It's so close .. but so much to do

Saturday morning visit to the house showed that an inspection had been done (by somebody??!!) and there were little post it notes around the place indicating where things needed to be fixed.

As you can see our front toilet and temporary fencing has been removed, and the site has been cleared. They have done a great job and the back yard is virtually flat now. Still a little bit of a rise where the patio area is but that won't be a huge problem we don't think. They even gave us some little 'temporary steps' made of broken bricks and mud!! Love those builders.

Inside where the inspector had been we noted that some were things that we already knew about ... others we hadn't even picked up on so we were pretty pleased that the mystery inspector had done a good job. Although there was a couple of things we noticed that he/she hadn't picked up on but we'll make sure they are pointed out on Thursday.

Most things look like they are easily fixed with a clean (the house is still revoltingly dirty) but others are a little trickier like the bit in the ensuite (pictured above) and we did also notice that there is a tiny chip in the ensuite shower door.

They mystery of the missing tile in the bath is yet to be solved. The tiler has finished all grouting etc. but for some reason hasn't put one tile in the side of the bath... perhaps his idea of a feature however we would like it fixed at some stage! We just have to assume that it will be done prior to 10:00am on Thursday!!

The house will still look a little bare when we take possession on the 24th as the appliances and water tank will not be installed until the day we move in. I'm also assuming that the fly screens are installed when we move in as well.

Last night after I dropped Sarah home, I did a quick scan of the house again and as I was getting ready to leave some of our neighbours from around the corner walked past. Stopped and talked to them for about half hour. Lovely people with 3 little boys (who look like they would be a handful) but they were very cute. Typical little boys wanting to explore the building sites. They aren't technically neighbours but we can see their house so I'm happy to call them neighbours :-)). We also met the owner of the house 2 doors up from us (building with Metricon). Young guy building with his girlfriend. John asked about his car and of course I tuned out until I heard 'turbo' and 'hotted up'. I really did show my age when I said to John after "I hope him and his friends don't hoon around the streets at all hours of the night!!!". God I'm getting old.

So all in all (other than portico colour) we love our little house. There is so much cleaning to be done prior to Thursday that I'm not sure how they will get it done, but as we have found out throughout this whole building process, things happen that we just shouldn't question.

Next post: Thursday

P.S. Oh - I found some very reasonably priced taps on Saturday while John was sailing so I figure that I'll just start putting a bit of money aside each week and will be able to buy them over the next couple of months. What John doesn't know won't hurt him ... oh .... hello dear, didn't see you there :-)

How am I supposed to clean that?

Mid week trip to the house revealed the following work has been completed:

- mirrors in bathrooms

- garage door installed

The tiler has also been back and looks as if he has almost finished. Still needs to fit in the tile that is missing from the bath and put the silicone (or whatever it is) around the vanity and down the edges of the shower.

The mirror in the ensuite is huge! I know we are big people but that is just ridiculous. It goes all the way to the ceiling so I'm not sure how I'm supposed to clean it. Guess I'd better invest in one of those extended poles like the window cleaning people have.

Peeking in next door neighbour's window I also noticed that they have had their carpet and floors done. It's amazing how different a place looks when the floors are in and you don't have to look at grey concrete. It looks really great and they should be pleased with the result.

Told you I could ramble on before the 17th ....

"Dad the builder" la la la la la la la la

Can he check it ... YES HE CAN .......

Sunday morning we met the elderly's (aka Dad & Liz) for breakfast then took a drive to the house. Liz hadn't seen it at all and the last time Dad saw it was before the plaster went up.

Dad was a builder for about 30 years and he's one of those 'old school' builders that has to have everything perfect. He quite often rants and raves about these 'young blokes' that cut corners on building sites and don't do things properly.

Anyway - we were very keen to get him down to have a look before the walk through on the 17th. That way we would know just what we could and couldn't complain about.

It appears that our love for Peter & his band of merry men has not been without reason. HUGE sigh of relief. Dad went through and checked that all the cornices were straight .. inspected paint work and the brickwork. A huge thumbs up from Dad - you have no idea how pleased John and I are. From our point of view we always thought they were doing a good job, but it's nice to hear it from somebody that actually knows what they are talking about.

