New Home Buyers Blog

A Haymes mood board with warmth and character building for your room, Berstan Homes clients often use feature walls to bring walls to life.
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Bulleen is certainly changing with many knockdown rebuilds and custom built homes starting to be the norm.  Here is a perfect example of a custom built home kitchen with a minimalistic feel.
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Ivanhoe born builders Mark & Paul Bryson are building several projects in Ivanhoe and the surrounding area. With a range of sizes from 18s/q to 85s/q, all Mark & Paul's homes are custom designed and are one off unique builds. Mark & Paul have two building companies they own Berstan Homes and Bryson Homes.
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A perfect space to create a tile feature are the walls in your bath room, the picture shows a great use of a porcelain tile laid in a herringbone pattern. By using a single wall as a feature it’s not overdone and certainly makes a point of difference.
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Austral bricks have been a supply partner of Berstan Homes for many years and what a great range of products they supply. This particular photo shows a very popular Australis brick ZINC which is from the Elements range. The Elements range is a great way of adding a modern industrial edge to your build.  Austral also known as Brickworks which was formed in the 1930's has grown from humble beginnings and has now grown into one of Australia’s largest brick
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That’s a very interesting question; there are so many builders in the market place. There’s the volume builders that you see on the TV most of the time and they seem to be everywhere through their mass advertising, there are custom builders who basically build any style home and various other builders that range from budget builds to high end home builders. First question you need to ask yourself is what type of build do I want? Do I want a
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As land prices increase, gardens are getting smaller. For the busy family, that means less to do in the weekend. Many new home buyers choose to add landscaping to a new home build so ongoing maintenance is minimal. The days of huge vegetable gardens and home orchards are gone, and with good reason. Not only do vegetable gardens take up a lot of backyard in modern homes, but buying fruit and vegetables is easy and often cost effective. But some people still
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Choosing windows for your new home can be a daunting task as there are so many aspects to consider. Decisions must be made on the style, frame material, type of glass and how the windows open. Windows can show off the view – either a distant panorama or a beautiful garden. They can let light and sun flood in, offer diffused light, provide ventilation, give light but also privacy and add style and symmetry to a house design. The desire
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House prices in Melbourne seem to be heading only one way – and that’s up. The average median house price in the city has hit $800,000 and still rising. Rather than buy an existing house, many prospective homeowners are considering building a new home in an outer suburb or buying a rundown house, knocking it down and building new on the land.  Everyone is looking for ways to save money on home ownership, particularly when building new. In past years, savings could
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Choosing flooring is one of the most important decisions to make when building a new home. Today, there are many more choices available than just carpet or timber flooring and some of those choices are more cost efficient. It’s very popular in Australia to install hard flooring in the living and hall areas for easy cleaning and indoor/outdoor living. Traditionally, timber flooring has been the first choice, but modern methods of tiling, and other more sustainable materials have become more prevalent. The cheapest floor
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Do you frequently lose shoes, clothes and even small children in your overfull and disorganised wardrobe? It doesn’t have to be a battle every time you open the wardrobe door. If you are considering building a new home, ask Berstan Homes about custom wardrobes at the planning stage. Berstan Homes prefers to work with Regency Screens who have a wide selection of options for custom wardrobes. Custom wardrobes don’t have to only be walk-in to work. A regular double wardrobe that usually
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Choosing window treatments for your newly built home can be a confusing process. There is plenty of choice in the market and it often depends on your house style, location, views, family preferences and budget. Blinds are cheaper to buy and install than curtains and are much easier to maintain. But nothing beats curtains for heat retention and light block-out. They also give a room a cosy, warm feel. Roller blinds One of the most popular options for new homes across
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What is the best choice of roof for your new home – concrete tiles or Colorbond metal? There are benefits and disadvantages for both materials and often is comes down to which roof the homeowner prefers the look of. Concrete tiles have been the preferred roof material for Melbourne houses for about 75 years. Tiles come in a variety of designs and colours, offering both a traditional or more modern look. Concrete or cement tiles are most commonly used, although terracotta tiles,
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Choosing lighting for your new home can be a hit and miss process. What looks great in the lighting showroom may not suit your room once it’s installed. The size, colour or style may be all wrong, but it’s a mistake you will have to live with. Beacon Lighting has taken the guesswork out of your lighting purchases with an in-home consultation process, as well as an app which shows exactly how their lights will look in your home.Beacon Lighting
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What’s the difference between a custom-built home and a production or mass-produced home? Plenty, according to Berstan Homes Managing Director, Mark Bryson. “A custom-built home is a one-off statement of design which allows the client to have a unique build.” Mass-produced house designs are becoming more and more popular as the housing shortage worsens and new subdivisions are developed by huge building companies. Whole neighbourhoods are now looking like assembly lines with cookie cutter houses all in a row. The
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Painted feature walls may have fallen out of favour but the accent wall is still very popular. These days a feature wall is all about texture, using timber, tiles, bricks or wallpaper. A feature wall is the focal point of a room where you can highlight a bold colour or texture you wouldn’t dare use on a larger scale. Large rooms suit a feature wall to break up the expanse and add interest. Modern materials are all about natural, recycled
