out there - timber, stone (either engineered or natural), stainless steel, laminate, acrylic, polished concrete... and within each category, seemingly endless choices. Keep in mind that pretty much anything can look lovely if it's combined with the right cupboard finishes, flooring and styling. Here is an example of an inspiration piccie from Laminex:

Not bad!

 The points to consider are:

1) what you like the look of
2) how you want it to function
3) cost!
(in no particular order ;-) )

For us, we like the look of, and the functionality, of engineered stone. So what is engineered stone?

Thanks Wikipedia!

Effectively, engineered stone tends to be harder and less porous than natural stones such as marble or granite, which can make them more user-friendly. We had granite in my family kitchen and I still have memories of mum struggling to get oil stains out of it. Traditionally, engineered stone has also been more cost-effective, although its rising popularity means that it may not always be significantly cheaper than natural stone. On reno forums, some people are reporting granite to sometimes be the same price as engineered stone or even a little cheaper. Marble however, a gorgeous natural stone option, will come in far more expensive.

There are stacks of choices in the engineered stone category: Caeasarstone, Essa Stone, Quantum Quartz to name but a few. The price between companies seems pretty competitive by all reports, so it comes down to the colour range available, and the customer service offered by the particular company you are purchasing from.

We're aiming for Caesarstone, budget allowing... (more on that later). At the moment, the Calacatta Nuvo, from the 'Supernatural Ultra' category, is my preferred option BUT as we found out on the weekend at Freedom Kitchens, there is a huge price variation between the different Caesarstone ranges.

Calacatta Nuvo courtesy of Caesarstone. Effectively a copy of 'real' Calacutta marble,
which looks gorgeous but costs a packet. And I would likely spill something on it
on the first day anyway...

So how much does Caesarstone cost? Like many finishes in the building industry, this information can be difficult to come by. Caesarstone is priced by the slab, which is 3060mm x 1040mm, in various thicknesses. So you will need to know how many slabs you require, but also how many cuts you need (to make room for cooktops, sink, tap etc.) and then what sort of edging you want. If you want a waterfall end, this will add to the cost again.

Today I attempted to contact a couple of kitchen benchtop and stone companies, and none of them would give me a straight up 'per slab' price, without edging, cuts or installation. All of them wanted the measurements/plan of our kitchen, and the initial quote that's come in has not provided a price breakdown at all. I'll be able to post more information when the other quotes come in. I must say the lack of transparency in many facets of the building industry about the raw cost of materials is a little frustrating.

Another thing that you can't rely on someone else to do for you - tweak your design. Michael has calculated that we may be able to fulfil all our benchtop requirements out of one slab of Caesarstone, which would dramatically cut our costs. How? By reducing our overhang on the return bench by 7cm. We have measured it all out and it would still be functional. This would save us thousands and still get the outcome we want.

Depending on discussions with stone masons, we may have to adjust our expectations. We're still in the planning stage, but our thoughts are that if we can't afford one of the 'better' ranges in Caesarstone, then we might go to timber. It can look gorgeous and modern, and personally, I prefer it to one of the less 'natural' engineered stone finishes.

Sleek and modern timber benchtop, gorgeous.
Image courtesy of choicetimber.com.au

Stay tuned for updates, and more posts as we gather more information. As for progress on the build itself, we are hoping to get some full building quotes back in a week or two. Comments are always welcome :-) And thanks for reading!

K
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Kitchens... to Ikea or not to Ikea...

Hey everyone, today I'd like to run through our design development of our kitchen and some of our thoughts on the pros and cons of prefabricated kitchens. Kate will be writing in more detail on kitchen finishes soon.

Our home designer carefully developed our kitchen design in close consultation with us. The design of the house will see a new kitchen in an existing bedroom and a couple of the walls partially removed to open up the space. Kate and I spent a lot of time considering how we would use the kitchen and I feel we have optimised the design for how we plan to use the kitchen. Check out our kitchen floor plan below.

