Selection - Ensute Shower Head

My partner chose the main ensuite showerhead. His one requirement was that when he takes a shower he wants to be wet rather than sprinkled on. Thankfully, he is not one for taking long showers (< 10 minutes), so having lower star showerhead is not going to make too big of a dent when the water bill comes in.

I must admit, my partner often, and rightly so, calls me a water scrooge. A running tap when shaving or brushing teeth drives me insane. What can I say; I do not like wasted water.

Anyway, the showerhead of choice is a WaterTile Rain Shower Panel by Kohler. Compared to other overhead showers it very reasonable for what it is. The WaterTile has a set of four 54-nozzle, fully adjustable spray heads. The internals are solid brass and the outside is polished chrome. What I like most is the low profile design and the fact that it is part of the ceiling, rather than it hanging down from a post, which is great for tall people!

Below is a promotional YouTube video showing the WaterTile in action.




As far as I can see, there is only one downfall to having a showerhead of this style. If you have long hair that you do not want to get wet every morning, you are going to need a shower hat. Alternatively, if you are like me, install a rail shower as well.

WaterTile Rain Shower Panel by Kohler

Close up of one of the 54 nozzle spray heads

Selection - Kitchen Appliances

Omega rangehood with blue feature lighting

Electrolux EHGC97BS glass gas cooktop

Electrolux ERCG9030AS glass rangehood

I must have changed my mind three or four times trying to decide whether to keep the “European styled stainless steel hotplate, oven & canopy rangehood” supplied by the builder or purchase our own.

For those who are curious, the supplied oven and cook top were Blanco BOSE902X and BCG95X respectively. The rangehood was a Blanco BWCE9X.


One thing was clear - I did not like the supplied Blanco rangehood. There is something about triangular shaped range hoods that strike me as clunky. Perhaps this style of rangehood would look ok if it was sandwiched between two overhead cupboards, but our kitchen does not have any cabinetry on the rangehood wall. This means that the rangehood itself becomes a feature and this is why it is definitely going to be replaced.

There are some absolutely stunning rangehoods available, for example Omega has a model with blue LED feature lighting.


I was torn when it came to the question of whether or not to keep the supplied oven and gas cooktop. Whilst these items are not terrible they just do not grab me. Is it worth spending an extra couple of thousand to buy a better looking oven and gas cooktop?

Our apartment has a black glass electric cooktop, which despite the extra cleaning required, looks lovely (especially on a black granite bench top). I really do love the look of black glass cooktops. Not only are they modern, but timeless. I do not think black glass is going to be going out of fashion anytime soon!

One of the main factors I considered when making my decision was how much time, effort and money it would cost to replace it a few years down the track. Because we have stone bench tops, replacing a cooktop requires not only an electrician/plumber, but also a stone mason to cut a hole for the new cooktop. There would also be the problem of finding a cooktop that is larger than the existing one, so that there would be no visible gaps.

The above argument also rings true for replacing the oven. A friend of mine recently replaced her oven. In doing so, she also needed to replace some of her cabinetry, because her new oven was larger than her old one.

I spent a lot of time asking myself whether I was being too greedy. I weighed up the pros and cons of replacing the appliances versus keeping the ones supplied. In the end, it was a 25% off closing down sale that sealed the deal. We purchased an Omega oven (OO912XN) and an Electrolux rangehood (ERCG9030AS) and gas cooktop (EHGC97BS).

Selection - Exhaust Fan And Light Combo

Standard electrical plan, showing the separate exhaust fan and light.

 Vent Air Levin 200 exhaust fan and light combo. 

It is rare to see separate heating units and light fixtures in bathrooms today. The days of the ceramic heater attached to the wall are gone. These separate units were replaced with a single space saving appliance that combines the heating and light elements (and in most cases, an exhaust fan is included to replace the traditional ceiling vents).

Bathroom ceiling space does not come at a premium, yet for aesthetic reasons, the before mentioned components were combined. I wonder why this does not carry through to WC and powder room design.

WC and powder rooms have significantly less ceiling space than bathrooms, yet we continue to install separate light fittings and exhaust fans.
Surely, the price to install an exhaust fan and light combo must be comparable to the cost of installing separate cabling and switching required for the each component.


Irrespective of cost, I believe an all-in-one-unit looks better than having a separate exhaust fan and a separate light. From the small amount of research I have done, there appears to be three companies that make a unit suitable for installation into a WC and/or powder room: Hellar, Martec and Vent Air.

We have decided to install a square silver unit by Vent Air. Fingers crossed, having a silver unit on the ceiling will not be too overpowering for such a small room, and the light will be sufficient.


Do you have an all-in-one-unit like this? If so, was the amount light sufficient? Which unit did you buy?

