Kitchen and Bathrooms and Wardrobes
These are things that can blow out your budget big time. We have chosen for good (not the best) quality, great looks and reasonable costs. As you can see in the chart above, this is the biggest cost, but they are also the things that do make it look good.
Kitchen
We have chosen for Freedom as our kitchen supplier. Why? First of all their staff are extremely knowledgeable and super fast in designing our dream kitchen (in 2D and 3D) on the fly during a 3 hour session. Secondly, the quality of the cabinets and tops is good, it looks good and the costs were very reasonable (about $40,000). We selected and supplied our own hardware (handles, lights, sink, taps). The benchtops are one piece and cut to size. Freedom delivers and installs everything for us (although you can save about $2,000 if you install it yourself).
Appliances
Like everyone else, we like appliances to look good and work well. We have chosen for a gas stove/electric oven, double door large fridge, good washing machine and dryer, a nice microwave and some new bench appliances. Total cost $25,000.
Bathrooms
We like functional, pretty and reasonably priced (about $20,000 for each bathroom and $10,000 for the single toilet). This includes tiling, large screens, a bath, large double sink, pretty lights and cabinets. We have chosen to use kitchen cabinets as they are suitable for wet areas, look great and are affordable. Bathrooms include a single toilet space. Since its a wet area, it must be properly waterproofed (see Plumbing, Gas, Waterproofing and Electricals for details).
Wardrobes
Well this is a tricky one. The quotes we got seemed waaaaaaay over the top, as in $40,000 for a large walk-in wardrobe. We’ve gone to more basic way by getting shelves built and have beautiful 2400mm high doors with a bulkhead. That looks fantastic and costs about $10,000.