1 week on since handover

Wow what a crazy crazy week it has been, I only just realized it has actually been a whole week! so here's what has been happening:

The removalists came on Friday morning, and even though we had brought 8 car loads over the night before it still took 3 removalists plus Rick, Mum and I, four hours to move all our "big" stuff, what a mission!

As organized by SS the door/window people came and replaced the glass in the ensuite on Monday and added a screen door to the laundry that had been forgotten.

The deck guys started on Monday and have finished the front porch and are now almost finished the back, it looks awesome but I'm sorry I don't have photos yet!!! We will be doing the staining ourselves to save a few $'s.

The driveway guys are arriving at 6:45 tomorrow to clear the big mound of dirt out the back that has been there since site cut and also do all the form work for the driveway and spa slab and then pour on Saturday, YAY!! We ended up deciding to go with exposed agg after all, I/we just couldn't pick one colour to have the driveway.

Still waiting on the blinds to be delivered so we have sexy sheets up at the moment, I think the blinds are probably another week away and some even a bit longer than that as I received an email today advising they had run out and were expecting a shipment on the 17/08/12.

There was a mix up with our new bed, they realized the day before they delivered it that they had ordered the wrong colour, so instead have delivered our mattress and lent us an ensemble base until ours arrives in a couple of weeks. Doesn't bother us, but annoying for them given it had been sitting in their warehouse for 2 months while they waited for us to have handover.

The antenna guy is coming tomorrow too so we can get some t.v happening, not that we have had time for it anyway!

And it has been all systems go at our old house trying to get it ready to be rented out, ugh I hate going there! I just want to be here and unpack!! We have new carpet going in on Wednesday (we were hoping it might be salvageable with a clean, but no :-( lots of cleaning and painting, and a new external door, we have been there for 10 years so things had been let go a bit unfortunately, but it has prompted us to make a date in the calendar to have someone come and clean windows etc in our new house, I am even going to include it in the weekly budget, I don't like the thought of our beautiful new house being all dirty in a year or so.

We are absolutely loving our new home, it is so fantastic to finally be here! I cooked our first roast last night and the oven is awesome! we also finally made time to use the ensuite spa, it was very much needed after 6 days of moving and aching backs and feet etc. As far as the building side of it goes, we haven't found much that needs fixing that wasn't picked up at PCI . The only "problem" we have is that the hot water doesn't get hot enough and it takes ages to warm up, I'm talking half to 3/4 a bucket full of water before it gets warm. I know these continuous gas hot water things are supposed to be energy saving but it seems to counteract it if it is water wasting?? We asked our next door neighbours who said they don't have the same problem, I think theirs has 24 written on it and ours says 17* don't quote me on those numbers but there is a bit of a difference. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

Rick has been busy putting together a few things we had bought for the new house, being some bar stools, and an office desk, and  a cat "tree" for our boys. Rick also hung up all the pieces for our feature light, it looks amazing!!! my phone photo's really do not do it justice (it is too bright with it on) so you will have to wait until I get a chance to get the proper camera out....wherever that may be....

I'll be back soon with some driveway and deck photos :-)

Welcome home!

Surprise! We had handover a day early :-)

Post PCI

As the heading suggests we had PCI as scheduled on Friday, and I am pleased to say it went well!

Handover is confirmed, and will be on Friday the 10th around midday (someone else beat us to the morning handover slot!) but unfortunately no sooner as SS has 4 hand-overs next week. During PCI we mostly picked out painting that needs to be re-done or touched up, a little bit of grout missing on a tile in the pantry, the mark on the caesarstone kitchen bench doesn't appear to have buffed out, clean up of the mirrors in the powder room from the silicone edging that is smudged, a bedroom door that doesn't quite close properly (just needs re-adjusting), a couple of lights need re-fitting and one replaced, ummm that's about it really, so all in all pretty good! I haven't seen the QA report but saw something in the kitchen drawer that looks very much like QA so will have a good squiz next time SS isn't around. 

There are a few things that we would have thought would just be standard fixtures but apparently not, such as a nice finish between where the ensuite & bathroom floor meets the carpet it is a very crappy stained, marked, " brushed" aluminium but apparently all new homes are like that?? and same thing above the bi-fold door of the outside room, both are only minor and we can do them ourselves after hand over but they are really not things that I would have thought would need upgrading, I just kind of expected them like you do skirting boards etc I'll take a couple of pics so it makes more sense, but just odd that a lot of the other finishes are lovely and then these couple of things are downright awful! But if that is my only real whinge about quality at the completion then we are not doing too badly. 