Selection - Floor Wastes

Bounty Bermuda floor grate from
Bounty Brassware as seen in a
Ventura display home.

Floor wastes are another one of those items that are commonly overlooked when making your selections. I am surprised that builders do not offer an upgrade when you do your Pre-Start meeting.

I remember a friend telling me that when he was building his house the tiler suggested that he go to Bunnings to purchase some metal floor wastes to replace the standard white plastic ones that his builder was supplying.

Tip: It is worth making a point to check with your builder whether they are supplying metal floor wastes. Plastic floor wastes may discolour or crack over time. For $5-10 extra it will cost to purchase metal ones, I think it is worthwhile.

As mentioned in a previous post, we decided to buy some fancy floor tiles. I do not know about you, but I am not a fan of floor wastes. I would rather not see my drainpipes and the associated fluff and hair that stick to the grate.

To overcome the negatives of slotted floor wastes, we have selected tile insert grates. I love the seamless look that these create. We will be installing these in the WC, Powder Room, bathroom and laundry.

Selection - Basin

If there was one item that made one display home bathroom look like another, it was the basins. They were all fitted with two out of the four popular basin choices: square/round semi recessed, under-mount or round inset basin. 



$99 oval basins from
The Bathroom Outlet.

By now, you would have gathered that we want our house to be a little bit different to the standard cookie-cutter houses pumped out by the builders during the boom. Bathroom basins are one of the places where you can do this without obliterating you budget (assuming you do your homework and shop around).

When looking for a basin, one of the first things you notice is that the cost fluctuates greatly. A white ceramic vessel basin can cost as little as $90 and peak around $700. If you want something special and imported from Italy, you can easily pay over $1000. I found the majority were between $250-400, assuming you were not shopping in a boutique bathroom store.

Alpe White WT4 pedistal
basin from Reece.

When choosing a basin, a few questions that need to be answered:

• How will you use it? For example, in a powder room where you are simply washing your hands, a shallow basin is perfectly adequate. If you are shaving, washing your face, cleaning your teeth, you may want to consider a deeper basin;
• How will it be mounted? Do you love the look of pedestal basins, wall mounted ones, semi-recessed, vessel, under-mount, etc;
• Do you want your basins to match? Some models of basin are made in different sizes so that you can have larger ones in your bathroom/ensuite and have a smaller one in your powder room; and,
• What else should I consider? If you are looking at materials other than ceramic, you may want to consider whether the material is easily stained by hair dye, teeth whitening solutions, etc.

Glass basin from
Bathroom Warehouse

Once you have chosen your basin, there are another set of questions, depending on the style of basin chosen:

• Is the plumbing located in the correct place? Wall mounted and pedestal basins may require different plumbing to a more traditional vanity mounted basin;
• Is the vanity deep enough? This is especially important if the house was originally designed with semi-recessed basins. Semi-recessed basins allow for more space in small rooms because the depth of the vanity can be smaller. For example, the standard vanity depth on our plans was 500mm in the bathroom and powder room, but 380 mm in the ensuite! Do not assume all of your vanities are the same depth;
• Where are you going to mount the taps? Depending on the answer to the above and your style of basin, you may need to mount your tap ware on the wall if the vanity is not deep enough for both the basin and the tap ware; and,
• What else needs to change? As an example, if you move your tap ware to the wall, you may need to increase the height of your splash back, unless you are intending to mount it on the mirror.

Vessel basin and mixer
from Reece

These are only a few of the questions you need to ask yourself when selecting a basin. I am sure you will come up with many more to suit your particular situation.

If you are supplying your own basin for a builder to install, I do recommend taking a technical drawing of both the basin and the tap ware to your meeting, so that the builder can see exactly what they are installing and whether they foresee any issues.


For those who live in Perth, Western Australia, there is a lovely store called The Stone Super Store. What I love about this store, besides the excellent customer service, is its ever changing stock and its brilliant pricing.

If you want to buy a basin for your new home or renovation, I definitely recommend looking at their website, then going to see the products in their show room. It is worth telephoning or emailing their friendly staff before you come to check that they have a particular item on display, especially if it is a new or large item (e.g. a bathtub).

After looking through countless bathroom stores, we chose a Shanxi Black "Dianna" granite vessel basin from The Stone Super Store. I think it will go well with our black/white/silver colour scheme, and the rough-cut edge definitely gives the basin a bit of character. I cannot wait for them to arrive, so that I can share a photo with you all.

Selection - Kitchen Sink

When building a house, one does not usually spend a lot of time choosing a kitchen sink. Builders will generally provide you with two options: inset or bottom-mount. If you are building a house of the appropriate style, they may provide the option of a butler/farmhouse sink.

If you want something other than what is included in your builder’s standard range, an entire world of sink options awaits you.

