Now this whole time I was thinking basswood shutters (except for wet areas of course) and really had my heart set on them but after all 3 places we went to strongly recommended PVC I think I have now been swayed.
First we went to Warrigal Blinds (a local Illawarra company) and I think we had the best experience here. I emailed the sales consultant a copy of the plans whilst we were in the shop, she printed it off and we told her what we wanted and where. She showed us the different shutters and roller blinds, explained the products in detail including any pros and cons and said she would put a quote together for us based on the window measurements in the plans, should have the quote sometime next week. The basswood shutters they sell only have a 3 year warranty whereas the PVC ones (called Fusion20) have a 20 year warranty, that alone really won me over.
Then we went to Wynstan, not really a good experience here. It took the lady at the desk a long time to even acknowledge us, then she asked if they can come and do a measure and quote, I said we aren't ready for all that yet and would just like a rough quote based on the house plans. She proceeded to rattle off the email address for me to send the plans to (hello, feel free to write it down for me or something). She didn't even tell me about the products available, I asked her if she would recommend basswood or PVC shutters and she said PVC. I then asked about warranty and both basswood and PVC only have a 3 year warranty. I may or may not still send through our plans for a quote just for comparison sake but I highly doubt we will go through Wynstan, aside from the warranty but the lack of service has turned me off.
We then went to Suttle Shutters near our current home who are a Luxaflex dealer, they only just opened last week. Nice lady but don't feel she was 100% confident as she was a little vague, sounds like her hubby is the one with the knowledge however he wasn't around. I showed her our house plans on the iPad, which I am sure the window measurements are stated on the plans (we are just figuring out how to read the measurements but think we know how to "decipher" them now). She wasn't convinced they were the full measurements so she told us to ask our builder for a proper "window schedule". I have emailed our CLO asking for this but I think how Vas and I have deciphered them might be right, I will send it off to her next week and explain it to her as I would still definitely like a quote from them. Instead of PVC shutters they use a product called polyresin. They also felt nice and sturdy so I would be interested in the cost. 20 year warranty for the polyresin and 3 years for basswood.
So I don't think we will be going for the basswood now!
Whilst we were out we also stopped in at Freedom Furniture (lately has been our second home) and put a deposit on our couch for the theatre room and also on a mirror for the entry hallway. We have pretty much almost finished our furniture shopping for the whole house! Everything we have bought has been on sale at Freedom, we haven't paid full price for anything :) here are pics of our purchases:
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| Mirrors for Entry Hallway |
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| Console for Entry Hallway |
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| Dining Chairs |
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| Dining Table |
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| Couch for Living Area (this pic does no justice) |
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| TV Unit for Living Area |
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| Couch for Theatre Room |
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| TV Unit for Theatre Room |
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| Chair for our Bedroom |
We will be adding splashes of colour of course with cushions, throw rugs etc...but looking forward to seeing it all come together :) spare beds will also be purchased from IKEA plus some other bits and pieces from IKEA and that will be over the coming months. Also need to purchase another TV and a couple of DVD players and a new fridge. Also need a money tree...
We will be looking into carpet next weekend, looking forward to that one!
Didn't get to the block today and won't be able to tomorrow either as it is another busy day, we will hopefully get there on Sunday and I'm excited to see the progress of the bricks!
Ciao for now :)
Sounds like a very productive day Nat! Glad you got your shutter confusion sorted out, I think PVC will be good :) The window measurements on the plans are documented as four digits, the first two are drop and the second is width. So our ours, the activity room windows are 'XO0422' so 40mm drop by 2200mm wide. You've probably already worked it out and the shutter people certainly should be able to!
ReplyDeleteLove all of you furniture purchases! We've got a couple of things from freedom and they have been great. We got a leather retro chair for our bedroom and I just discovered it still has the cows number branded on the back! At least we know its real leather haha.
I always like the great stuff where ever it is. And your article is very informative and nice. Hope so you will post again in future more then this work.
ReplyDeleteColonial Shutters