Electrical

Our electrical appointment was back on the 22nd and 23rd of May and we had to travel from Toowoomba to the Gold Coast for the appointments so it's a little hard to remember what we did but I won't forget the cost in a hurry! I knew it wouldn't be cheap going by other blogs but I was still hoping for it to go better (cheaper) than it did.

The guy doing our appointment was at times a little pushy on things and it was my least favourite part of the building process so far. I think overall we went about $2000 over what we were hoping and we deviated from what we had prior planned that we wanted. My advice is to stick to what you planned and don't be swayed from it if you really want to stick to your budget.

It looks a little dodgy as my husband drew it up but you get the idea.

After deciding we would do all our down lights after handover we ultimately ended up with LED down lighting provided through M in all of the living areas and outdoor areas. This was not what we were planning to do but now I am glad it will be done and not another item to add to the long list of what needs to be done after handover, with no worries of tradies leaving damage. When we actually looked into a little more later on we didn't feel we would have saved that much by getting it done afterwards.  They are energy efficient and under a great warranty. We also opted to go with white as we didn't want to see silver round dots all over the ceilings, this way they are much less noticeable and silver was probably a little too modern.

We ended up with 40 of these.

There will be fans in the family, rumpus, outdoor and bedrooms but these will be done after handover so there will just be battens till then. These too will be white. This he tried to push for us to buy through M and didn't even really ask just assumed we would be purchasing through them and went ahead and started adding them to the price until I put my foot down.

We need to buy pendants or ceiling lights for the kids activity room, dining, entrance, sitting room and bathrooms and also three for over the kitchen island bench. We were also offered their range of pendants but I didn't even bother looking as the couple I saw were way too modern.

We got a few extra double power points and tv and telephone points added but looking at the plan now I am wondering what we were thinking about some of the placement of these things. I don't think we really planned well enough for this and I will admit we sat up the whole night right through til the morning talking about it just before the trip to the Gold Coast for our appointments and we still messed it up a bit. Sort of like a last minute all night study cramming session.

Really so much of this build is a little bit of a crazy mess lol! It's going to be quite a stressful adventure.

So far I have only purchased one pendant light but it is my most favourite thing I own at the moment and will be coming with me if we ever sell. It deserves it's own little post ;) Not sure where it will go yet. The only other item I know I definitely want is an outdoor fan like this.

Finding it hard to find anything I really like. Will keep looking and update if I purchase anything.

Tash x

* I should add we were unable to get downlights added to the under side of our overhead cabinets. The only ones they had were the triangle shaped silver downlights that sit outside of the cabinets, can't understand why they don't provide the other less obtrusive lights.