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

Week ending 01/07/2012 Painting almost complete

The painting is almost finished! apparently they are back to finish up on Monday and then “fit out” will happen for the rest of the week, toilets, baths etc, absolutely can’t wait for that! I wonder if they would notice if I sneaked in somehow over next weekend and tried our new spa bath (presumably it will be installed), oh yeah we don’t have power connected...dammit! oh well hopefully not toooo many more weeks to go. The paint has grown on me, when we are at the house it looks fine but I am still struggling to get a decent photo that doesn’t have a yellow tinge. We are really loving the gloss paint on the doors, it is really shiny and brightens up an otherwise standard door, it wasn’t something we asked for just part of the Metricon inclusion, but it is a nice surprise.

 The splashback does look better with the covers off, and the smidge of green can be seen. Maybe it was just a communication break-down with the studio M consultant about just how green we wanted it....though I did take a sample...oh well..it was pretty much the last thing we picked so who knows. I was at the house in the morning on Friday (the sun was out) and you could see the metallic fleck in the splashback! Yay!

In the weird and wacky, someone has “written” in Japanese Kanji in the dust on our glass sliding bedroom door (like when people write in the dust on cars “wash me”) . I tried taking a photo but the door isn’t quite dirty enough to be able to make out the characters, I wish I knew what it said!!! My year 12 Japanese is quite rusty. And I didn’t see any Japanese painters when I was there on Friday, and as far as I was aware there weren’t any other trades at the house this week. It is probably something boring, like ‘don’t forget to pick up milk on the way home’ lol

We bought a new king size bed & mattress a few weeks back, I can’t wait to be sleeping in it!!! And in other news we have some new family members from the RSPCA.  Meet Yoshi (the black one with green eyes) and Simba (the grey one). The house was just so empty without Ebony I couldn’t wait until we were in the new house, and I would also prefer to train them in our old house with old carpet and old bed, with old linen than the new one! It has been much easier having them around and I have been less focused on the build which has been nice.

Next on my list of things to organize: Curtains! I need suggestions on colours, types, blinds etc? I am anti any blind that has a metal rod  at the bottom that bangs against the window and makes noise every time a breeze comes through. Any suggestions (especially colour scheme) would be much appreciated!!

Have a great week everyone.

don't let their cuteness fool you, we are destructive!

glossy doors

This one with the painter is probably the best picture I have that gives you a true indication of the colour when in the house with the naked eye.

splashback without covers

P.s Sorry to anyone following by email, I changed the title of one of my posts and it put it at the top, which then took me a bit to figure out how to move it back to where it should be!