Our kitchen plan as created by Jamin Design Group 

Despite all the effort to develop the custom kitchen design, I thought I would satisfy my curiosity in prefabricated kitchens. I built an Ikea kitchen about 5 years ago and remember it costing much less than the quotes I received from kitchen companies. The going rate for friends who have recently installed new kitchens is about $25-$30k. However, there are many pre-fabricated kitchen options that can help you get the outcome you want for less. Freedom Kitchens will come out to your home measure it up and develop a design for free in a 3 hour consultation.  They'll then construct the cupboards (carcasses in the business) and send them out to you. You can arrange a carpenter to install them or you can DIY. With Ikea Kitchens and Kaboodle (from Bunnings) you can go one step further and develop the design on their online kitchen designers all by yourself.

If you have a lot of patience you can use their somewhat clunky software to design your dream kitchen... as long as your dream kitchen happens to be made with standard sized cupboards.

For those uninitiated to the Ikea kitchen range, it's actually pretty impressive. Do you want drawer lights automatically turn on when a drawer is opened? They've got them. Motorised bin drawers that open with the tap of a knee against the door? They've got them too. Soft close drawers and doors, bench task lighting, built-in dishwashers, pyrolytic ovens, induction stoves, engineered stone benchtops?  They've got the lot! And the appliances have a 5 year warranty and everything else has a 25 year warranty!

An ikea display kitchen. I wonder how those wall cabinets will look in a few years... Credit: Ikea

The biggest compromise with Ikea kitchens is the big joinery, or lack thereof. If you want a 1 metre wide sink cupboard, or you want a massive walk in pantry, you'll need to look elsewhere because it's just not available at Ikea. Having said that, you could use selected parts from Ikea (such as the doors and sides) and get carpenter to build you that walk in pantry.

One of my designs generated using the Ikea Kitchen Planner. 

Despite the Ikea design software being a bit difficult to use, its quite powerful. It has clash detection built in, so if cupboards doors are likely to clash or your window might hit your tap, it'll warn you. And best of all, it can give you an up to date price list of every item along with a running total.

So how much would this kitchen cost? About $9k. Add $2k for Silestone benchtops. That price includes an induction stove, oven, range hood, the sink and tap, all cabinetry and some cupboard lighting. Importantly that figure does not include installation costs or the irreparable damage that building Ikea furniture may do to your relationship.

What are your thoughts and experiences with prefabricated kitchens? Do you think we're making a terrible mistake even considering building our own kitchen? Please leave a comment or a question below! We'd love to hear from you.

Bathroom chat!

Bathrooms, along with kitchens, are one of the most expensive areas of any house renovation or new build. They can also date quickly depending on what finishes you choose (anyone else remember how popular green, and green granite in particular, was in the mid-late 1990s??).

Michael and I have admired many of the trends of 2016 - metallics, black tap ware, freestanding baths etc... as featured on 'The Block'... (courtesy of www.insideout.com.au)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with going for trends, because everyone has different taste and needs. But for us, we don't want to use anything that will date too fast. We don't have the time, or the funds, to renovate the bathrooms again in 2 years. In addition, our bathrooms are small! So we need to use the layout, materials and colours in a way which makes the bathrooms feel more spacious.

I found this bathroom inspiration pic on Pinterest, taken from a blog, which took the picture from... Inside Out magazine! This is a great representation of the sort of feeling we're going for in our bathrooms (fresh, clean, modern but with a bit of warmth).

Here are some of our selected finishes (which may change during the build process, but for now...)

Floor tiles courtesy of Beaumont. We wanted something not too dark, but not too light, and with a rectified edge. This means a nice straight edge, so the grout looks thinner in between the tiles.

Our wall tiles are a rectangular satin white. Unsure if we'll tile the full height of the bathrooms yet, every time we look at a bathroom in someone's house/hotel, we don't really notice if the tiles are halfway or to the roof. It may be an area in which to cut cost.

