100th post - going into Week 31 of build..

Visited the house over the weekend to see if anything new had appeared before our eyes, and a few things had been going on..

The painters have been plugging away (not that fast mind you - makes me wonder if they were there on Friday at all..), and the doors appear to have had a second coat of stain (which isn't as dark as I had hoped :( ), and all the architraves appear to be finished. On quick inspection the painting seems to be of a good quality which is great.

They still have to finish staining the stairs, and the skirtings need doing (2 coats), and walls all need a second coat.

We finally have a replacement for a window that was smashed by the gyprockers way back in January sometime in one of the bedrooms.

Also, I noted a week or so back someone had written in pencil on the bulkhead in the kitchen that it needed to be raised 120mm - seems as though that has been happening as our very expensive white poly cabinet doors have been removed and are haphazardly leaning against each other propped on the slab. I will be checking very closely for scratches..

Some pics:

The Laundry and Powder Room doors (I am very happy that they have taken all doors off hinges to properly paint them - have heard many stories of doors not painted top and bottom!)

Some of my kitchen cabinet doors & bits and pieces looking slightly less than pristine

My gorgeous poly doors like the leaning tower of Pisa..

The offending bulkhead - not sure what the issue was..

Oh - the A/C ducts have been fitted - looking much neater and closer to finished up on the ceilings now

Doors stained

Must remember to ask our SS about this gap under the door to the garage. Stairs still to be fitted - hope it wont look dodgy when finished..

Rainwater sticker next to toilet - wonder how long that will last after handover ;) ?

Not sure I knew the toilets used tank water - very happy about that!

The bath - sans painter ;)

Bathrooms looking close to finished now - just need final coat of paint, shower screens, mirrors and powerpoints and light switches..

A nice big dent in the roofing over the study - already collecting dirt from the rain pooling in that spot..

Front door stained - and still riddled with pox!

Looking very forward to seeing these spaces CLEAN and finished - two of my favourite rooms in the house so far!

Hello daylight! Pretty sure you aren't supposed to see the outside world through there!

I spoke to our SS on Friday who told me this week will see the painters plugging away (and I assume finish up), the carpenter come back and finish the cladding in a few spots, the Tassie Oak lining on the Outdoor Room ceiling and a load of other small jobs, and he said soon we will see shower screens/wardrobe fit outs etc.

The interior of all wardrobes and the pantry and linen cupboards seem to be painted and finished so that could be happening very soon. I guess everything should be happening really soon seeing as though he told us it would be ready for presentation the first week of April - ha!

So - we are SO close, yet SO far. At this stage I should be excited and anticipating a move in - although I just feel like it will never end and am feeling very overwhelmed by the enormity of trying to organise so many things while keeping up with day to day life all the while not having even a PCI date yet.

This will be week 31 of an apparent 32 week build according to the contract..Hmmm

Woo hoo - Loo!

After a quiet day yesterday at the house - Jason drove by and there were no tradies on site (despite the painters having been there on Tuesday), today was a hive of activity!

Jason mentioned that there were toilets and a bath in the study yesterday so I knew plumbing was imminent!

I rocked up late this arvo to meet a guy to talk about gates and fences and the painters were working away (at 5pm), and we have toilets, taps and a bath!! Running water - what luxury!!

I noticed on the weekend the garage door people measured up last week for our garage door so I expect to see that sometime next week hopefully..

Here are a few photos from today, I didn't take too many as I didn't want to get in the painters way.

Front door - glass still to be reglazed to translucent

Staircase with first coat of stain - Intergrain Merbau (I hope the final coat is much darker!)

Powder room sink and tap - super exciting!

Cold water point for fridge - definitely photo worthy eh ? ;)

Toilet - exciting but not so exciting..LOL

Ensuite shower with lovely rainfall showerhead

Ensuite tap

From another angle ;)

Bathroom shower

Bathroom tap

Bathroom tap & mixer - complete with painter standing in our bath!

Gorgeous bath - looking forward to a soak in here in Winter

So the painters seem to have been concentrating on the architraves so far which are looking amazing in gorgeous glossy Dulux Lexicon (half strength), and the staining of all the timber. There were three painters on site today as far as I could see. Not sure how much longer they will be there but I imagine it will be a good 3-4 days (could be less, not too sure!). They haven't done a 2nd coat on the walls yet, and the skirtings still need to be done too.

