Death by Choice

It's amazing how difficult it is to make a choice when you have almost limitless option options available to you. I can honestly say since coming to terms with our colour selections I had never actually looked at bricks before. I mean, I know our current place is brick but if you had asked me four weeks ago to tell you what colour it was I would probably guess brown. I know our bricks intimately now. In fact, I know half of Melbourne's bricks intimately now. Because suddenly brick colour is important. What if I don't like it? Will I look at them every day cursing my choices? Even though I've never looked at bricks before and could honestly say I have no idea what other friends brick colours are, despite having visited their newly built house on numerous occasions? Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't admit to that. This is unprecedented stress!

It's also amazing that apparantly giving people a visual tool to connect different colours together (our house has to be part-rendered, estate decree) is too difficult for most building companies. The best advice we were offered was to visit our brick company who would give us a list of addresses with recent builds of our potential brick colour. Sounds awesome. In reality, this is a pain in the arse. Driving halfway across Melbourne to see one house per hundred in the colour that I think that I want, on streets that sometimes aren't mapped by Google (anc certainly not Melways). What did I learn? I don't like the bricks. Hmmm. Time for Plan B. Luckily Tom didn't like them either, so we were agreed on what we wanted instead which we had seen numerous times in the flesh but had never quite committed too. All of these options are decided at a Colour Consultation which is a 3-5 hour process. 3 hours, assuming you know what you are doing.

W. T. F.

I admit I'm a bit of a planning nut and the prospect of deciding all the colours and features in our home in 3 hours is a) daunting and b) riduculous. I'm horrified that we have to decide everything about our house in one sitting but I'm also horrified that I have to sit in one appointment for over 3 hours. Most films aren't that long. Who's going to feed me? And how do I plan for a process that takes that long?

After visiting the colour centre earlier in the week, we really didn't feel that prepared for this appointment. We think we've decided, but have we thought of everything? Have we missed anything? How many hidden option are there? How much should we be saving for this process? Is it going to be $1000 or $10,000?

So we arrived at our colour appointment, spreadsheet, folder and swatches in hand to decide the final options for our house. What we choose here will be in the house for years to come, even if we aren't.
Step 1. The bricks we want aren't offered. F**k.
Step 2. After much discussion we remember that one of the display homes is built in the bricks that we want. Surely? Nope, that's another brick. Okay, well, let's use that, since to be honest I can't tell the difference. So our brick is a rather unusual choice, it's Victorian Blue, by Boral.

 

It won't actually be this blue. In real life it's a grey blue that isn't nearly as bright and shiny. And while bright and shiny could be cool, it wouldn't match anything else on the house front...

So we spent probably about 30 minutes guttering, fascia, downpipes, window frames, cedar sales... Zzzz this is not my idea of interior design. I actually love colour design and playing with things but as soon as it's your own house I think it becomes a much more stressful and less pleasant experience. The prospect of making a $400,000 mistake overrules any excitement gained from making your final choices.Our render and guttering is very boring so I won't go into details. 

Having thoroughly enjoyed the nightmare that is cream carpet in every room except wet rooms in our current house that was the first thing to go in the build. No carpet, unless we have to. Carpet seems pretty mandatory in bedrooms so we succumbed there. We didn't pick a colour so much as tell our colourist to find something that would blend with white, grey, ginger and black cat fur. I think she did well. The colour is referred to as "Party" (sorry no pic) which I think demonstrates a certain knowingness on the carpet companies not to call it its true name which surely would be "throw any shit at it and it will still blend in". It's brown, because apparently carpet has only one colour spectrum, from cream to chocolate.  So my saying brown really doesn't help anyone at all. Ha ha. HahahahahahAHAHAHAHAH-- *ahem. *

Anyway, you're probably not here to hear my manic laughter about carpet, so here are the rest of the colours for our house. I feel a bit like revealing a baby's name before its born, but I trust that no one is going to suggest alternatives NOW THAT WE HAVE SIGNED OFF ON THESE COLOURS.

Bricks - Vic Blue (As above)

Front Door - Corinthian Door stained with glass panels (pic below is just the design)

Kitchen:

Flooring: Timpressions Timber Laminate (this goes through the kitchen, living and hallways)

Cupboards - white (I know, how boring)
Splashback - Azure Blue (peacock really!)

Benchtop - White Shimmer

Stove/Oven - Smeg C9 GMXA

Bathroom & Ensuite:

Floor tiles - Silk Silver Beige (read, kind of green)

Wall Tiles - white (I know, boring)

Feature tiles - GREEN! (It was this, or, wait for it, brown!)

Laundry:

Floor tiles - grey sorta colour. don't have a pic and to be honest I don't really mind, because I remember it coordinating with the bench and cupboards. 

Bench - white

Cupboards - peacock! aha! reversed it!

Anyway, that's us so far. We still haven't handed in an electrical plan because we need a "special" appointment for that and for the door that we want to move.