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Owner builder gone so wrong!   Berstan Homes are currently in the middle of a knock down rebuild in Pascoe Vale and the build is at lock up stage. Next door to the Berstan home is a neighbour who is doing an owner builder project that involves the construction of a basement on the boundary of our construction. From the pictures you can see what has gone so wrong and as time marches on will get progressively worse and is
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It may still be the last month of autumn in Victoria but winter’s icy progress has been making itself felt in the past few weeks.   Melbourne is a city of contrasting weather, unlike others in Australia. Summers can get unbearably hot with temperatures up to 40 degrees while winters can be cold and miserable for far too long. A new home builder in Melbourne needs to consider both heating and cooling.  Installation costs as well as running costs and
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Bathrooms are transforming from rarely visited functional rooms to luxurious sanctuaries where lingering is encouraged. Natural colours and materials, mood lighting, dramatic design and greenery combine to create an atmosphere which alleviates stress and promotes relaxation. Wall and floor tiling adds a luxury look and come in natural stone options like marble, quartzite, travertine and even cement. Large format tiling, up to 1500 x 700 mm, is very popular this year and combined with expoxy grout, can reduce stains and
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Gone are the days of painting a feature wall in the living area of your new home. Beautiful designer wallpaper looks much more sensational. Papering walls rather than painting them adds richness, texture and depth in a way paint can never match. Wallpaper can be compared to a piece of artwork for a room. Wallpaper should not just be limited to the living areas either. It adds a sense of luxury to the bedroom, where dark moody colours and deep
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Solar power is one of the most efficient ways to comply with state government energy efficiency regulations which were introduced in 2011. More than 95% of Berstan Homes’ clients choose a solar water heating system over a rainwater tank for toilet flushing when they build their new home. The requirement to have one or the other is part of the 6 Star Standards which aligns to the Building Code of Australia’s national energy efficiency measures. The regulations also include a
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You’ve moved into your shiny new home, built by the nice people at Berstan Homes. Now it's time to organise the kitchen and fill up the pantry. Modern kitchens which are part of a larger family room or living area may not be as big as traditional kitchens which had a room of their own. New streamlined kitchens often sacrifice cupboard space for breakfast bars or larger appliances, and your new pantry may be smaller than the previous one. So
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Highlight windows are wide, short windows positioned high on the wall of a room and offer many benefits to the homeowner. They are also known as clerestory (clear story) windows and are positioned at the top of a wall above eye level. Historically, highlight or clerestory windows were used in the upper level of a Roman basilica or a Gothic church. Often they were tall and curved at the top and made of stained glass – very different from modern
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The decision has been made. You love living in your suburb, your kids are doing well at the local school and you have great neighbours. But you need a new house. So, you have decided to knock down your existing house and rebuild on the same block of land. The knockdown, rebuild experts, Berstan Homes, are building your new home. And you can hardly wait. But now you have to find a temporary place to rent, and somewhere to store
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The days of large backyards in a new house build are over. Blocks of land are getting smaller, and dual occupancy and duplexes on the same block are more common as land prices increase and urban sprawl continues. Even knockdown rebuilds often reduce the size of the backyard as home owners re-prioritise their leisure time and maintenance demands. If gardening is your passion but you don’t want to be a slave to weeding all weekend, it is possible to have
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Many of our clients have been asking lately about the extra costs for under mounted sinks. Builders charge more for these installations due to the extra works involved. The under mount sinks cost between $400-$500 in comparison to the standard surface mounted sink which costs around $280. The other extra cost is the cutting and finishing of the stone which can range from $500 to $800.  So you should expect to pay around an extra $820+ for an under mount sink.
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Recent news reports about building companies in Victoria collapsing is worrying news for their clients and those considering building a new home. Watersun Homes is the latest company to go into liquidation, bringing to a halt 300 construction projects and resulting in 90 staff losing their jobs. A few months earlier, Ashford Homes, together with Homestead Homes in South Australia and Huxley Homes in New South Wales, went into liquidation. The companies are owned by former Family First senator Bob
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The decision has been made – you are going to knock down your old, dated house and build a brand new one by Berstan Homes on your land. Now you need to sort out 30 years of belongings and get rid of the bulk of it. One of the easiest ways to reduce your “stuff” is have a garage sale. It’s all over in a couple of days (one to set up, one to sell) and you have made some
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Those who are fascinated by the age of steam can indulge this weekend at Steamfest in Scoresby. There are displays of industrial steam and diesel engines, blacksmithing, hay baling, earth moving machinery, model displays, vintage radio, fire engines, vintage vehicles and a tank. There is even a walking dragline that doesn’t use wheels, but “walks” on two giant feet. There is a miniature railway or a tractor to see around the displays, at the National Steam Centre in Ferntree Gully
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Deciding on what type of flooring to have in your house depends greatly on your lifestyle. Do you have children or pets? Do you love entertaining? Carpet is usually more comfortable for small children, especially if they are babies or toddlers. Claws and paws can catch on loop pile carpet – cut pile is a better choice. But toilet training for both children and pets are easier to mop up on hard flooring than carpet. If you host plenty of
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