Many of our bathroom fixtures and fittings are coming from Argent. Argent is the distributor for many bathroom brands, including Bette, Villeroy & Boch, Hansa and Reginox. Check out their website here:

http://www.argentaust.com.au

My best bathroom tip is regarding the Argent clearance centre right here in Brisbane, at Pinkenba. They are only open 10am-4:30pm on weekdays, but sell everything from taps, shower heads and sinks to toilets, baths and spa baths at heavily discounted prices. Some of them are seconds or slightly damaged, but many are just discontinued lines. We bought all our mixer taps (Grohe Eurochamp, it's discontinued but a similar style is shown below) are a price similar to many at Bunnings, and Grohe is a German-made brand with an excellent reputation. The catch? You only get a year warranty.

But when you can get this bath for $150, for us at least, it's a risk worth taking...

Finally, we wanted to a way to get as much natural light and air into our bathrooms as possible. Currently our rented apartment has completely internal bathrooms, and it has made me appreciate natural light and ventilation. The key of course is doing this while maintaining privacy. Our solution has been to put in frosted louvres to nearly the full height of the bathroom. This way, even when shut, will provide lots of natural light, and can be partially opened and angled for privacy. 

We'll see how all our selections stack up when the build gets going. Let me know what you think, and any other bathroom tips you have, in the comments section! Have a great weekend :-)  K

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Six lessons learnt from the Concept Design Phase

I have been reflecting on how we progressed the concept design on our project, what we have done well and what we could have improved on. Here are my top six:

1. Understand the Town Planning codes and the council resources

Our little patch of dirt is limited by multiple town planning codes. For Brisbane City Council, these can be found on their website.

These codes restrict what we can and can't do with our renovation project. Our project will involve raising the 90+ year old cottage about 1.5m with a new ground floor level below. At one point we had considered a design that had the front door on the ground floor along with all living space on the new level. However, the code intent is that the house should look similar to the original house with stairs leading up to a front door and patio. This enforced the idea that the living spaces should be upstairs with the benefits of better glimpses to the city and the mountains as well as the original high ceilings being extra perks of this layout.

As a result of this understanding, the three concept designs we obtained from our architect focused on living space upstairs and we didn't waste time entertaining ideas that just wouldn't make it through the town planning approval process.

2. Understand the National Construction Code (NCC)

Did you know that the NCC requires top floor bathrooms to have reinforced glass windows? In case you slip and fall into the window. Hmm. Regardless, it has to be done in order for your home to be certified. How about the distance you can build to your fence? Which your local Town Planning code may have certain restrictions, the NCC has another set of restrictions. My understanding of this is that if you build within 900mm of your boundary, you will need to install fire rated walls. Just moving your house a few millimeters could be the difference between several thousand dollars!

3. Are there any state specific laws?

Did you know that in Queensland we must have hardwired smoke alarms in all bedrooms that trigger all alarms if any one alarm detects smoke?!  https://www.qld.gov.au/emergency/safety/smoke-alarms.html . We didn't. While this hasn't had a significant impact on our design, it does factor in on the cost and other states may have laws that could significantly change the way you would design your house.

4. Get inspired

You know all those magazine, Pinterest and Houzz ideas you've been saving? Make sure that you show these to your architect early on in the design process. Ideally, take them along to your first meeting with the architect to set the tone of the type of house design you are aspiring to.

We have been along to various open homes to help us get ideas about what might work for us.
Brisbane Open House Day is an event that opens up various buildings to the public to walk through, with guidance from the owner or architect. There are similar events in all capital cities.

Sustainable House Day is similar to Open House Day, except with a more environmental focus. I attended a house in a nearby suburb that not only inspired me to design our house a little smarter to mitigate energy and environmental costs, but also various unexpected ideas: a design 'theme' that carries throughout the house; and a bookshelf that continues up the side of the staircase. Our take on both of these ideas has been incorporated into our house design.

