** very late post **

We completed our tiling and carpet appointment with DiLorenzo a couple of weeks before Christmas. Our budget for carpet and tiling as $7k (I know.....)!

We were introduced to Annabee who was going to be our consultant for the day. We started off with tiling first for the bathroom. There are a few options to choose from the standard bathroom range (remember the building standard rate for Eden Brae is marked with a yellow sticker).

Because we had been to DiLorenzo a couple of times, we were pretty much set with what we wanted in terms of tiling, but things soon changed when I realised that some tiles that weren't in the builders range, we just had to pay for the labour on top.. score!

We initially wanted our bathroom wall time from the builders range, but Annabee recommended a matt finish white wall tile 300x600mm (which we will lay horizontally). For our floors, I didn't really like the builders range of bathroom floor tiles (and because they were only 200x200mm big,) so we ended up upgrading to a 300x300mm matte grey tile (where you just have to pay extra for the labour as well). You get a free vertical strip of decorative tile for each bathroom. We decided not to go for this and change the tiling in our niche instead. I chose a hexagon tile that we had to pay extra for (unfortunately) as it was italian stone tile. I knew I wanted it from the beginning so there was no changing that!

Left: Our niche tile, Right: Our bathroom floor tile

Next was our floor tiles for the rest of the areas (kitchen, dining etc). Again, I chose another tile that was out of the builders range. It was a glazed porcelain 450x450mm tile (as from what I read, it was recommended to get porcelain instead of ceramic). Yes, I went for another grey tile (I love grey)!

Our floor tile is #5 (Smoke Matt)

Next on our list of things to choose was our carpet. I initially asked Annabee if it was viable to get the standard range in carpet and upgrade our underlay, but she suggested that if you do that, that you either upgrade both or upgrade none (I don't know how much truth there is to that)! Anyway, we ended up not upgrading anything and left it with the standard builders range for the carpet and the underlay (which is only 3mm). We ended up going with the California Gully II - 98 Jaguar Minster carpet. It was pretty good carpet for carpet in the builders range which was also a shade of grey! haha

All up, our total upgrades for tiles and carpet came to (surprisingly) $3153.00. Happy we came under budget, and I was going to push to and ask for floor to ceiling tiling in the bathrooms but I thought I should just stay in my happy place and not ask for anything more!

Here are some prices (per m2) to help you with costs for labour etc:

• Labour to Lay 300x600mm Wall Tile - extra: $18.50 
• Labour to lay alternative tiles to Niche (1000mm x 1999mm wide): $150.00 (one off price not per m2)
• If you were supplying your own shaving cabinets (like we are) and want tiling from the bathroom countertop to the bottom of the shaving cabinets (we did a space of 540mm upwards):
• Supply Wall tile to 1800mm High (Above vanity only): $27.50
• Labour to lay Wall tiles: $48.00
• Labour to Lay 300x600mm Wall Tile - extra: $18.50
• Silicone to Vanity Height: $50.00