Countertops, Carpets and all the other surfaces

There are a lot things to choose.  Roofing, cladding, flooring, paint, taps etc etc etc ... heaps of stuff.  For a large builder like Coral Homes, you get sent through their "Colour Selection" appointment to pick everything, and for Coral Homes' this is only half a day. We got an indication of what the standard inclusions were before we'd even paid the initial deposit, and we spent a bit of time researching and picking just before the appointment. It was still a bit too short if you ask me and we went over time by about 20 minutes.

Here is a photo of some outside stuff...

We only took photos of the outside stuff as they let us take home samples of everything but the bricks and the roof tiles.


An interesting observation I've heard from others is that when you build with a large building company, the house is not yours, as you only get to select from the things they are prepared to put in your house.   Others had said it's just an up-sell session to get more cash out of us.  It's correct that they had a limited range but I was glad we were not burdened with too much choice.  You could spend years selecting exactly the right things, and still not be 100% happy.  I also didn't feel any pressure from the consultant to "go big".


After we'd finished the "Colour Selection" we went straight to an electrical appointment where we chose switches, lights, fans and fittings and the places they would go.  We've gone for down lights in the lounge/family room, but that's it.  Everywhere else is a pendant, batten or a fan light combo.  By the end of it, we were under the amount of money set aside in the contract, but just before we signed, we realized we needed outside electrical connections for air conditioners. These pushed us over quite a bit.