Even when deviating from the standard range, most people I know will still choose a stainless-steel sink. There are numerous brands and styles (square, round, one drainer, two drainer, etc.) and configurations (1 bowl, 1 + ¾ bowl, etc.) which range in price from only a few hundred dollars to well over one thousand.

When you start looking at the upper bracket of stainless steel sinks, it may be worth looking past the brand name, such as Oliveri and Franke, and considering the materials used to construct the sink.



Geo black composite sink from Sink Warehouse

Sinks come in a wide variety of materials including copper, ceramic, granite, as well as granite/quartz composites. There are various pros and cons for each material. I do recommend that you do your research, and if possible talk to people, in person or online, who have the same style of sink that you are considering.

For example, a friend of mine has a stone butler/farmhouse sink. Whilst she loves the look of it, she hates the fact that her washing up water is always cold, because the cold stone has taken the heat out of it.

Our current kitchen has a stainless steel sink. I have no doubt that it is a cheap sink, but for such a young sink (approx. 2 years old), I would not have expected it have more scratches than mum’s twenty year old sink!

This experience has put us off buying a stainless steel sinks, especially when the options that suited our décor were in the upper price bracket. It was purely by accident that I discovered the world of composite kitchen sinks.

Whilst searching for a freestanding bath, I wandered into the Sink Warehouse in Osborne Park. Their bath selections were on the small side; however, I was pleased to see that they had some non-standard kitchen sink options on display, namely ceramic and composite.



White and Beige Korona composite sinks
from Sink Warehouse 

 For those of us who like something a little bit different, composite sinks provide a refreshing change, because they come in a wide variety of colours including white, beige, chocolate, grey, and black.

There are number of companies who sell composite sinks. These include, but are not limited to, Franke (Mythos, Kubus), Astracast (Geo, Korona), Abey (Schock). If you look around boutique stores such as The Stone Super Store, you may find that they import a range of composite sinks that would not otherwise be available through the larger chains.

Although composite sinks are becoming more popular, you may have trouble viewing them, so it pays to do your research online and contact retailers in your area to see if they have one on display.

As discussed in a previous post, you will not always be able to find a retailer who has the item you are looking for on display. We chose a !black Schock sink by Abey. Even though we are able to purchase this sink through a number of large retail chains, none of the outlets in our area had one on display, or were able to tell us who would.

Thankfully, the Abey showroom is in our area and we were able to see the sink. It is stunning. I think this is going to look absolutely smashing with our colour scheme!


Those who have a composite sink, please leave a comment and let me know what you think of it

Selection - Freestanding Bath

Ever since I was a little girl, I always said to myself: "When I build a house, I want a staircase, a chandelier, and a freestanding bath." Oh the naivety of youth. I may not be getting the staircase or the chandelier, but I am getting a freestanding bath!

Freestanding baths come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and materials (and prices!). The permutations are seemingly endless: there are big, small and medium baths; round, oval, rectangular and “egg” shaped baths; metal, stone, acrylic and composite baths. They all feel different!

The most common baths are medium sized acrylic, in either an oval or a square shape. Personally, I prefer the oval acrylic baths, it suits my narrow shoulders and are not to slippery.

A beautiful, affordable "egg" shaped bath from The Bathroom Outlet.

Selection of rectangle and oval free standing baths offered by Marbletrend

A lovely stone bath from Bathroom Décor and Tiles

Choosing the correct bath is no mean feat. I strongly recommend sitting in the bath before you buy it. Time and time again, I fell in love with the way a bath looked only to find it as comfortable as one I had tried previously :(

Occasionally, a bath would tick all the boxes for look, feel and price, but be too big for the spot we had planned for it *sob*. Alas, no Luminous for me.

Me sitting in a Marbletrend Merge at my local Tradelink

After jumping in and out of at least 30 baths in Osborne Park, I settled on the Kado Lure Oval Bath from Reece. As far as acrylic baths go, it is not cheap, however, its seamless design is a winner, and for a 168 cm "midget" it was very comfortable.

Kado, Lure Oval Bath

Selection - Toilet Suite

Builder's standard:  
Caroma Profile 4 Connector Suite

The WC/Powder Room is one of the most important rooms in the house (you would be lost without it). Unfortunately, it appears to have the least amount of attention and budget allocated to it. I am guilty of this. One thing I did remember to do was upgrade the toilet suite.

The toilet suite that comes as standard with the Rendezvous is not terrible, but it is beautiful either. When you have paid so much attention to the fixtures and fittings in the other rooms, I felt that the standard toilet suite was disappointing.


Besides the look of the "hump" at the rear of the toilet, connector and close-coupled toilet suites have one major drawback: cleaning. When cleaning, this “hump” is easily forgotten, especially when you are in a rush.



The "hump" at the rear of the toilet is
easily forgotten when cleaning

 For these reasons, we decided to install a wall faced toilet suites in the WC and Powder room.


