Hi guys,
I just wanted to get an idea of what other people were planning to do with the South Bank fit out options. There appear to be 3 levels of quality:
* Basic - 650/sqm
* Regular - 845/sqm
* Exclusive - 1380/sqm

And then there are a lot of choices for colors, bathroom, doors, etc.

My gut instinct is to go for the "Regular" level. What are other people choosing? What about the various options? I guess you don't want to be exactly like everyone else, but I'd like to get a general idea of how people are selecting this stuff.

Thanks!

Apologies to gglaze for not replying to your post about a month ago on this subject - couldn't find my password.

Presumably most of us South Bankers will by now have sent back our choices for the final white finish fit out. Altho' they were due in about a month ago now I have only just sent mine back.
I wasn't at all happy with the quality of the reference material that was sent out to us from Red-net via i-property assets.
There was no way I was prepared to commit myself to over seven grand's worth of work based on a few fuzzy postage stamp size pictures.
It was impossible to see the colours/textures/patterns of the suggested tiles and worst of all, all the floors looked the same colour ie RED !

I brought this up with Sarah-Jane and asked whether Rednet could supply better quality pictures of the materials or refer us to the manufacturers' websites where we could view them. It took several goes to get a reply from them and when they did finally get back they had nothing to offer other than to confirm that the pictures were accurate to the product.
I think this is unprofessional and lazy. If they are working on our behalf they should at least have samples in their office from the contractors. It doesn't give me confidence that they will be overseeing the contractors properrly and that the snagging will be carried out well.

So I did a bit of googling myself and managed to find the manufacturers of the tiles.
Their web site is
www.cersanit.com.pl.
You need to click on the union jack symbol to see the site in English and you will find all the ranges offered to us shown there. Don't get too exited tho' - the quality of the pics there is not that great either but is way better than that offered by Red net and you get to see some of the products in-situ.
If I could do that, why couldn't they ?

I then also managed to find good clear, large pics of most of the floor choices on the websites of various Polish laminate floor retailers'.
I saved these pics and sent them on to Red Net via Sarah Jane and asked them to confirm that they were indeed the correct floors.
Surprise surprise, they sent back a set of almost identical good quality pictures.
Again, why could they not have done this in the first place ?

If you want to see these, I am sure Sarah Jane will be happy to forward on to you - they do look very different to the original pictures sent out.

We have been advised by Property Secrets that the quality and standard of the finish is what will make our units rent quickly. Unless we are sent good quality reference material we cant make intelligent informed choices.

Well done for finding contractors who can do the fit out at similar prices to those suggested in our original prospectus but come on Red Net, give us confidence in your ability to represent our best interests and in future produce better material.

It would also be very useful to be able to choose kitchens at the same time as making other choices - if for example we want to keep it simple and have light oak throughout, it would be very disappointing to discover later that kitchens are not available in light oak !

By the way, I went for choices from the basic range - I couldn't see that the others were appreciably any better

I found it difficult to choose fit out options for Oak Terraces last week. The pictures were awful. Like yourself I googled and found the cersanit website where you can download a catalogue of each tile type for more pics. Also found some floor pics on ruckzuck.pl but these are not necessarily the same.
The tiny pictures that we were supposed to choose from in the Rednet document were terrible. Some of the beige tiles you couldn't even see.
Ibk

Yes it was almost impossible to make an informed choice of tiles.
I wanted to follow the golden rule and keep everything as neutral as possible and not be influenced by my own taste - ie white, beige etc..
However the beige/brown choices all looked a bit dark. On the website they looked a ghastly orange and some appeared to have a mottled/marbled effect. It was impossible to tell from the pictures if this was smart classy mottled or rather naff. Also couldn't tell if the finish was glossy or matt. I know we need to take into account local taste but in South Bank we are expecting to rent to students or young professionals. Most of what we were offered didn't look as nice as my local B&Q has at £5.99 psm – but then from the pictures who knows ?
Seems to me young Poles are pretty design conscious these days and not so different from those in the UK so our choices are important.

We also had a problem with the choice of bathroom taps.
One choice (ferro) from the basic range showed a picture of a bath mixer with a shower head and the other (Milo) didn't show the showerhead. I asked 3 times for clarification about whether I was choosing between a mixer with or without a shower head, or if they both had the shower head and I was just chosing between different styles. Never got an answer on that one !

Anyone else searching for better floor pictures - I found that if you put into google the name of the floor and add pl (for poland) you generally get a load of Polish floor retailers sites coming up and the same pictures often seem to come up on each site.