Studio M

We ventured into Metricon again, and came armed with a few more concrete ideas. The house is definitely going to be for us to live in. It's definitely going to be the Glendale. And we're definitely going to make some changes.

Our main man Mark, took us through the Studio M and showed us what was a standard finish, doorway, cornice, handle, stair, carpet etc and what the upgrades were and how much they'd set you back.

Now you can go absolutely crazy in the Studio M and upgrade everything like crazy. Mark told us the story of one customer who built the Imperial 54 and spent $1.1M on the house. ( The house costs $480K).

Now for those of you wondering, the standard finishes are really impressive in the first place. Things like the depth of the Caesarstone in the kitchen might look nice initially, but seriously how long do you look at whether it is 40mm thick, or 20mm thick? And either way, it is ten times better than a laminate surface.

Fancy Schmancy

Normal

We went through there making a mental note of what we wanted to upgrade and what we could live without. Powerpoint outlets for one. Who cares whether you have a basic powerpoint like this one on the right, or whether you been suckered into spending $400 more and going the fancy schmancy ones like on the left?

So there are things to avoid. They warn you that in the electrical meeting, where you decide how many power points you want and how many data points, and what types of lights. The standard is one shitty green (efficient) light in the middle of the room. Now of course they show you the spec houses where it is lit up like the MCG, and make you want 14 down lights in every room. All good except these cost $180 per (LED) light. 

They've brought out these LED down lights recently to replace the standard down lights, and these bad boys have a life span of 25 years.

After the lovely studio tour, and some more chatting about the final plans of what we wanted with the house, we decided to go down to Officer and look at some of the spec homes.