Update on the build - 21st April 2011

This week has been very exciting.  We have signed the contract with the builder earlier this week.  They were very helpful and patient.  We then received formal approval from the Bank.  Fantastic.  All systems are now Go.

The builder gave us our selections books which has been a rather overwhelming process to realise ALL of the things we need to make decisions on, although the guys at ModernView have been more than helpful.  We are going through the book and making decisions and will have a meeting with them in the next week or so to discuss what we have chosen.

We went to a lighting shop the other day just to get some ideas.  It was a new one on Sunnyholt Road Blacktown, Sunnyholt Lighting Warehouse (Phone 02 8678 4353) and the lady who helped us (Naomi although spelt differently to this) was very helpful.  (Incidentally some of the lights that we saw here were almost half the price of the same lights in other stores that we have seen in and around Castle Hill.  Check them out.)

 We really like this light for over the kitchen island bench.  Possibly 3 - 4 to give a bit of a feature to it.  The white obviously - but the red to pick up the red from the red gum floors.

 We REALLy like this light for over the stairs.  It looks stunning and is within our budget.  Still thinking about this but we are definitely interested.

We also went to the World of Tiles today to get some ideas for our tile selections.  Wow - on a number of levels.  There was such a great choice of tiles and we had superior customer service from both Maria (our style guru) and Joe.

We explained to Maria the kind of look we were after and what we wanted and she guided us in the right direction - even after Phil came up with a 'great idea' that Maria and Bel had been discussing and had agreed upon.  It was very funny.

So our choices - although these haven't been totally agreed upon yet, we are confident and very happy with our choices.

 This will be feature tile for the bathrooms.  It will be laid horizontally around the baths and at the back of the bath and shower niches.  In the downstairs toilet and shower, it will also be the splash back above the vanity (this was Phil's good idea that Maria and I had already discussed and agreed upon).

 This floor tile (which in reality is actually a charcoal colour) will be the floor tile for all of our wet areas.  That is the bathrooms, toilets and laundry.  It looks really nice and is within budget.  Even better.

This tile really blew us away for our kitchen splashback.  It really does look better than this picture indicates.  This tile is 600 x 600 mm so we would just have one tile height as our splashback behind the stove and along the benches.  Phil loved this at first sight, whilst it took me a little longer to like it.  I think it will look stunning with the Caesarstone benchtop and the high gloss white cupboards.  Very impressive.  (It is a glazed porcelain tile although it looks metallic).

This tile (not the stones they were part of a design feature) will be the tiles for our balcony.  Effective but simple.

The service that we received and the helpfulness that all of the staff displayed were excellent.  If you are looking for tiles, we would highly recommend that they are worth a visit.

A little further along our fantastic journey and it's all starting to become real for us.... finally.