The tender

By mid January we were settled on our house plan so it was time to start the tender.

We were pretty happy with the design as is but had a few little things we wanted to change:
- the wall between the kitchen and the rumpus room was modified from full height down to 1.2 metres, opening up the second living area into the first;
- a sliding door was added to the 3rd bedroom - our study/guest room, to rectify the fact that the laundy didn't have external access;
- the ensuite door was modified to a sliding door;
- the wardrobe in the 4th bedroom was extended to use up wasted space;
- the two narrow vertical windows in the front bedroom were swapped for one large window;
- the lounge room window was made a LOT bigger to let in more light; and
- the sliding door and window beside the kitchen (accessing the alfresco area) were swapped for full wall stacker doors to create an awesome indoor/outdoor living area.

At the time, Rawson Homes were running two package deals we were able to take advantage of. The Supplier's Bonus and the Living Sensations packages cost us $8,100- but gave us over $30,000- worth of extra inclusions including:
- Caesar stone bench tops in the kitchen and bathroom;
- soft close drawers;
-Daikin inverter reverse cycle air conditioning (heating and cooling);
- two feature plasterboard niches;
- an overhead rain shower in the bathroom and ensuite (Ben's favourite);
- an alfresco area (external tiling, roofing, columns etc.); not to mention
- upgraded kitchen appliances, paint and doors.

We opted for the Gold Inclusions package as well as paying to have tiles through all the living areas (rather than just wet areas) and to modify the ceiling height to 1.75 metres, to accommodate our extra tall family!

Within a week, Rawson Homes drew up the tender and we signed off on it in early February!