Tiles aint Tiles: Bathroom, kitchen and laundry tiles are now sorted.

We have now secured and orders our tiles for the ensuite bathroom, kitchen and laundry.

What a mammoth task, what a mammoth tile selection.

We bought our tiles from Beaumont Tiles in Box Hill. We found them to be the cheapest Beaumont tile retailer and the closest.

Bathroom floor tiles chosen was porcelain "Alaska Charcoal" 600 x 300 @ $34 m2

Bathroom wall tiles chosen was porcelain "Aeon White Rect Structured" 600 x 300 @ $25 m2

Bathroom wall feature chosen was "Graphite Colour Brushed Metallic Strip 300x300mm Mosaic" at an amazing $15 per 300 x 300 sheet. The was sourced from Sydney - Tile Factory Outlet. Why? because Beaumont Tiles wanted to charge us a whopping $60 per 300 x 300 sheet. We found a very similar item at Tile Factory Outlet for $15 per 300 x 300 sheet. We required 600 wide feature and as we were tiling floor to ceiling we need at least 20 sheets at Beaumont this would have costed a whopping $1200 bucks!!! instead we paid $300 bucks!!!

 

*** TIP: the main tiles we source locally in Melbourne, however, the feautres we bought over the internet, as it was small component to risk ***


Kitchen and Laundry floor tiles chosen was porcelain "Gastone Carrera White Semi Gloss" 450 x 450 @ $32 m2 - slight marble effect, should look pretty good next to the high gloss cabinetry.

First Hiccup - RE: The Contracts...

Well we have officially hit our first snag last week with Damco Kitchens.

We signed our draft contracts and paid our deposits, however, we then added a variations, in which we were happy to pay for as an extra.

These variations was what caused us all the hassles. The overall draft invoice we signed included variation cost (including GST). When the final contracts were created and invoiced for our review, what Damco did was they removed all the variation components out of the original invoice, and recreated a new separate variation invoice. Which we were happy about as it offered clarity, however, their accounting during the process of separation was not accurate.

The main issues I found that required rectification was:

• The original variation which total $7900 was discount to $6000 (not including GST) and agree upon to secure my business. Then this was added to the overall invoice and GST applied, which equated to a total variation cost of $6600 including GST.
• When this invoice was separated out of the original contract, the GST was not appropriated accounted for, and as a result when we made amendments to this variation, effectively a doubling of the GST was applied.
• The confusion was worsened when we removed the costing for a bath (cost of tiling, carpentry, wet proofing etc) as it was too big to fit in our ensuite, and replaced it/substituted it for a walk in shower.
• When Damco account the substitution for the bath/shower, the removed the credit us the amount post GST and the charged us the amount of the shower with full GST cost. In other words the double dipped.

**** BIG LESSON: always review and double check your contracts. Go through things with a fine tooth comb, and always ask for clarifications/alterations/acceptance in writing with a date and signature. ****

After a few emails it was finally rectified to the correct state and costing for the build was finalised. Bringing the Damco build to a total of (TBA at the end of the Build). This include supply and labour of Kitchen, Laundry, and bathroom. I think this was a good price, when compared to the other quotes we had received.

I will be posting at the end of the build the full listing of cost incurred during the renovation.

At Damco we are now primarily dealing with Nikhol (Designer/ Final contracts person) and Szabi (Project Manager). At this stage I am impressed with both Nik and Szabi, and they have been to this day very responsive to all my concerns and needs. Szabi who is managing the build seems to be very experienced, having a background in carpentry. In a nutshell they are great guys to deal with and very professional.