West End renovation floor plans!

So what are we actually doing to our place? We've written about design concepts and strategies here and here. Today I will share some floor plans with you!

We're starting with a small worker's cottage, on a small block, which has been beautifully 'updated' in the 1970s with some asbestos and vinyl cladding, and besser blocks around the bottom of the house. Here is the existing floor plan:

As you can see, we're starting with a pretty typical layout for a 1920s worker's cottage. The original front patio has been built in as a sunroom, with the kitchen and bathroom at the back of the house (and - an outhouse!!).

We're raising the house, building in a level underneath, and putting a deck on at the back. Because the block has dual street access, the deck is also functioning as a carport, with the driveway from the back of the block.

1st floor plan

Ground floor plan

On the first floor, the biggest existing bedroom is becoming a kitchen, with bedroom 3 becoming a dining room. The kitchen becomes the stairs, and the bathroom knocked out to make an open plan living room. The only new walls will be made to form a new bathroom upstairs. Oh, and we knock out the sunroom to reinstate the old patio and make the front of the house look beautiful again (hopefully!).

The ground floor plan is to form 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, with a small laundry. We have storage under the staircase, and the area behind the front battens will have a gate for bicycle storage and possibly the hot water unit.

As for progress, quotes are coming in from the builders, so then we have some serious spreadsheet-ing and decision making to do!

Thanks go to Jamin Building Design, who we enjoyed working alongside to come up with a plan we are really excited to go ahead with. Any design, particularly for a small footprint, has compromises, but we are stoked that we have gotten most things that we want in a functional design.

Would love to hear what you think of our plans, what you would have done differently, and for you to share your own plans!
Always excited to get comments :-)

Kitchen cabinets - the good, the bad and the ugly!

The kitchen is a focal point in most homes, as well as one of the most expensive rooms during any build or renovation. I discussed benchtops in this post, Michael covered the pros and cons of pre-fabbed kitchens in this post, and now I'll share what I've learnt about cabinetry.

Kitchen carcasses themselves (basically the wooden boxes that have a door or drawer front on them) are generally made of an engineered timber product such as particleboard or medium density fibreboard (MDF), but could be plywood or even solid timber. For anyone who's ever put together Ikea furniture, you would be familiar with particleboard. Plywood is a step up in terms of density and strength, and then it's a step up again to timber.

But it's the front of the cabinets that you'll see, and the part that most people are interested in. I'll admit I've been looking at kitchens for some time without appreciating the nuances of kitchen cabinetry finishes, and I'm really glad I looked into it.

So what are your options?

Thermolaminate

Thermolaminate is a very thin sheet of vinyl, which is heated and wrapped over the cabinet front (door or drawer) covered in glue to help it stick on. The big advantage is cost - it's the cheapest option. It can be used on profiled or routered doors (see below) and because it comes in one piece, it wraps around the whole door/drawer front including the sides, so it looks nice and continuous. However it's very sensitive to steam and heat, and many people find that in these areas (such as kitchens!) it can bubble and start to separate from the cabinet front itself. When I rang a well regarded kitchen company in Brisbane, they won't even offer thermolaminate as an option given its poor performance. Like everything though, there would be thousands of people with thermolaminate in their kitchens who are happy with the finish.

Lots of mitred edges in this kitchen, courtesy of Pinterest

Laminate vs melamine

These terms are confusing because lamination is simply 'the technique of manufacturing a material in multiple layers' (Wikipedia). Melamine is a low pressure laminate. 'Laminate' itself, sometimes known as Formica, is a high pressure laminate. The materials used to make both are similar (a tough plastic resin bonding layers of paper), but 'laminate' has more layers, is more durable, and tends to be used for benchtops. Melamine is still a durable material, perfect for cupboard or drawer fronts, comes in a wide range of colours and is reasonably cost-effective. The downside? You can't have a routered or profiled finish on cupboards because it only comes in flat pieces. Also if you look closely, the joins (say where the front of a door meets the top) will be visible.

Check out Polytec's melamine range here.

2 Pac

Not to be confused with this guy...

Originally used in the automotive industry, 2 Pac/2 Pack/Two Pack is essentially a super-hard and durable painted finish, and is the premium finish for cabinet fronts. It's available in a huge range of colours and finishes from matt through to gloss. Because it's applied directly to the cupboards or drawers themselves, a routered finish is possible, as are curved cupboards, curved edges or continuous coating over edges. 2 Pac also has its detractors who feel that it chips easily, but an equal number of people report heavy use and are happy with it. On average, it will cost 30% more than a standard melamine finish.

Profiled cabinet 2 Pac finish from contourcabinets.com.au

A note on Ikea cabinetry...

Because we are strongly considering an Ikea kitchen, I've been taking a harder look at their website. All Ikea cabinets are not created equal! Take the first example below, the 'Kallarp' cabinet door. Look at the bottom right 'product description'. What's foil do you ask? Foil, or thermofoil, is another term for thermolaminate.

The bottom is the 'Bobdyn' door, and you'll note it's significantly more expensive. Looking at the product description, 'acrylic paint, polyester paint'... that's 2 Pac.

Lastly, cool Ikea stuff to look out for...

Several companies are capitalising on Ikea's popularity and relatively low cost by providing cool cabinet fronts for Ikea carcasses. Check out Superfront - a Sweden-based company with some very stylish alternatives to Ikea's standard range. Currently they only ship their handles and smaller items to Australia, but expect that to change in the future.

Scandi style! Courtesy of superfront.com

Well that's it for now, thanks for reading, and please comment! We'd love to hear about your own kitchen renos or builds.
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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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