Plumbing item updates

The price for the plumbing items including Kitchen, Bathroom and Laundry finally came back for $10k upgrade.  The total price for items are $17k including the installation of bathroom floor waste.

We were surprised by the price since we didn't really pick any expensive items.  The most shocking item were the bathroom floor wastes.  I have chosen grates for the three showers and Smart tiles for the bathroom floor outside the shower.  The cost to supply and install the shower grates (3 Monkees) and floor wastes (smart tile wastes) was $2,247.  On the other hand, the credits we get from the included six shower/floor waste was $145.  Novice mistake so be mindful about floor waste.  After a long and thoughtful process, we decided to change the downstairs shower grate to a smart tile waste since this shower won't be used very often.  This brought down the total cost for supply and install floor waste to $1,893.  Still very expensive!  But if you want these style of shower floor grates and smart tiles, this is the price you pay.  In addition, just the price to buy a one metre long grate is $300 and a 900 mm long is $280.  The price for Smart tile is $50.

In order to cut the plumbing item cost down, we took all the basin mixers, shower mixers, freestanding bath filler mixer and the kitchen items off this list.  So decided to supply them ourselves to hunt around for a better price.  By doing so, we have saved ourselves about $2,000.  We thought we could buy some time by supplying them ourselves, but told they won't go on site (start building) until we provide the list of items that we are going to supply.  So we spent the last few days looking for taps, sinks and mixers.

During this process, we changed/moved the double sink and dishwasher to the island bench and swapped the single sink to pantry.  We thought this would be more practical for day to day living.

These were our choices:

Kitchen sink and mixer:  We looked into granite sinks in more detail.  We tossed between Blanco and Oliveri.  Both are good quality products it seems.  The Oliveri product was slightly bigger and has a greyer shade of black.  The Blanco product was a bluey black. Both sinks were the same price, A matching sink mixer for the Oliveri sink was extremely expensive compared to the Blanco.  The Oliveri had one advantage that it came with a free accessory if we purchased two Oliveri items.  The drop tray that we wanted would have costed $130, so even taking this promotion into consideration, the Oliveri is still $340 more than Blanco. The Oliveri tap is much bigger and quite impressive being goose neck style.  And since we already had our minds set on the Oliveri product, that was going to be the end result. Italiano made.

Kitchen sink

Kitchen mixer

Pantry sink and mixer:  We wanted a big sink in the pantry and was taken by the Gun Metal grey colour of the Oliveri Spectra sink.

Pantry sink

The Phoenix Vivid Slimline Sink Mixer 220mm Gooseneck.

Pantry mixer

We have got both item at home now.  Both are very good quality and match very well.

Basin and shower mixers:  We have decided on Caroma (Urbane range).  For the ensuite, we are going to use the black mixers.

Ensuite basin mixer *2  

Ensuite shower mixer

Upstairs main bathroom and downstairs bathroom will have same mixers just in chrome.

Bathroom basin mixer

Bathroom shower and bath mixer

We will use a smaller basin mixer for the upstairs toilet since it is only a very small basin.  

Upstairs toilet basin mixer

Freestanding floor mixer: This is the mixer for the freestanding bath in the Ensuite.  Two options, one without hand shower and one with hand shower.
We decided on the Abey Gareth Ashton Lucia Floor Mounted Bath Mixer with hand shower.

Ensuite mixer for freestanding bath

This is all.  Most important thing to remember is all the tap ware has to be WELS rated otherwise they won't be installed.