Real Estate Open Homes, including display homes. We attended several open homes to get an idea of what others have done and how it feels. Somethings just look far better, or worse, in real life. We quickly realised that the beauty of casement windows would be completely lost in our house by the desire to have security screen or flyscreens on all windows in our house. We also realised that most modern homes seem to have multiple specific living spaces: the theatre room, the family room, the rumpus room, the informal dining room, the formal lounge room... we quickly realised that our house would not have any of those things. And we're fine with it.

If permitted, take photos of things you like at the open homes and take them along to your meetings with your architect.

5. ...But don't get carried away

It should go without saying that every project needs a budget. This means making compromises.

We have made decisions on layout of our house that prioritise a large deck with a double carport below and a large open kitchen space. We see these as important spaces for how we plan on using the house. This is at the expense of our dining and living room space and the size of all of our bedroom.

How I would love to have a massive solar array on the roof, a Tesla powerwall and a multi-room audio system with speakers built into the ceilings and walls. They're not in the budget at the moment, so we will just make sure that there are suitable conduits in the walls to make retrofitting these items easy in future.

6. Have a builder provide an estimate early

As soon as you have one concept design nutted down, I highly recommend getting early engagement with a builder. Most builders will happily get involved at this stage. The estimate will be rough, but it should give you the confidence to proceed with the project with some price certainty.


Happy designing!

The design process, and why it has taken so long

As I write, we are getting our design ready to email to a shortlist of builders to provide quotes. This is pretty exciting as it signals the start of the next stage, hopefully a shorter one on the road to starting construction.

Michael has written about the concept design stage in detail. To summarise, we were presented with 3 different concepts based upon 3 different positions for the staircase. Stairs (particularly in a small house) really do dictate the layout of the rest of the rooms, and are especially important for the flow of movement throughout a home.

Due to town planning restrictions, we must have a staircase externally at the front of the house (leading up to the top level where our living/dining rooms, kitchen and spare bedroom are situated). So having internal stairs at the front of the house, in almost the same position, seemed redundant. In addition, this would mean that we would be walking past all the downstairs bedrooms to access the backyard (one of my requirements was no stairs off the back deck to improve security). In the end, after many permutations and combinations, we settled on the internal stairs at the back of the house. This allows easy access from the deck to the backyard, and that visitors don't need to go past any bedrooms to access the backyard or driveway either.

Once our concept was chosen, our designers and I then set about deciding where everything else would go. Something we found really useful during this stage was hypothesising about where things would go, and how we would move through the house. For example, we come home, and where do we go? Where does our mop and broom live? Where should the laundry be? Do we even NEED a laundry? (after much much discussion, we are having a laundry, but that's another story...)

Another consideration for our house, being around 100 years old, was which rooms would go above which. We have chosen a low traffic area (guest bedroom/study) to go above our bedroom, to reduce noise (soundproofing between levels is notoriously difficult). The kitchen is above our bathroom instead, which also groups services in that location.

Once layout was decided upon, our town planner lodged our development application with the Brisbane City Council. From the time of lodgement, it took 11 days for them to come back with the approval. Since then (mid-November), our time has been spent finalising kitchen, bathroom and joinery elevations, and deciding on finishes via a finishes schedule (more on this in a future post). We have decided to at least provisionally decide on paints/bathroom fittings/flooring/lighting etc so that our builders quotes are comparing 'like with like'.

In addition, we had geotechnical/soil testing done on our property, which informed the structural engineer's design. Effectively, their job is to engineer the house such that it doesn't fall down, and also resolve issues like how to best support our 6 metre back deck span without any posts randomly sitting in the middle. Engineering alone has probably taken around a month to finalise, involving a few back-and-forths with our designer.

Looking back at our first blog post, we have been in the design phase for nearly 6 months. We have been very careful (? too careful) with the details, but hopefully this is time well spent. We shall see! Would love to hear from others and how long you've taken to design your house, which stages you've been through, and how it all went.