I have the moving truck booked for late Friday afternoon, and our new bed being delivered on Saturday, and currently in discussion with the deck and driveway guys as to when we can get them in, power being turned on Thursday (in our name) so it is all systems go!

Thanks to everyone for your comments and feedback it has been great sharing this journey with you, especially my regular commenters' it has been lovely following your building blogs too! We still have a bit to go with the driveway, deck, blinds/curtains etc and one hell of a lot of landscaping, so I will continue to update on those as we progress as well :-)

I think the blinds will have their own post, what a freakin mission!!!!! I really never expected that out of the whole build that hardest thing would be the blinds and curtains. 

Will be back soon with some more pics, hope everyone has a good weekend.

10 more sleeps!!!!

It really is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, and with just 10 days or less to go I think I can even start a countdown! Well the spa is in, the carpet is down, painters have been back to do a few touch ups (still more to go), temporary fence taken down, dirt spread around and umm I think that is about it, the only things remaining are the stove and dishwasher to go in (and the stinky port-a-loo to go). Spoke to SS this afternoon on-site who advised they are doing another clean tomorrow and then QA will happen later that day and then PCI on Friday, and then depending on PCI we will have hand over next week (scheduled for Friday) I cheekily asked if there is a possibility of it being sooner, he said it depends on PCI and what we need/want fixed. There really isn't much, most of it is painting, a few of the window sills need sanding and painting, there is a mark on the caesarstone that SS said should buff out, a number of lights need "fixing", the on and off are the wrong way around and you have to turn the hall light on before you can turn the bedroom ones on or it doesn't work lol. but other than that there really isn't anything left to fix :-D So now it is all the other stuff that goes with moving; driveway, electricity connection, house insurance etc. luckily I'm on night shift from Saturday onwards because I don't think I am going to be able to sleep all next week anyway lol

eeeeekkk it feels so real with carpet down!!

The front light on the left is broken/water logged at the bottom, it will be on the PCI list 

Balustrade on the balcony

study/office

looking fromt the master bedroom down the hall

Close up of carpet

week ending 29/07/12

Hi everyone, well after my excitement earlier in the week about PCI we have re-scheduled PCI for this Friday, (Metricon only pay us up until PCI) so fingers crossed by then we have a stove and a dishwasher, and some carpet would be nice! This will just be a quick post as I am typing on my phone as I'm too lazy to get the laptop out of its bag lol, had a big day cleaning the house we are in and other bits and pieces. This week the water tank went in, fly screens on and silicone throughout the house, and the construction manager went through and red stickered the place with a million stickers, the painters were then there on Friday fixing lots of the stickers. He also wrote up a 2 page list of things to be fixed. The balcony balustrade also went on but the build safe thing is still in front of it so I can't really see what it looks like yet. I had another deck/driveway quote on Thursday and the idea struck me to put some timber at the front of the balcony where the tiles are (unexpectedly). I'll come back and update during the week with some pics hopefully!!

hand me a box of stickers and colour me happy!

Just a really quick update! I received a call from the SS this morning asking if I would like to book in PCI for the 30th July, HELL YES, I would like to do a PCI!!!

 ***EDIT*** Ok so in my excitement of hearing those three little letters 'PCI', I didn't really think about it too much, BUT sadly I have thought of why they want to do PCI so soon, it's because they stop paying us after PCI.....so I am going to talk to the SS in the morning, there is WAY too much left to do by next Monday.

The list of things we have outstanding so far are:
Spa in ensuite still to go in - tiles are being removed and area waterproofed
Carpet - whole house,
Ground to be cleared - bin, porta loo & temp fence removed etc
Heaps of light fittings need to be re-done - the one out the front is water logged, Plenty of paint scuffs and marks.
At least three holes in the walls that need patching/filling
Balcony balustrade to go on, window in ensuite to be replaced with obscure glass
Window sills to be re-sanded & re-painted
One piece of Caesarstone in the kitchen has a mark on it - will need to be replaced
Stove to go in
Water tank to go in
Exterior plumbing pipes to be painted

 I can't imagine that they will be able to get all of that done in 3 days. So I think I got a bit excited over nothing - but never mind - at least we are on the home stretch.