We should be getting an update from our SS tomorrow on the schedule for next week, looking forward to hearing what is planned.

Until then!

Fly by update..

Just a quick update - things are slowly progressing ;)

Today a grand total of FOUR painters (Sandrine - four! Can you believe it??) were working at the house when I drove by at 9am - and the truck was still there at 4.15pm - nice to see some tradies who put in a full day!

I'm keen to see how long it takes them to finish with four of them on the job. They have a lot to do - the second coat on all walls, skirtings, architraves and all the doors and timber windows in the master need staining, as do the stairs.

I've been busy organising things in the lead up to handover too. We ordered our bed (FINALLY decided on one!), mattress (SO looking forward to king size!) & our sons mattress on Sunday at Domayne, I've been talking to wardrobe & cabinetry places and today, with much joy, I locked in our carpet!

Yesterday I was at Bella Vista and had some time up my sleeve so decided to pop into Carpet Court. There was a guy there talking to a guy from Metricon head office which intrigued me.. When he heard I was building with Metricon he told me he would look after my quote - hhmm.
Long story short? Apparently Metricon & Carpet Call have a deal and Carpet Call 'look after' Metricon clients if they send them over ;)

So - I chose a carpet, got a quote today and its all locked it - woot!

Will post some pics of the paint once its finished ;)

End of another week.

Popped by the house today, hadn't been there since Tuesday. I was pleased to see the tilers had finally tiled the balconies, (minus a skirting tile on the main balcony) it's only been about 5 or 6 weeks since they started our job!

For those counting along - we are entering week 30 of the build (eek!)

They also grouted the stacked stone tiles around the bath, the mosaics in the powder room and around the kitchen window and finished off lots of other grouting (yay!).

They still need to come back however as the tiles that were ripped off in the laundry to make way for architraves took off the gyprock and that has yet to be patched up. So once that is patched the tilers need to finish off in there..

According to our SS carpenters were to be onsite 'over the weekend' to fix an issue with our huge stacking sliders (very noticable sagging under the frame of one set) but they weren't there when I stopped by.

This one is for Reinsey - the splashback mosaics sans yellow backing paper ;) -

Excuse the rubbish quality photos - my POS point and shoot often decides the just die in my bag regardless of how much charge the battery had last time I used it - so these are from my iphone and the light was terrible (rainy, grey day here today).

The tiles are still very dirty from grouting and look more silver in these pics than they actually are. LOVE.

I think the gyprock needs to be repaired here no? ;)

Powder room mosaics grouted

Happy!

Toilet skirting tile grouted too..

Bath stacked stone tiles grouted - I bet thats not the easiest job!

Front balcony tiled - happy happy day :)

Hmmm - somethin' ain't right here... look closely at the wall/skirting..

Our SS has informed us that everything has been booked in right up to completion so I imagine things will really start moving soon..

Painter back this week, not sure about what else is booked in so it will be interesting to see if anything happens in conjunction with painting.

Have a great weekend!

Koko Black

Jason has been in Melbourne for work today and yesterday so naturally I had him visit one of my favourite places in Melbourne - Koko Black - and pick me up some of my favourite treats!

I envy Melbourne locals being able to pop in and have  Belgian Spoil or a delicious Iced Chocolate on a whim. We can have their wares shipped here to Sydney but alas I don't think Chocolate Mousse would hold up well in the post ;)

Koko Black has a salon in Canberra and are opening one in Perth - still no love for Sydney :(

C'mon Koko Black - Canberra? Perth?? Plleeeeease...Sydney next!!??

Hope you all enjoyed that chocolatey break from my moaning..back to normal transmission tomorrow..

Estimated PCI pushed back - no surprises there.

Jason spoke to our SS today in regard to possibly gaining permission to have our solar panels installed ASAP - thanks to the government we may now miss out on the 60c rebate we signed up for - by the time we can get our panels installed. Pretty sure that answer will be a definite NO.

Apparently in this conversation our SS told Jason he now hopes for 'presentation' the first week of April - gee I'm shocked. NOT.

What annoys me about this is I was super doubtful when he initially told me he was looking at the end of March but he kept reassuring me things were on track. Between Friday last week and today things seem to have run off track.

Sure, thats the building game but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

Maybe if trades were actually there even half the days of most weeks it would be finished on time?

