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Tuesday 2 July 2013

I havn't forgotten about this blog!

Hi All,

Just a quick note to let you all know that I haven't forgotten about you!

It turns out that the last 2 months of the build gets very hectic especially with trying to plan a move, the purchasing of additional furniture, flying around the country for work and deciding bits and pieces for our C-BUS home automation.

Just quickly we have actually moved in now. There are one or two items that are still due to be fixed up but I'll explain all this soon.

I'm in the process of laying a floating bamboo floor that I need to finish before this weekend for our daughters 2nd Birthday then I'll be back to update!


Tuesday 19 March 2013

Plaster - Sheets up

Today we have plaster!!! We arrived on site and could see instantly that the plasters had been on site. To our surprise they had plastered the entire house, ceiling, walls, alfresco and garage! Talk about fast! It makes a huge difference to see your house plastered. We didn't get there in the day light so we took a big flood light so we didn't get a feel for how well the windows provide lighting in the house. One thing that we noticed is that everything seems much smaller than before, I've heard this happens until things get painted and furniture gets installed.

Everything was going well until we realised that they hadn't levelled the ceiling correctly in the Games, Bed3 Hall way, Study and Family Room/Study Entrance. The worst one is the Study entrance as there is up to 1cm difference in a 50cm span! You can see it standing on the other side of the Kitchen. I will bring this up with the SS tomorrow.

We also noticed about 20 used cigarette butts all over the floor inside the house, even though there are signs front and back not to smoke inside the house. Some people just have no respect!

Happy we have plaster, but as expected because the SS didn't resolve the ceiling issues that I must have raised about 6 times to him before plaster, it has now become a bigger issue!

The next item that really stood out is the family room window height compared to the stacking sliding door, The window sits about 10cm higher than the stacking door and looks stupid as its the focus point of the room. When we were doing our tender/contract we spent about an hour with our tender/contract presenter trying to get all the doors/windows lined up. We were assured that it would look fine... Well it doesn't! And then when Porter Davis didn't realise that the eaves over hang the rear of the property until site start they made us reduce our 450mm eaves to 350mm eaves around the entire house at the last minute and as our windows are set at the bottom of the eave it means the window is now higher again! ARG

I was going to speak to the SS about trying to reset the study/family room windows to sit on the bottom plate, but I know I'll just end up spending $$ and have will get a shitty job done matching the brick mortar. So in the end we have decided that we will fix it using a pelmet across both windows.


Entrance

Standing in Kitchen looking towards Dinning/Family (I hate that window!)

Standing in Family looking towards front door.

Family looking towards study/lounge

Hallway looking into Family/Kitchen

Kitchen / Pantry

Lounge entrance

Lounge

Lounge

Games Room

Study / Store

Study, It looks very "cozy" but I think once painted/furniture should look okay.

Master Bedroom

Master Bed WIR

Master Bed Entrance

Ensuite

Ensuite Wall

Ensuite SPA!

Ensuite Shower and Toilet

Bed2 (Guests room)

Bed2 / (Guests room)

Bed3

Laundry (thanks for getting plaster on my door that will get stained!)

Bathroom / Shower

WC Toilet

Alfresco

Garage

Garage

Monday 18 March 2013

Bricks - Cleaned, Plumbing Fixed

We are almost at lockup, in fact when we went last night every door and window was locked...except one!

The bricks were cleaned today, they look great, I did notice that where they fixed the mortar colour at the front left side of the garage now looks brighter than the rest of the area.

The plumber has come and finally moved the drainage points for the master bedroom toilet, the basin drain for the garage, and also moved the drain point in the pantry which I wasn't aware that he was going to move.

I was also told that our plastering should have started on Friday and that they have a 7 day contract. Oh well I bet tomorrow we see some plaster up.

Note the photos have a slight yellow/orange ting due to the sunset.

Plumbing fixed and centred.

Plumbing moved in Garage

Plumbing moved in Pantry

Portico, Master Bed, WIR

Garage - Can you see the motor difference?

Master Bed / WIR

Bricks Cleaned - Bed side of house.

Looking down bed side of house to rear fence

Bricks Cleaned - Bed side of house from laundry to rear yard

Bricks Cleaned - Bed side of house, looking towards street from Bathroom

Bricks cleaned - Bed4 and Games.

Bed4/Games and Solar Hot Water panel

Alfresco looks nice and tidy with bricks cleaned.

Sliding door has returned and been reinstalled. The large chip is gone and replaced with two smaller chips in the top left corner.

Close up of the new smaller chips.

Alfresco / Lounge / Garage

Friday 15 March 2013

No Plaster!

So today we were expecting to see some section of the house plastered, but when we arrived no a single piece of plaster was installed. This was a pretty big disappointment we really hoped to see some progress, its like we get one item fixed per few days and then no progress.

I noticed that they had levelled or should i say attempted as there is still a 7mm gap between trusses!!, and the area in the hallway next to Bed3 hasn't even been attempted. I will be letting the SS know that I won't accept handover with a non level ceiling so he has more interest in fix it now.

Also sitting in our Garage was our stacking sliding door that had been returned now with new black tape on its fascia, I pealed a little bit back and could not see the original chip, but found another spot in the top corner that had be chipped thou alot smaller. I also noticed that they didn't fix the bottom track of the frame where it was chipped, this is getting beyond a joke.

The plumbing hasn't been siliconed in the wall correctly, I asked the SS when I was there last Friday if he could do this and he said no problem, then I reminded him on Tuesday and its still not done. I guess I'll have to just do it myself on the weekend as I'm not having banging pipes in my walls.

Some new plumbing work had been done in the last few days where the main incoming gas pipe has been run and fitted off.  As we were leaving we also noticed that they have fixed the mortar colour on the Garage bricks, I can't even tell the difference!

One thing seems to have been done today. Rendering for the Front Master Bed Window Casements

The bedroom reveals haven't been fixed or even attempted. SS said he would get the carpenter to come back and fix them all. Not one has been touched.





Casement coverings on Front Windows

Master Bed Window Rendered

More Render

The Fixed the rip in insulation in the Garage

Door Frame is back... but still scratched at the bottom?!?!

I hope they don't think they can leave this in there....