Selections: The Stage That Delays More Builds Than Weather

Clients expect the difficult parts of building to be the budget, the approvals and the construction. In practice, the stage that most often causes delay is selections — choosing the hundreds of individual products and finishes that make up a house.

It is underestimated because each decision seems small. Collectively they represent an enormous number of choices, many of which interact, and several of which have long lead times.

A build waiting on a client decision is a build losing days it never recovers, because trades booked for a sequence do not simply wait.

Some products have lead times measured in months. Windows, external doors, specific tiles, imported tapware, stone benchtops and certain appliances all need to be ordered well ahead of when they are installed.

The sequence is the other issue. A tile choice determines the screed depth, which affects floor levels. Tapware selection determines rough-in positions in the wall, which happens before plasterboard. An appliance choice determines cabinetry dimensions, which are manufactured weeks ahead of installation.

So a decision made late does not just delay its own item. It stops the work that depends on it, and it can require rework of something already done.

Start with anything structural or dimensional. Window and door sizes and positions, ceiling heights, stair configuration, and the location of wet areas. These are effectively fixed by frame stage.

Next, anything with a long lead time, regardless of when it gets installed. Order early even if it sits in storage.

Then rough-in-dependent items: tapware, shower configuration, power point and switch locations, data and television points, and lighting positions. All of these are set before the walls are lined.

Then surfaces: floor tiles, wall tiles, benchtops, splashbacks, paint colours. Then fittings and hardware. Then landscaping.

The rule underneath all of it is simple: decide anything that gets buried before it gets buried.

Choose a palette rather than individual items. Deciding the overall direction first — warm or cool, light or dark, matte or gloss — turns hundreds of open questions into a series of choices within a defined range.

See things physically. Screen images misrepresent colour and completely misrepresent texture. Get samples of tiles, benchtops and flooring, and view them in the actual light conditions of the room, at the time of day you will use it.

Decide with the whole house in view rather than room by room, so materials relate to each other rather than accumulating into a collection of individually good choices that do not sit together.

Set a decision deadline for each item, agreed with your builder, and treat those dates as seriously as you would a payment date.

Your contract should carry a documented selections schedule listing what has been allowed for. Where items are prime cost allowances, you can adjust up or down, and the difference is applied to the contract.

Check what those allowances actually buy before signing. An allowance that no real product meets is a deferred cost increase, not an allowance.

Once selections are agreed and ordered, changing them costs money — sometimes the full value of the ordered item plus the new one. Changes at that point are not free even where nothing has been installed.

We build the selections schedule into the contract so the fixed price genuinely reflects what you are getting. Our guide to provisional sums and PC items explains how these allowances work.