Whilst touring Perth’s bathroom stores, I was amazed at the wide selection of toilet suites. The humble loo can look quite attractive these days. Prices vary considerably, so it is worth shopping around. It is important to remember that even though the majority of toilets have 4 star water ratings, make sure you double check, especially with some of the cheaper models.


We nearly purchased an Axa Uno Close Coupled Toilet Suite from Reece. It is an attractive, water efficient toilet suite. However, having to go to Reece for spare parts was a negative, as was the price tag and additional cost to install a non-standard item.


Axa Uno Close Coupled Toilet Suite


In the end, we settled upon a Caroma Metro Wall Faced Toilet Suite. Style wise, the Metro is not as attractive as the Axa Uno. However, the cost to upgrade from a Caroma Profile 4 connector suite to the Metro wall faced suite was very reasonable. I could not have purchased and installed the toilet suites any cheaper than the price offered by Ventura.

Yet again, another WC/Powder room has had its budget slashed :/

Selection - Where To Start Looking

Thankfully, our builder has allowed us to supply a number of items in lieu of their standard range. Not all builders will do this, and those who do, will not necessarily do it all of the time. So, if you have seen a gorgeous kitchen sink, basin, taps, etc. make sure that the option to supply your own items is included in your contract. It is important to remember that items you do supply will not be covered by the builder's insurance, so if something breaks, is stolen, is defective, etc., you will be liable.

If, like us, you wish to depart from your builder’s standard inclusions, where do you start looking?

When we started looking for basins and tapware, we went to our local specialty stores. What we quickly realised was that each store only stocks a certain subset of a given range. For example, when we went looking for freestanding baths, we had to go to three different outlets from the same retail chain in order to view the more common options. For obscure items, we would have had to order unseen and potentially pay a restocking fee if it did not look as good as it did in the catalogue.

Another thing you notice is that each retail chain aligns themselves with certain manufacturers. This means that if you want to view items from different manufacturers, you would need to visit numerous retail chains, in addition to visiting a number of their outlets.

If I had my time again, I would start with the Internet. A quick search will provide you with a list of companies who manufacture the item that you are looking at. Take your time to look at the pictures on their websites and then make a list of what you like and what you love.

When you find something you like, contact the manufacturer and ask whether they have a showroom in your area. Manufacturer's showrooms are your friend. In some cases this may be the only way to look at their more obscure or expensive items.

Showrooms are generally located adjacent to reception area. Staff will encourage you to look and touch their products. Feel free to ask questions, ask for technical drawings, and if you find something you like, ask for a list of stockists in your area.

This method, however does not necessarily work for lesser-known brands; those created specifically for a given retail chain; or, those imported directly by that store, for example some of the European and Chinese products. For these items, you will need to do the run around or order sight unseen from a catalogue.

Good Luck!

P.S If you have come across any amazing websites, show rooms, or anything else to make this process easier, I would love to hear about it in the comments section.

Inspiration - What We Have Now

One of the largest influences/sources of inspiration is our current home. For the last three years, we have lived in a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment built by one of Perth’s premium apartment builders in 2008.

When we decided it was time to move into something larger, we looked at pre-established homes, but struggled to find something that met the budget without needing significant renovation to match the style and standard of our current home. Building quickly became our only option.

Mirrors make a normally
small room appear larger

For that reason, when it came time to personalise the Rendezvous design, we began by incorporating everything we love about our “little box” in the city.

One of the first things you notice when walking through our apartment is the mirrors. Each bathroom has a lovely big mirror and each of the built in robes have mirror sliding doors.

Mirrors are a wonderful interior design tool, especially in small spaces where they help to enlarge the room by reflecting space and light.

Sliding doors are great. You save so much space by not having to allow room for the door to open. Surprisingly, upgrading the builder’s standard Redicoat doors to mirrored sliding doors did not cost as much as I would have expected.

What did surprise me was the cost to “upgrade” the bathroom mirrors from the builder’s standard framed mirror, to frameless with no visible fixings. I am glad I did not ask for a bevelled edge!

Our apartment mirrors, in addition to being frameless and with no visible fixings, sit flush with the vanity bench top. I love this look. People often ask whether not having a splash back means that the mirror requires more cleaning. Personally, I would not say that it does. We find that any overspray from the taps extends well above the height of a standard splashback anyway.


Our frameless ensuite mirror and
granite vanity bench top

Something that does require extra cleaning, are the black granite kitchen and vanity bench tops. I love these bench tops! Alas, as mentioned in a previous post, we will not be having granite in our new home *sob*.

The final thing I adore about our apartment is absence cornicing. Unfortunately, it would have been too big of a change remove the cornice from the design.

What elements of your current home would you incorporate into the next?