19.10.10

Rollercoaster..

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , , ,

Well this week has been a roller-coaster of emotion. The house is so nearly finished we could live there. But there are these annoying last things needed like 'plumbing' etc, that are stopping us from finalising things.


We were told yesterday by our Building Manager that because tradies aren't turning up to jobs, that it would be at least another 4 weeks until we could look at moving into the house. This threw everything out of whack and messed up our end date for our current rental, not to mention trying to plan time off work, trucks and finalising appointments.

We were both so frustrated yesterday and there was nothing we could do about it! After a couple of people's recommendations, today we started to rattle a few cages. We pressed with our Building Manager about our need to finish the house by the end date we gave notice on our rental. And after lots of back and forth, he is going to try and push it thru by the beginning of November. So we'll see if this happens.

This Friday we have the final inspection, and we're hoping the bank can then jump to it and everything will finalise within a couple of weeks.

Fortunately today, we went to look thru the windows of the house, and our Building Manager turned up. We were able to look through the house.

The final coat on the front doors was done,
looking so good. We were able to walk on our carpet, and experience the upgraded underlay to improve the life of our carpet! I recommend if you can afford to get the highest quality underlay then do it, its very nice to walk on; and it's meant to lengthen the life and durability of your carpet.

They have also taken away the wire bin and toilet, so the front of our house is looking great! In the next couple of days the render will be finished. Today they had painted the moulding on top of the render, and then they will finish the render with the last coat.

So it's looking great, and if our Building Manager can just get the tradies to return we will be enjoying our home very soon!!

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21.9.10

Tiles & Garage door!

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,

We came home early yesterday from our holiday because we all came down with colds and it was raining all week at the beach. And it was just as well, because last night the builder called us to say they were starting the tiling today and wanted us to check all the tiles before they got too far.


So this morning we went out to meet the tiler and builder and they had half tiled the family room when we got there. It is looking great so far, and all the tiles are the ones we chose.

We didn't realise that the tiles for the shower had the choice to go vertical or horizontal. Something they didn't ask us at our tile appointment. So on the spot we had to decide which way we wanted the wall tiles to go. We chose vertical for the wall tiles in the showers.

The other thing was we didn't realise the tiles for the side and top of the bath would be the same as the floor tiles. They did give us the option to change that today on the spot, but we decided to go with the same floor tiles on and around the bath. Apparently the norm for baths is to go with the same tile as the floor.
According to our tiler it should all be finished by this Saturday, this includes all the tiles in the bathrooms and laundry as well.

Sometime today the splashback for the kitchen went in too, I hope to have photos of that next time.

We were very excited to see that the garage door had been installed. Garage doors in our estate have to be the sectional doors, no roller door types. The colour is Ironstone and is the same colour as the roof and gutters. We were wondering if the colour was going to be too much, but I think when the render is finally finished and the doors are on it will all look really good.

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21.8.10

Coming along.....

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , , ,



This week the house is coasting along nicely.
They have installed all the cupboards and island bench for the kitchen. All the cabinets and drawers are in, and the kitchen sink has been delivered.

Not sure when the Caesar stone benches will arrive, but that and the appliances will finish off the kitchen.





The ensuite cupboards have been installed, notice they are also the same wood as the kitchen cupboards. We've kept the same look flowing through the house, with similar colours throughout.

This week the render will start on the front of the house, and the tiler will begin.

My husband finally met our Building Manager on Friday; he said they were flying along well. The Building Inspector came to survey the house and brickwork etc; apparently he was impressed with the quality of the house and immaculate brickwork and gave the big thumbs up!


The incorrect mortar colour has still been an issue. We have noticed that since the mortar has dried it looks a lot more grey which is unfortunate, but Porter Davis have agreed (after some haggling), to compensate us for their mistake. So we should be able to maybe get our driveway done at their expense!

The render will go from halfway up the window (in the picture above), down to the bottom, and then cover most of the portico.

Our Building Manager also informed us that because they are moving so quickly we could be in sooner than first thought. Our 20 week build guarantee from Porter Davis, put us as being in by mid October. It's now looking like we could be in around the end of September. That gives us a month! So today we started packing. Very exciting!!

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23.6.10

Windows are in....

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,


I did a drive-by our house today to see if there were any new additions; and I found all the windows had been added.

Last Saturday when we walked through the frame the windows had all been delivered and were sitting waiting in the Alfresco area.

With all the windows in today the house looked surprisingly tidy; I guess it will look like that till the next lot of building materials are delivered.

To update from our last post, our building manager had no problem in correcting the fridge space to the correct side, next to the hallway. And he told my husband it will be corrected immediately.

Meanwhile Porter Davis were in a frenzy trying to work out how the wrong plans were given to the building manager instead of the modified ones we had previously signed off on.

Apparently someone within the borders of Porter Davis had got confused and sent the wrong plans to the builder.

Important as a customer to keep your eye on the building process and raise any issues as quickly as you can.

Because we found the incorrect fridge position early when only the frame for it was built, it has been very easy to change it at this early stage. Much easier than if they had gone as far as putting the kitchen cabinets in.




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8.6.10

"Houston we have a slab"!!

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , ,

Today was going to be slab day.

Our building manager had informed us that today the slab would go down. As it has been raining heaps in the past weeks, we were a little worried the weather might dampen our plans, but today was sunny and dry, and being the only day in this week rain is not forecast we were very thankful.

I've heard a lot of people say that when they see the slab they wonder how their house will fit in that space it looks so small; well we were shocked at the size of our slab. We knew our house plan, the Camberwell 29 didn't give us much yard and was a big plan of 32 squares including garage, but we were amazed how big it actually looked on our land.
As we are on a hill and our block is quite flat the
edges of our land is sloped, so there will be a fair bit of landscaping and maybe even the need for a retaining wall.

In the photo to the left, the gravelly looking cement in the front is our Alfresco where we will eventually build a deck.

I think our slab will be higher than a lot of the houses surrounding because they have had to cut into their blocks, where because ours was so flat, they have put the slab on top. Exciting!!

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