We even got a big tick from Liz (ex interior designer with a touch of snobbiness) on the bathroom and the kitchen. It kills her that the location is so 'bogan' but too bad. Most of our neighbours seem great and I'm positive we are going to love living there.

Still a bit disappointed with the tiler who hasn't been back to finish off but I guess he's got another 10 days before we need to panic.

Start my new job on 28 May (after a weekend of painting) and move the following weekend. Talk about bad timing!!

I can't imagine there will be much to update until the 17th May when we do the walk through but I'm sure I could waffle on about something.

Catch ya' soon :-)

Bathroom & kitchen update

Not a well thought through plan!

OK ... so my plan re taps hasn't really paid off!

Let me take you back to the tender process (almost a year ago now!). Meeting with Hopetoun Interiors going smoothly. All of our pre-work had paid off and we knew pretty much what we wanted on most things.

The question of taps is raised .... the range is hideous. Even the upgrades were ugly. So in my wisdom (word used very loosely) I went for the cheap taps, knowing that I would upgrade them when we moved in.

Have you ever priced a tap? It's insane. Absolutely insane. Almost have to get an extension on the mortgage just to get some good looking taps.

So my plan to have ugly taps for only a short period of time has not really paid off and it appears that I will have to put up with them for quite a while yet.

* Heavy sigh *

Is it wrong to be this happy about a building?

After having a lazy breakfast with my best friend yesterday morning, we headed down to the house to see what had been done. A quick detour to pay the money owed for the curtains to be made and we arrived at the house to see a Ute parked in our garage.

Min agreed that the colour of the portico wasn't right (groan) so I braced myself for the fact that other things may look crappy to other people.

Finding the tiler in the bathroom and having a bit of a chat we set about checking on the progress.

Splashback has been put in the kitchen (I absolutely love it) and our little Italian tiler had been doing a super job on the tiles. In his broken English I got out of him that he was finishing up on Sunday as he has another job to start.

The pics above are of the house yesterday .. and today (while I'm here at work) I thought I'd update with yesterday's pics .. but will head down this afternoon to see if he has indeed finished.

I absolutely love the tiles and the kitchen looks fantastic, so my disappointment of the portico has been overshadowed by these latest instalments. I would have loved to hang around but obviously it would have bored Min to tears.

Rang John (who is in Tassie) to let him know how fantastic it is all looking.

We also tested out the downlights and they look great too.

Update will follow this evening!!

Ah ... there he is!

OK, so we found the tiler.

One of the benefits of building a home close to my daughter is that she has been able to keep an eye on the progress while we are not there. Last night she had been out walking with her dad's partner (and I'm assuming the dog as well) and I received a text from her telling me that somebody was at our house, and it was too late for them to be tradies!! Of course I had a mild panic attack picturing all of the damage that these people were doing to our beautiful house.

So I decided to take a well earned break from work and drove down to the house - hoping that somebody would be there to let me in.

Nobody was there. Thinking that not much work would have been done since Wednesday but wanting to scrutinize the damage done by our visitors last night, I picked up the camera and walked the perimeter of the house (don't like the idea of not being able to get into the house!!).

Walking past the ensuite window I saw the beginning of a tile .... big smile as I planted my face onto the window and saw that the shower walls had been done. Nothing on the floor as yet or in the shower recess.

Next thing I noticed was an outdoor powerpoint ..... then as I looked through the kitchen area I noticed:

- downlights in
- ducts for heater
- GPO's

Wow!! So much had been done in one day I was .. once again ... amazed at their progress.

Walking around to the other side of the house and once again, peering through the windows the laundry has been completed (just waiting for grout) and Sarah's bathroom wall tiled and bath .. just waiting on shower recess and floor.

I was a bit bummed that I couldn't get into the house but was more than pleased with the progress that has been made.

Anybody seen the tiler??

After having a wonderful sleep in yesterday, we got up and ready to go out for breakfast at our regular cafe (tradition for day's off) and then head to the house.