Cynical? - yes, this build has taught me nothing but to not believe it until I see it..

*sigh*

Oh well, looks like Easter will now be a wasted opportunity.

Busy Busy Busy - me, not so much the house!

Just a quick one to let you all know I am still here plugging away ;)

I'm having a crazy week, our son has been pretty unwell with a respiratory tract infection, which meant his usual daycare days (Monday/Tuesday) were out the window this week - meaning the 101 things I needed to get done on those days fell by the wayside.

Such is life I guess!

I did have a few things I couldn't cancel so he had to tow along with me, and I have managed to book a few things in for next week, make some calls and send emails and do a bit of research for the house.

Jason is in Melbourne for work today and tomorrow also, so things are a little busier than normal due to that too.

Our window coverings are now all organised and measured for so they will be ready in 6-8 weeks (redishades here we come in the interim!), and we think we found a new bamboo flooring place on the weekend - $20 per m less than the original one! (Tonia - still need to call George!!), and I have been researching cabinetry companies who can fit out our built ins and build me some custom cabinetry all in one visit which would be great!

Still have LOADS to do but I am sure we will get there!

Not much happening at the house as far as I know - a plumber was there doing downpipes on Monday morning when I drove by. Tilers due back Tue/Wed (they weren't there yesterday morning today I assume..), then the painter is due back.

A question for those who have had their place painted so far - our painter has left an area close to most architraves and skirtings that he hasn't painted at all - my concern here is that those spots are only going to get one coat in the end - which isn't acceptable in my opinion - anyone else had that happen??

I have emailed our SS a list of a few things I had questions about but I didn't mention that - probably should have!

The end of the month is inching closer and closer - will it really bring us a practically completed house?? I wonder (and PRAY!)..

Another week gone..

And a few steps closer to completion.

It seems the carpenters have been back to the house sometime this week, as have the tilers (hooray!).

We now have a beautiful door pull attached to our front door - happy day!

I've read so many blogs where the lock and handle have been installed at weird heights so I am happy to report ours are at a perfect height :)

Glass still to be reglazed to be translucent. Lots of the blue dots around the house have now taken up residence on the floor..LOL

All external doors now have locks on them which is good ;)

On a recent trip to the house I discovered we have a few rogue tomato plants growing around the back (quite close to the house) and today I noticed tomatoes on one of them!

We didn't ever have tomato plants in our yard so they must've sprouted from the leftovers from someone's lunch!

Thriving in between broken roof tiles and building debris

The current view from the kitchen & dining room - a building wasteland!! Complete with leftover wafflepods thrown in for good measure. The block is going to look amazing once the site has been cleaned and leveled off a bit.

I love how neatly the stacker doors stack - there are 3 panels there stacked on the right - nice and neat, perfect for a slightly OCD perfectionist like moi!

A sneaky teaser peek at the kitchen mosaics - D Y I N G to see these grouted and cleaned up!!

Also I could tell from the 'new' pile of concrete waste on the massive pile of rubbish out the front that the tilers had been back -YAY!

And when I investigated I saw they had laid the beds of concrete for the balconies. Nice.

Master bedroom balcony

Ensuite tiles are also finished - just need grouting now

In addition to the carpenters fitting the door handles they have also done this:

Not sure what I think about that arrangement. I don't remember knowing this would be the way these two sheets of gyprock would be joined. I remember having a conversation at contract stage about wether or not we wanted a 'line' there (for want of a better way to describe it - at the display home there is a line in the join, which cost extra. I'm pretty sure I was under the impression standard was just for the joins to be filled and sanded like all the other gyprock joins. Oh well, no biggie, just wasn't expecting it!

So aside from those bits and pieces, some bricks have been delivered (also exciting - I suppose bricklayers are imminent!!) that seems to be it for the week.

Looking forward to our weekly SS call this afternoon for an update on what is to come next week.

This weekend its more bed shopping for us - yay.. Can you feel the enthusiasm??

Happy to say I locked in our window coverings, and the ball is rolling on those. Carpets still to be done, and on Tuesday I drove to the flooring place I had lined up to do our bamboo flooring (as we used them previously) and it was closed up with a sign saying they were closed until further notice. NOOO!

So now I have to find a new flooring place to do our floors - add that to the list!

See you all next week - have a great weekend!