Building the Charlton by Porter Davis

CONCRETING AND SHUTTERS

I know its been a while and I was planning on an mega post but if I did I don't know if I'll never get it completed so I'll update ya'll in smaller installments. I've been so busy now as I try and juggle work and looking after my 11 month old baby who recently started childcare and has not had a break from being sick! Argh

So house wise the last three months in has been go go go. We completed our driveway, side gate, window furnishings, light fittings, garage shelving and landscaping. Yup I wouldn't have believed it myself, I'm now too scared to look at our bank statement but I can't wait to start sharing with you what we have achieve so far and what our future plans are. But for now I wanted to share with you some photos of the plantation shutters and the concreting work we did for the house.

For those of you interested in the Sinclair Facade, I realised I haven't given you any shots of the juliet bar thingamajiggy that gets hung over the master bedroom window. So here it is.

Our site supervisor forgot about it for handover and it wasn't a huge bother for us so we were happy to move in without it.

My goodness you wouldn't believe how these things get installed. Would you believe its installed by ONE guy who climbs up a normal ladder and just drills it in. I'm no occupation health and safety expert but it did not look safe at all. I'm all for efficiency but I was expecting it to be a two man job or at least have some scaffolding? Anyway I'm sure they know what they're doing?

Driveway

This would have been one of the first things we ticked off post build because the very thought of driving and walking onto mud to get to your house would have driven me insane plus we have a dog so this was priority for us.

Just before handover I had organised quotes and booked the job in. In some cases expect to allow up to a month from the time you quote to job completion. I did find that sometimes getting someone to come out and quote was a bit of a task. For our driveway we chose to go with an exposed aggregate finish and went with plain concrete for our back/side yard. The backyard concreting is just a simple 1 meter foot path around the house with extra concreting towards the rear garage door - long enough to allow a car to drive through.

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Concrete gets poured
Side Path - Plain Concrete
Smoothing out the concrete

Driveway getting 'Exposed' to show the 'Aggregate'

Mentone Mix - Balcombe

The concrete mix colour we chose is called Balcombe from Mentone Mix. An obvious choice would have been just to go for a grey colour concrete but instead we chose Balcombe because the grey undertones would be a good way complement the colour scheme of our house.

The End Result
Probably wasn't the best day to take photos - the house looks dull and brownish.

Side of house
Posts for side gate fence are in.
1 meter plain concrete path down side of house and as you see above slab of concrete for our bins.

Rear Garage Door
Enough concreting to drive a car through

We are really happy with it the outcome and I can definitely recommend the company we used (1300 Driveways) as we found them to be extremely professional in every aspect and have done an amazing job with the concrete. You know how you just KNOW.... well this is one of times where I just knew I chose the right people for the job. It feels good when you see people walk by our house only to slow down and stare at our driveway. hehehe.

Plantation Shutters

Plantation Shutters were the obvious choice for us as we are all about going for a hamptons kinda look. Our choice of white for our aluminium windows was a deliberate decision to ensure that they would blend in our white shutters. Shutters were installed on all our windows except for the rear kitchen windows which we hope to turn into some sort of servery.

We chose to go without the tilt rod as we prefer a cleaner look.

Like most shutters these ones are made of basswood and took about 2 months to arrive and a full day to install. Would certainly recommend Gabriellas Decor for your shutters as we found them to be most competitive. Gab is thorough, has attention to detail and lovely to deal with, whilst her business is based our of Tullamarine she does travel around Melbourne.

Family Room Window

Downstairs Bathroom

Our bare study room.
The shutters in here are wrong. There should be no split down the middle.
It will be another 6-8 weeks before we get these ones replaced.

Cinema/Guest Room
We've actually turned this room to a play room.

Outside view of Kitchen Galley Window

Upstairs Games/Rumpus Room

Master Room
Yes it is possible to have shutters on sliding doors
There are a couple of ways you can install them.
One option was to have them on tracks to they slide open or the other option which we have chosen was the fold option.

Fold Open

Open View

Upstairs main bathroom
These shutters are made of PVC with steel insert

View of exterior with shutters
Such a gloomy day.

We recently got our lights fitted so will be sharing with you in my next post which I'm working on as we speak. Until then...

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, by test

review

RETROSPECTIVE

It's been about a month now since we have moved in and I wanted to reflect on the house, the build and my overall experience.

THINGS I LOVE MOST ABOUT OUR CHARLTON

1. The Kitchen

Ok this is a pretty obvious one but how could you not adore this kitchen. It size and layout is perfect. I particularly love how the stove and sink are in separate zones and the amount of walkway space between the island and the kitchen bench is huge enough for 2 people to comfortably chat without feeling like you're in their personal space. The best part about this kitchen is how huge the island and the amount of storage space is incredible.