First disappointment ... the cafe was closed! Yes I know it was ANZAC Day however this woman opens every day except Christmas so we were very surprised that she wasn't open. So I cooked Johnno some scrambled eggs and I had french toast (much cheaper than going out mind you) and then took a drive to the house.

Second disappointment ... looked through the ensuite window hoping to see the tiles laid. Nothin'.

The car didn't start when we went to leave (long story) so we got one of our friendly neighbours to give us a jump start. While we were chatting some tradies arrived at next door's house ... so we got them to open up our place so I could take a peek.

While I was very disappointed that the tiler hadn't been, there has been work done since Saturday.

- door handles on all doors and wardrobes
- door stops put on
- plumbing above bathroom sinks have been put in (we have wall taps not taps that are attached to the sink)
- corner bits on the house finished off

The corner bits (no idea what they are called) have been put on around the dining area (will update with photo later in the week). Finishes off this area nicely.

So I imagine that the tiler won't start until next week now. Little bit disappointed but I guess there was some work done so it's not so bad.

We figure that the only stuff left to do is:

- electricals
- tiles
- ducts for ducted heating
- cleaning

Bring on the 17th May I say!!!!

The Countdown has begun

1 month to go .....

This time next month we should be (please note the use of the word 'should') going to Porter Davis to pick up the keys.

Mood: Deliriously excited

The call we've been waiting for

Oh ............................... my ............................................ goodness ..................................................

We have received the handover date for the house.

wwwwwwwwwwoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hhhhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

John just rang ..... I answered the phone with 'hello' .. he responded with 'guess what' (I hoped this wasn't going to be a long drawn out process because I was just about to go and get my daily latte fix). 'What' was my answer. A brief silence and the words followed '24 May'.

This date takes us to 16 weeks and 1 day for the house to be built. Not too bad at all.

We have a walk through on the 17th May to go through all of the bits and pieces that need to be fixed. I'm hoping that this isn't too onerous as we have been giving him the fixes as we find them.

It will take about a week to put the timber floors and carpet in so I guess move in date will be around the 30 May.

Far too excited to work now so I'm sure there will be nothing done for the rest of the day. (nothing unusual my boss would say). Cheeky bugger.

Meetings with no outcome

I hate meetings with no outcome. I had 2 yesterday and both times I have reached the end of the meeting and thought to myself 'well that's an hour of my life I'll never get back'.

So at about 2:30 I decided that it was such a beautiful day, I'll take a drive down to the house to see if anybody is working.

Nup, nobody. Although a tradie has been in to waterproof the shower areas in the bathroom and ensuite. Some thick blue/grey type stuff.

They have now fixed the front door so we'll ask Peter for a key. How else are we going to get in and take photos!!! I'm told we have got buckleys chance of him giving us a key but you can only ask I guess.

I did notice a few places in the paintwork (external) that needs fixing so I'll start making a list of stuff now so that the final inspection isn't so long and tedious.

Peering through the windows I did notice that the carpenters have removed the doors in the kitchen and the laundry that were odd colours so hopefully that will all look the same now.

Still haven't heard from Peter with a move in date but fingers crossed we will hear very soon.

On the home stretch

OK - it's officially getting scary. It's the 17th April and this time next month we should be really close to moving in. I lost interest in doing any packing over the weekend and every time I go into the garage I get one of those awful feelings that it's going to be a really crappy job to pack everything up.

Anyway ... painter has finished. There were some bits that haven't been done (such as just above laundry cupboard and in the shower areas, but I guess as there will be tiles there, he doesn't need to paint!!

I'm really happy with the interior colour of the walls, however John wasn't as happy. He would have liked something a little more 'yellow/creamy' but I think once the feature walls are done and we have our furniture in there, he may be a little happier about it. Here's hoping :-)

Not even going to discuss the disasterous portico colour. I figure if I don't worry about it too much, I'll eventually get used to it until we can do something about it. I'll make it a priority however to get it re-done by Christmas. Want to get rid of the awful bagged & painted look and change the colour. Maybe by Christmas I'll have an idea about what the right colour is!!

Anyway ... I'm told that I shouldn't be so annoyed about it and just be happy that I'm pleased with everything else.

