Waiting for the CSA - how did we fill our time?

We were pretty excited now, given that we had the structure of our house pretty well down pat and had not yet obliterated our budget (that comes later).

We decided to get our flooring done after handover as PD's flooring options were limited and expensive.  We both wanted a minimal amount of tiles (wet areas only) which PD would have to supply, and floorboards throughout the home, aside from the bedrooms and home theatre - which would be carpet.

We found a company near us called Flooring Xtra (Point Cook) who were extremely helpful and had a good quality range of products (not everything under the sun). Our initial thought was to go with Embelton's Sepia hardwood floor and Godfrey Hirst's Woodford 590 'Molasses' carpet on their highest grade underlay.  They quoted us approx $16,000.

Embelton Bamboo Hardwood flooring in Sepia

Godfrey Hirst Woodford 590 'Molasses'

Knowing that we would soon be required to finalise our colour and interior selections, we hit the PD display homes taking plenty of notes to get inspiration on tiles, bench colours, bricks, render, splashbacks, doors, handles and general design ideas.  We even drove to their display at Lyndhurst to check out a brick type.  We also went back to Hopetoun to go through the showroom again to try and narrow things down.

It took our CSA about 2 weeks to get in touch with us and book our appointments.  These were pencilled in for:

Tender     Fri 1 March @ 1pm

Tiles        Thurs 17 March @ 1pm

Colours    Fri 18 March @ 9am

Contract   Fri 25 March @ 1pm

That gave us a few more weeks to argue discuss our choices and try to have them finalised so we didn't make rushed decisions at the appointments.