@Karen Hodge, I hear you!! Sometimes I think the estate agent should carry quite a bit of the blame actually. If they do their job correctly like you see in the adds on TV, they should bring these discrepancies to the attention of the sellers, stand on their morals and say if you can't get it better than this, then you'll have to find someone else to sell your home!! I know you can't make everybody "house proud" but the saying "do unto others" springs to mind. I bet if these same people bought a house not up to scratch, "a current affair" would hear about it but they don't think it wrong to simply walk out on a house that isn't being left nicely for the next family!! I have some friends that recently sold a house in Essendon, Melb and whilst the buyers were back and forth selling their own home, my friends kept watering the plants and even did things like painted out the wardrobes because of the scuff marks made over time!! They cleaned the entire two storey house from top to bottom and finished by mopping the floors as they were exiting. The buyers were so taken by the entire home, they bought it with almost all the furniture that my friends had in it!!

" How wonderful it is online that now we can all see what amazing ppl are creating. We always have had amazing ppl making such things, but usually reserved for family keepsakes, or nanas specialty. Put down the iPhone and pick up a craft I say!" ~mldesign0401 Indeed. I'm often gobsmacked at what people can do. And it's great to see the process in pictures. I do spend a lot more time looking at others creations the actually doing something myself! One of the traps of everything shared online. I do love seeing the creations that didn't go as planned too! So funny. It's great that people have the sense of humour to still share their "failures". At the end of the day, there's more benefit in the process of creating right? At least they had a go.

A Roman orgy, perhaps? It reminds me of a Mexican hotel that had the jacuzzi in the bedroom. We did try it out, but didn't turn off the water before draining it.... and had water jetting out onto the floor., while we frantically tried to turn it off! It had this pushbutton panel with no instructions. I wonder how many guests had inadvertently flooded the room!

We had a house built 4 years ago from a local medium price country builder at $2,000m2. It had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, double garage . It was 165m2 and included: 2 pac kitchen and corion benchtop Nuline weatherboads, high pitched colorbond roof Half on slab and half on stumps Top grade spotted gum hardwood flooring 2700 high ceilings, square set double glazing to all external windows and stacker door Tinted windows throughout Extensive natural stone to exterior, ensuite and lounge and huge deck. Insulation to roof, floor and internal walls Ducted air conditioning and fans Did not include driveway or landscaping. Medium finish to bathrooms which each had a walk in shower. If you house is twice the size the high expense of a kitchen would be spread over more square metres and so the late should come down. So many variables though. When you get pricing done you need to PC (prime cost items) - set a $ amount so you can compare easily: Kitchen finish Sink and taps dishwasher, oven and hotplates Tile per m2 Carpet m2 Deck m2 Timber/engineered per m2 Laundry cabinet and vanities Tapwear Fans Bathroom heating/cooling Fireplace Air conditioning (split or ducted) bricks per m2 Skirtings Now make sure you dictate finishes: Ducted lau dry and kitchen exhausts height of ceiling height of tiles single or double glazing External cladding Number of coats of paint Number of powerpoints to each room and type, single or double, triple etc All this can be changed once the builder is chosen but it ensures an easy comparison. So when you increase the $ per m2 for your tiles, or lower them it is simply an adjustment. This page needs to be attached to the final contract and initialled. Hope this helps. This builder had built 4 houses for us (3 accommodation) and yet I did this up each time. Very smooth process.