2. Grand Alfresco

The grand alfresco really completes the look of the house. Whilst we have yet to put in a deck or make good use of it during the nice weather we have had recently I know it will be spending a lot of time in future. Having the alfresco really extends and open up the house. Yes it was expensive and yes there are plenty of post handover alfresco alternatives but save yourselves the permits and hassle because doing it with the builder gives it a nice integrated with the home. Besides decking we also plan to somehow open up the kitchen window to have some sort of servery area.

3. Our colour selections

Ok I know this is all personal but I have to call out how surprised and pleased we are with how our colour selections have turned out. In particular the choice of render colour (Champignon), internal wall colour (Dhimba) and tiles (Como Grey). The tiles really took me by surprise (mainly because they're a category one tile.)

4. Extra Wide Garage

We are fortunate enough that our block has really wide frontage so took advantage of that by going with a wider than normal garage and boy do we love it. You can easily fit in 2 cars and still have space for storing all our garden tools and other junk you tend to keep but don't want to throw out. haha.

5. High Ceilings

I love the feeling that high ceilings give you. Sure you pay a lot of money for it but it's not something I've thought about and gone hey maybe we should have spent the money elsewhere. It's personal choice once again, others will disagree I'm sure. In fact one of my regrets would be not going higher with our ceilings upstairs. I wouldn't do the full 2700mm but probably just the 2500mm.

THINGS I REGRET

1. Not adding a bulkhead above the appliance tower.

This was one of those items that got culled when we went over budget and we do regret it. The space looks weird now without it. Sure it's still something you can do post handover but probably would have been a lot easier as part of the build.

2. Not adding a sliding cavity door to the master ensuite.

I don't need to explain this one. Why did we not do this? *Sigh*

3. Consider upgrading our heating/cooling system

We were on a tight budget so we were afraid of the thought of even asking about a split zoned cooling/heating system for the house. I won't lie I actually thought it would be in the standard system. My bad!

4. Our Laminex Alaskan Cabinets

We chose Laminex Alaskan for our bathroom cabinets and my thoughts are that they don't quite go as well with the Crystal Chalk benchtops. If I could go back and change this I definitely would.

5. Feature Tiles in Powder Room

This was a bit of a fizzer. We were really looking forward to see our 'feature' tile and had spent a good amount of money on this and were really underwhelmed. Sure it looks ok but it's not given us that wow factor a 'feature' tile is supposed to do.

WHAT I DISLIKE ABOUT OUR CHARLTON

1. Our semi frameless shower screens.

Whilst they look great being all semi frameless the problem I find is that water escapes between the gap between the door and the fixed window so when you shower water sometimes leaks out onto the bathroom floor and you have to wipe it all up afterwards. You don't get those problems with old skool framed showers?

2. Windows upstairs will only open as wide as 5cm.

What the? We're told this is for safety reasons but I hate not being able to fully open up my windows. I'm big on 'airing' the house with fresh air so this really bothers me. Does anyone know or can suggest what we can do to be able to open our awning and sliding windows completely?

3. A more hamptons lilke facade not available on the Charlton.

Whilst we do like the Sinclair facade we would have been in love with it more if a more hamptons like facade was available to the Charlton. We really love the New England or Long Island facade that PD offer on some of their other house designs.

PORTER DAVIS REVIEW

The Good

The Design
We spent at least a good six months searching for the right house and gave up so many weekends visiting display villages all over the Melbourne so when we came across the Charlton it was love at first sight. Porter Davis hit the nail on the head for us with the Charlton. With its open plan living and practical layout the house is a perfect size for our 2.5 family (plus dog)

Sales

Being such a huge decision for us we were really fussy with our requirements but our sales consultant was really accommodating and worked with our needs and was never pushy in trying to lock us in with a deposit like some other builders. For example we told him about our need for a shower downstairs and whilst it wasn't a standard option on the charlton plan he spent a fair bit of time to 'rework' the plan to come up with a solution for us which sealed the deal. His advice and suggestions such as not upgrading to timber windows and sticking to aluminium proved to us that they're aren't trying to upgrade us at every opportunity.

The Not So Good

Updates during construction
During construction our site supervisor wasn't so good with giving us his fortnightly updates as he had promised. Instead we would visit the site weekly and get an update on the house ourselves.

World of Style
Yes the world of style is a pretty awesome place to visit but what's so frustrating when you do your selections we felt like we were shopping blind. So many times we were told that pricing was not available and wouldn't be confirmed until contracts. What the? Pricing would play a huge part in most peoples decision making so I find it really frustrating that prices weren't available to basic items such as door profiles.

Overall our Porter Davis experience has been a positive one. From sales to post handover our we have been well looked after at every stage of the process but more importantly they have delivered us a quality house that will become our forever home and I would not hesitate to build with them again.

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, by test