Week ending 22/07/2012

Progress continues again this week, and from Wednesday our 30 week contract finished so it is now over to M to keep their build time guarantee and pay us for the days that they run over....considering the plumbers were there today (Sunday) fitting pipes etc and brought the spa upstairs, I would say they are trying to catch up for lost time. The carpet didn't make it in this week, it took until Friday to get the glass in because there were issues with how the floor was and how the balustrade needed to go in and communication between the glass contractor we had enlisted and Metricon (it appears it was mostly the glass guys causing the issues so I can completely understand why M don't allow external contractors, it is too hard to manage them!!) I won't name them, but if you are wondering who not to employee to do your glass balustrade, I can give you a name to cross off your list.

In fantastic news the bedroom floor is fixed!!! No more squeaky floor boards! I haven't had a chance to talk to the SS about anything other than the glass balustrade this week and there were some tense phone messages - just glad it's pretty much all over...the glass guys have put a couple of pin holes in the side of the stairs and then decided to put the pin in a few millimetres to the left so these will need to be patched and painted..so we might need to do that ourselves...no biggie, so long as I don't have to deal with the glass guys again I will be happy - as will our poor SS!!! I bet he is cursing the previous CM for allowing it! All that aside it is in, and looks pretty good imo :-) The stair handle/rail appears to be where the reduced cost has come in, I can't say I am a fan and it is horrible for fingerprints! but it is just Rick and I, and I can make it up & down the stairs without using the hand rail so I think it will be the rule in our house - look but don't touch unless you are falling on your arse...then, and only then, may you use the handrail lol.

Other milestones this week included, house clean - the windows have come up great!, and mains power connected wooo hoo! The front balcony  balustrade also did not go in so I can't comment about that yet, it's also been raining a bit too much for the balcony tiles to go on as well.

I'm not sure what next week will bring...presumably carpet, spa actually in the ensuite, and balcony balustrade, supposedly a window service...not much else left really! Lots of little things we have found like a mark on the caesarstone, there are a few holes in the wall that need patching/repairing, some paint bubbles and places that need re-sanding, a few bricks to be replaced, bits and pieces of things.

Clean kitchen - pendants don't have globes yet, I keep forgetting to bring some!

shiny tiles

more shiny tiles - still a row of grout to be done

Rain head showers in - upgraded so that the shower rail is behind the tiles. 

Happy that he can finally fit into a bath!

Someone isn't planning to share...

one day it will have water too!

week ending 15/07/2012

Still pumping along! this week saw the mirrors on all their required places except the master wardrobe. The biggest disappointment is the stairs didn't go in, the glass company we chose have measured wrong so have cost themselves a lot of money due to the pieces being of custom size, and the top area glass has to be replaced as it has chips in it :-( The other big item (spa bath) I'm looking forward to seeing installed also still isn't in.

The tiles are practically all down bar 3 or 4 tiles at the front door, and for the most part the grouting has been done (Love the tiles!) The powder room is starting to look good, I'm looking forward to how it comes up when clean though! Door handles, towel rails and toilet roll holders are all in, and very shiny too :-) A few more toilets are in their places, I don't know if they are plumbed yet though.

Carpet is supposed to go in on Monday but I will be speaking with SS first thing as the creak in the master bedroom floor still isn't fixed despite SS saying the carpenter was going to fix it this week. They will have to rip up the carpet if they don't fix it!

A question for everyone; Our shower screen doors don't come down to the bottom of the shower, does this mean they are going to put one of those tacky lip things on it, or is it just designed that way? presumably all the water is going to spill out onto the floor?

The exterior balcony powdercoat aluminium balustrade has been delivered, Rick really dislikes it, I can't say I'm all that fussed on it either. It was in one of our cost cutting sprees....maybe we should have tried to find somewhere else to reduce costs, oh well, will see what it looks like when it's in and then maybe change it after hand over, there are DIY balustrade kits that have the aluminium wire that Rick likes so we will see what this one looks like and then decide from there.

I have received a few emails from readers that I haven't replied to yet sorry! I will get there ASAP!

