World of Style- how to do it right and what is it good for?

Wos (World of Style) has it's positives and its negatives. as longs as you focus on the positives then you'll have a good experience.

Positive: 
1. You get everything done at the same place, for some homes on the same day.
2. You get interior designers to help you choose everything as opposed to doing it yourself, some shops hire sales people regardless of their design experience and they wont be able to advice you about color schemes.
3. Everything you choose comes with installation, you don't need to run around asking for quotes and finding a professional for every little thing.
4. Everything you choose goes into the final quotation and eventually your home loan, so even the blinds and light fixtures are taken into consideration. Whereas if you choose to do it post build then you might have to find the whole sum for these things right away.
5. Everything PD puts in your home is covered by them, one place to go to if things goes wrong/break.

Negative:
1. The most obvious negative is the price mark up. If you consider the installation cost then it might be fair but you're still paying a little percentage to Porter Davis. The mark up can become very big and you might want to opt into installing many things yourself post handover if you are building a huge double story home then you should probably do the extra electrical yourself, the flooring yourself etc.
2. The blinds and the outside- are sooooo expansive that you really should do it post handover (most of the places that sales blinds and driveways provide installation anyway)
3. What you see is what you can choose from. You want a different color? you want something special in your kitchen? some of those things, if they don't have it then you can't get it.
4. For small homes you only get one day that is super rushed and if there are changes you want to make you either do it by emails or at tender.

Tips! Go to Wos before your color selection appointment! this is crucial! Even though we went to Wos before our appointment, things were rushed and we were so lucky to have picked most of the products already. Go on the weekend and come in as early as you can. You'll have the same interior designers to help you choose almost everything. In most cases they wont be able to tell you the price but they'll ball park it for you if you ask nicely. You can also do some research at home before your appointment and come prepared. For example, we wanted fans in the bedrooms and a few downlights throughout the house, so we went to Wos and took note of their products and what it would cost us to install the same things post handover and it wasn't a big deal for our one story home so on our appointment we weren't surprised about the price for the electrical that we ended up getting and we weren't second guessing ourselves.
I can't stress enough how much of a good experience it is when you are aware of how much you are going to spend. make a budget. I decided to spend as much as 20k on the kitchen so spending around 15k eventually was a nice thing. up tp 6k on electrical- ended up spending 5.5k. Decide what NOT to spend money on- door bell is easy to do after hand over, alarm system- all the companies I've seen offer installation at a cheaper cost. You want to upgrade taps? floors in the bathroom? do you spend that much time in the bathroom? it adds up, make sure you think about it before going to your appointment, it's easy to say "yes, upgrade" for things when you're there because it's pretty but you don't actually need it. Practice saying "standard is fine".

Next post is the color selection appointment with most prices..