Contract Signed & Colour Schemes Chosen!

Well today was a big day! Although we are still awaiting mortgage approval we signed our HIA contract (for the building of the house) and also chose our colour schemes and optional upgrades.

I guess it still doesn't feel real as we don't have the sacred mortgage approval but this is another milestone in the process - plus we got to spend an hour in the show room looking at taps, sinks, towel rails, tiles, door handles .....

Firstly, we spent a good 45 minutes going through the HIA with our pre-start consultant. This was great as I had a list of questions and was in need of some definitions (I don't recommend going through this contract in one hit - brain dead). Our consultant broke everything down for us and went through it step-by-step which was great - there is a checklist at the start of the contract that is fantastic - if you ever have the joy (sarcasm) of reading this contract then please, please make sure you use the checklist.
Once we were happy, we put pen to paper - many times. Initialled each page and signed where indicated and CONTRACT SIGNED!

After a celebration that looked much like the one above from Anchorman (in my mind anyway) we then got to hit the showroom and confirm all our colour schemes and fixtures and fittings *rubs hands together in delight*

So without further ado .....

Exterior

HBC very helpfully put together colour boards that take a lot of the hard work out of the decisions - I don't think we'd have been able to put together something remotely attractive from scratch.
We wanted an exterior colour scheme that was easy to maintain as well as obviously looking aesthetically attractive. Enter the Flinders colour scheme - chestnut colour bricks with a lighter colour rendering yet darker contrast driveway, garage door and windows:

Now imagine the picture of the house above but with the garage on the other side and the windows at the front being 3 long vertical ones - got it? Good because that is the facade we have.

Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the front door but it will basically be the same dark colour as pictured but with one long vertical glass panel. The glass is see through so we'll go and buy some of the translucent film from Bunnings (or Masters in the art of fairness) once built.

Interior

So again we wanted something easy to maintain as well as looking great  - we didn't want to chose anything too 'fady' as give it 6 months and the fad will be over and we'll be looking to re-decorate.
We initially decided upon a colour board called 'Java' which had coffee beans as it's banner (I guess that gives you some insight as to where they were going with this one) but last minute we changed our mind to the board named Evandale:

Something which we didn't realise was that the overhead cupboards actually are not included with your kitchen design - at all. This was a surprise and what was a bigger surprise was that it will cost $400 to get them. So, with Matt being a tradie we figured we will call in a few favours and get these done independently once completed for a cheaper price.
If you look closely enough you'll see a grey square there - this is the colour of our roller blinds. We are so impressed that these are included in the price as most other builders don't include these and they are not cheap to sort out once built!

We pretty much chose the standard inclusions for most elements (we got a choice of garage doors for example as well as door handles and locks) - the only thing we splashed out on was a double length, double arm towel rail, which set us back a whopping $32.

So all-in-all a good day as we only spent $32 - all upgrades are to be paid for at this meeting so this is a result for us. We were looking to upgrade to a Colourbond roof but this was going to be $1,000 and would have hindered Matt when he installs the air-con so we stayed put with the tiling.

Now for the mortgage approval - when we last spoke to Resolve over e-mail a few days ago they were hopeful of an answer over the next week - here's hoping!!