Edit: I can't believe I left out the most important thing! We have a PCI and Handover date, only pencilled in of course, but looking at PCI for the 3rd August and handover on the 10th, I'm not getting too set on those dates just yet though...I will after the floor in the master is fixed, but that is more of a structural problem, I think?, which I really can't forsee being fixed quickly :-(

storage in hallway

Spare Bedroom mirror

Office storage/mirrored wardrobe      Glass temporarily in at top of stairs   

 Powder room taking shape, sorry about the middle photo not being straight!

Balustrade

It's all happening

Well things are still chugging along, I would say at a steady jogging pace at the moment. Here's what's happened and about to happen:

Plumbing still not all in but getting there, the plumber was there in the afternoon yesterday and has installed a toilet, a shower and a bath in the main bathroom area, but ensuite yet to be installed *eagerly awaits install of spa*

Air con guys have completed the fit off yesterday :-D

The data guys were there on Saturday and completed the data points, tv & phone points, intercom and ducted vac.

The glass balustrade is going in on Wednesday Yipeee!!

The tiler was supposed to have been there on Monday but is apparently running behind (so not there at all), but SS says he should be finished by Thursday.

The shower screens according the SS were supposed to go in a week and a half ago so presumably they will turn up sometime soon.

I have had our first curtain quote from Lincraft with their stocktake sale prices and with discount it came in at 10K jeepers!!! Ok so I may have picked a couple too many plantation shutters...but even the blockouts were a lot more expensive than I had expected! I budgeted 5k for curtains and blinds so clearly there is a lot of cutting back to do! I have another quote with Curtain wonderland this afternoon. I spent the 8 hours of my night shift yesterday scouring the internet high and low and have come up with a few good options (even started an excel spreadsheet!). I have ordered some samples so will see what we end up with. A couple of the places use the same fabric that Lincraft quoted on but at a much better rate, so hopefully I will be able to get most of what I want but a lot closer to budget! It was good to get an idea of colours and somewhat surprisingly silver seems to go quite well with the colour of the paint etc.

Also arranged last week for the phone & internet to be connected as TPG advise their turn around time is 10-20 business days! Which with a lot of hope and wishful thinking we could even be in in 20 working days!

We have a temporary cheap mailbox that we have attached to the fence with zip ties lol, and received our first real mail! (Rick had to renew his licence and didn't want to go through the hassle of changing the address in a few weeks time). For those interstate...yes QLD transport mail your licence to you!

And now for some pics:

Ducted Vac

Ensuite taps

Laundry taps

Kitchen tap

Air con, intercom and light

Air con

Main bathroom - being checked for leaks

Main bath toilet

Main bath shower 

Ducted vac point (1 of 5)

Ducted Vac dust pan in the kitchen 

B-folds with stain

Let there be light..UPDATED WITH PICS!!!

We got a call this morning from the sparky's saying "Hi  we're here can you please bring us your lights?" It was just as my husband was leaving the house, and I should have been at work but organized yesterday to have the day off, so luckily we were able to pack them all up in the car and take them straight over. Some notice from our SS would have been nice! but I don't mind too much because by this afternoon our lights will have all been installed!!!! woo hoo!! I'll come back and update this post with pics asap!!!

Update 6:25pm: Yipeeee!!! They are in!! Well the sparky's were still working at 5:30pm! We made a lot of hard work for them with the spa amp being required :-(  None of the lights are on in these photo's it is just the flash on my phone bouncing off. Can't wait to see them on!! And we had some deliveries today! Toilets, taps, bath and spa bath, and everything left plumbing wise woo hoo, looks like they will go in tomorrow!

So glad to see this go in! and look.. is that sparkle I can see? :-D

The pendants look great, even if I do say so myself, they seem so much bigger than in the photo though, but they really separate the kitchen and the dining which is awesome, so happy right now!

One of these is under each of the two cupboards

The paint doesn't look yellow at all, but in some pics my camera is still making it look that way (not this one though :-)

More kitchen - I could just stare at those pendants for hours and I swear they're not even on! This was taken on my husbands phone and the paint doesn't have that yellow tinge :-)

These are the downlights that are throughout the remainder of the house.

Main bath and spa all wrapped up 

LED stair lights

Entry way

Feature light!! We will do the little pieces ourselves as it will take approx 2 hours and it is just a matter of clipping them on but it will be fiddly!

(Just a reminder of what it will look like when complete - well hopefully!)

Heat lamp and spot lights for the mirror

Outdoor room lights

on the pillar

more pillar - forgot to take one of the whole facade