We spoke with Peter again yesterday and I actually started to feel really bad that we speak to him so much. He keeps saying that it's OK, ring him as much as we want, but it just doesn't feel right. Would be a different story if ours was the only house he is supervising, but he has about 18 others so imagine if every owner rang him as much as we did!!! Poor bloke.

Then again ... he's probably paid a crap load more than me so why shouldn't we bother him!!!

Next update will hopefully be photos of the tiles. Now if you think I was worried about the roof tile colour, I'm almost having heart failure worrying about what the tiles are going to look like. Everything that I can possibly cross is crossed and I am just hoping like hell that what we have chosen and how we have laid them out is going to look OK.

So until then ... farewell friends and we shall meet again in Cyberspace soon.

:-)

Our first major disappointment

Knew it was too good to be true!! Sarah and I ventured to the house on Wednesday afternoon to check the progress of the painters.

First thing I noticed was that the gutters and front windows had been painted - yippee!! Then I noticed our front door so I started to get really excited ... just waiting to see what was happening on the inside.

The paint fumes almost knock you over as you walk in ... I hope that doesn't take too long to go away! But anyway, it takes on a whole new look when you don't have patches all over the wall.

We almost needed sunglasses from the starkness of the white walls!!! Obviously just done undercoat in this area :-). As you venture into the kitchen and family area however it had been painted in our wall colour - Chalkdust. It's a lovely soft creamy colour and should hopefully (she says fingers crossed) look good against the feature walls and the flooring.

Walked right through every room (as we always do) and inspected every nook and cranny.

One of the things we need to talk to Peter about however is one of the kitchen doors. Not sure if it's my eyes deceiving me but one of the doors looks like a different colour to the rest of them. Will get him to check that once the painters have left, just in case my age is playing tricks on me.

So now I get to the disappointing bit .... big lesson to be learned when signing off on your final plans. ALWAYS get an understanding of every type of paint, effects or anything else you have inside or outside of your house.

Our plans said that the front portico would be 'bagged and painted'. Clearly I am completely ignorant on this issue. I figured that was just a way of saying 'rendered'. No ... very much NO.

Bagged and painted is exactly that apparently .. they get a heshen bag and just rub a thin layer of 'whatever' over the bricks, then they just paint over it. It gives the portico a rough look, rather than that really nice smooth rendered look.

Anyway - our fault for not knowing what this was. We are going to wait until it's painted and see if it makes a difference. If it's really awful I guess we'll just get a tradie in at some point to render it properly. Doubt it will be this year though because 'money's too tight to mention'!!

Well ... it's a minor disappointment in the scheme of things. I'm sure we're in for a few more disappointments but if we can minimise them, I guess that's the key.

It's all good other than that however. We've had a great week with Sarah (school holidays) and we will get a handover date next week.

Wedding plans are progressing well (can't believe what a girl I'm becoming) and John still insists that we have a pirate theme on the boat - he's sure he can get puffy shirts for all the guests!!!!

Until next time :-)

Peter the Great

All hail Peter the Great.

This morning we met Peter (Supervisor extroadinaire) on site to run through any problems/issues etc. Since I was there on Saturday, all of the skirtings have been laid and all of the shelving in the cupboards have been done. It really does finish it off nicely having the skirtings.

True to form, the painting has been bought forward and it looks like the painter will start on Thursday, if not tomorrow. Not sure if they will work through Easter but Peter said not to be surprised if they do.

Next week is an awesomely exciting week as he will be ringing us to give us a move in date!! He thinks it will be mid May (about 6 weeks away) but will know more next week.

Very very VERY exciting.

Working on a Saturday?? What the??

The weekend was free of fiance and daughter, so I took the opportunity to do lots of stuff that bores the both of them!! Of course it wouldn't be a weekend without a trip to the house. After a lovely breakfast with Melinda, I enjoyed the sunshine as I drove down the freeway and then into the estate where there appeared to be lots of work going on. Driving down our street I noticed that there was a vehicle parked in our driveway.

Lo and behold, there was our carpenter from Porter Davis, busily cutting window frames and skirtings. I said hi and we had a chat about the work he was doing for us. He had spent the week putting the window frames up, hanging doors and doing the decorative columns into the formal lounge (which he was very glad there was only 2!!). Apparently a bit of effort to do those.

