What comes to mind when you think about cladding costs? Perhaps material costs are the first thing that comes to mind. There are many factors beyond the purchase price of materials that need to be considered for a project. Best practice is looking at the long-term value of the project and asking yourself what cladding type will give you the best possible outcome. How hard is it to install? Another cost front of mind may be the installation cost of a cladding product. Installation costs will vary depending on your choice of cladding material. Inflexible and heavy materials such as brick, fibre cement and timber can require additional transport costs to get them to site. Some of these products may also require specialised labour and equipment for installation, therefore, increasing completion times and costs. A flexible and lightweight system, however, is easily transported and easy to install, saving you on both time and money. How long will it last? Some materials are made to last a lifetime. While some are at the mercy of the elements and require ongoing maintenance and replacement. In areas of extreme weather conditions, cladding types that are susceptible to rotting, warping, splintering or fading are not ideal for the project. Cladding that easily wears will require repainting, re-staining or even removing – adding significant costs onto a project over time. It is also important to ensure your cladding product is safe and compliant with Building Code of Australia – Since the onslaught of recent tower fires Aluminium Composite Panels (ACP) have been restricted. If you use or have used this cladding you may be mandated by the law to remove and replace it – another costly exercise. How does it look? Eveyone’s goal is to make their project or home attractive for many years to come. The warmth timber delivers is a popular building aesthetic – but finding a product that looks great and can remain looking aesthetically pleasing is a difficult task. While natural timber may be an obvious choice, if it is not maintained it will warp, splinter and start presenting an unpleasant appearance. Vinyl claddings are cheaper and claim to be timber-like in appearance. However, they often disappointment with their visibly plastic looking texture. Powder-coated, sublimated aluminium cladding can achieve the natural look and feel of timber, without the issues of rotting or fading. This allows your cladding to remain visually appealing for years! DecoClad Looking for a cladding system that is durable, easy-to-install and appealing to the eye? Look no further than DecoClad! Made from solid aluminium, the sublimated, powder-coated cladding system provides a rich and textured timber grain finish for your project. DecoClad retains its beautiful appearance in extreme weather conditions. The Super Durable finish protects the cladding from wear and tear, eliminating the necessity for on-going maintenance other than cleaning. The solid aluminium profiles are light weight, fire-safe and very easy to install and transport. To find out more about cladding costs, what to look out for and how all aspects of cost can affect your project visit www.deco.net.au.

Hi everyone, thanks for all your contributions. Siriuskey, really love that floorplan. To be honest, we came up with a similar floorplan where the kitchen, dining and living were all lined up. However, with 10m in length, my partner and I couldn't see it all comfortably fitting without us feeling too cramped. What measurements did you leave between kitchen bench and island, dining and living area? Our current living area is only 4m x 4m and we already feel that it's a bit cramped, let alone our plans to have kids in the near future where we are hoping to use parts of the living area as the play area (either in front or beside). Using your floorplan idea, I've come up with a slight alternative. The kitchen/dining area is approx. 7m long and living is 9m long - saving us approx. 2m x 10m of internal space when compared to our original final. I've moved the bank of pantry cupboards so they extend along the west boundary where the dining is. Gives us a living area of about 5x 6.5m with the proposed smaller study. I like that the kitchen is now closer to the deck with the north sun coming in. I don't like that we lose a WIP as we love the idea of hiding all our appliances in one. Not sure how much this floorplan will save us in build cost. If it is significant enough, we would be willing to compromise. I've sent the floorplans to a couple of builders to try and get a ballpark figure. In the mean time, what do you guys think of the alternative floorplan? Will it make a big difference to our building cost?

I took into consideration your new Fridge pantry alcove when I designed your kitchen to get you the max island and still being well placed within the kitchen. If the island isn't attached to the fridge wall you would need to leave a 1m space between them which would reduce the 3m Island as I have shown, the dotted wall shows the length of your kitchen, and how the island fits into that space, you could extend the island further into the dining if you wanted, I can redraw that for you. As I said with both of your plans drawn differently Both OKL and myself had a differnt result

I'd make sure I had probably 3 'zones' or options . It is just crying out for a big industrial style centrepiece on 3 or 4 heavy chains , maybe even with 15 or 20 candles . Just as I'm writing this , I'm even wondering how difficult it would be to get 15 shorter stubbier candles and drill out the middles , and thread a cheap 12 volt LED through each one ? The local electrical supplier charges something like $12 for 10 -- you'd have to wire them , but its low voltage so a soldering iron and heatshrink tubing would do wonders . look way more authentic than those cheesy ones with flickering 240 volt bulbs and fake melted wax on shiny plastic bases ! Anyway , that would be my centrepiece , even if you had to use a transformer etc -- drop it to the ceiling line height . Then I'd do a seperate zone -- probably single LED spotlights ( prob in black ) . at least one each beam , some pointing up , some across to the other 'slope' , but also some pointing downwards , because you'll need to look for dropped coins or handkerchiefs or phone chargers every now and then haha . And the 3rd zone would be wall uplights and downlights , because I can almost guarantee there will be times you want light , but you don't want or need to emphasis the height . If its not too late , I'd have them maybe 1.5mtrs from the floor , and the covers in an aged copper or similar panels , and that would match the style of the centrepiece light too . I'd have the spotlights a completely seperate style though -- more modern and plainer , but not ultra-modern , if that makes sense .