He let me on site to take some photos (as seen above).

As I left I was astounded when he said 'I'll be here again tomorrow until lunch time if you want to come back and take more photos'. What the??? Working on a Saturday AND a Sunday???

The painter is due to commence on the 12 April. He has just finished a house a couple of doors up, will then do our neighbours and then start on ours.

Yippee ... it's looking great!

A place to store some stuff

Friday night we headed down to the estate to collect Sarah and thought we should pop in to visit the house and see what had been done.

As we entered the house, I could see the edge of the kitchen bench just poking out ..... I think my heart rate went up significantly due to excitement. Is it wrong to be this excited about this project?? I hope not :-)). It's so exciting for me because it is my first house ever (always been in rental places) and it is OUR house (mine and John's) ... the house that will see us through the next 20 or 30 years as I nag him about making sure everything stays nice and clean!!

We entered the master bedroom first and then into the ensuite ... I think I even clapped excitedly like a moron as I saw it actually looking like a bathroom!! We admired the joinery for a few minutes and then progressed into the kitchen.

Well ..... we both just stood there and looked at the kitchen, so pleased with how it turned out. After the roof tile fiasco, I have been really concerned about our colour choices on everything, and the kitchen cupboards and benchtop was no exception.

The cupboards are a lot 'creamier' than I had imagined, but we think it looks fantastic. It is a very warm colour and against the black benchtop, it looks like a kitchen we are going to enjoy for many years.

And wow .... it's big!! In comparison to the tiny kitchen we have now (which has served us very well mind you) this thing is massive. Even Sarah made some sarcastic comment about the bench top and 'did we think we could get it any bigger??'. God bless her :-)

We've got loads of cupboard space (for all the nice new things I'm going to buy ... - notice there I say 'I' rather than 'we') and we even tested out the drawers and cupboards to see how they worked!

The laundry looks great too with the extra bit of bench space we had built.

Peter tells us that 'fixing stage' will be completed by the end of this week. When we told dad his comment was 'yep, that sounds about right .. you'll be in there before you know it'.

We'll probably head down on Thursday night to check on their progress for the week.

We continue to be really impressed with the quality of the work ... we have heard people say that you can't possibly build a quality home in this amount of time, but to date, we have no complaints at all with how it is going. I think we have been extremely fortunate to have a supervisor that takes pride in his work and the labourers that he hires.

Definitely a few cases will be heading his way once the job is over!!

Mortgage is about to go up .... again

The week has been pretty hectic for both John and I so last night after work we decided to check out the progress of the house to give us a good vibe to get us through the rest of the week.

Work done since last post is as follows:

- Brickwork under windows finished
- Kitchen, laundry & bathroom cupboards delivered
- Doors, skirtings and other bits delivered
- Front window 'dressing' (don't know what else to call it) fitted
- Downpipes fitted

Little things throughout the house continue to be done and I still get amazed at how much interest you take in the little things when you are building a house of your own. Never before have I been so interested in the way a powerpoint hole has been cut in the plaster, or how they have raked the mortar in brickwork!!

Only downer of this work being done is that we now expect an invoice in the mail tonight asking for the next instalment to be paid. Aaaah ... so the mortgage goes up ... again!

White walls everywhere

15 March 2007

Well Sunday night we edited a post on here (waiting to download photos from the camera) but never got around to doing it.

Last night we visited the house and there has been a lot of work done - thought I'd leave the earlier post on here anyway so you can get an indication of the work that has been done over the last 3 days.

It's looking fantastic and the plasterer has done a great job (well, it looks like it anyway).

I have also posted a photo to show the difference between a wall of bricks that have been cleaned and one that is still skanky. The difference is remarkable. The clean bricks look really fantastic.

12 March 2007

After dropping Sarah off home on Sunday night, we took a drive past the house to see the progress since Thursday night.

Brickwork - window ledge bricks to be done.

Plaster - the back room still needs to be finished, but it appears that almost everything else is done, even the garage.

Looks really great! Can't wait to see the skirting and architraves go up.