Back to reality.

So we spent the weekend at the amazing Bannisters at Mollymook and for me especially it involved a whole lot of looking at this:

The pool at dusk.

The pool at 9am

The pool and lunch :)

Dessert at Rick Stein @ Bannisters Restaurant

The view from our table at breakfast.

.....With quite a few beverages and delicious food thrown in for good measure.

But alas the weekend is over and today was a busy day on the house front.

Back with that news later!

Drive by post

I did a quick drive by of the site today (around 10am) as I was in the area, thinking I might see some exciting things happen but it was all quiet.

The roof looks like it is pretty much done (from what I could see quickly from the car), and the downpipes appear to have been installed.

The large door frames have been taken away as our SS said they would be, and it looks as though scaffolding has been erected inside the garage - possibly so the chippies can access the top storey exterior to install the cladding any day now. No sign of cladding on site though at this stage.

I noticed water running down the street and traced it back to our site so I hope the tap hasn't been left running! Speaking of water - we need to chase up Sydney Water to find out why our last water bill was the same as the previous one when there was no house on the site (nor a tap!!) for half the billing period. Estimate bill perhaps? Thats a bit rude!!

I won't be back at the house until Monday AM when I have a meeting onsite with our SS to take lots of photos of noggins etc before the walls go up and to have a good look around and to ask him a million questions..

Something else I have to chase up is a letter we received way back in August right before work commenced on site, from a firm claiming we have appointed them our Principal Certifying Authority (PCA) for the build. I forgot all about it thinking it was a letter from a company Metricon uses to do inspections but upon finding it and reading it appears we need to organise these "critical stage inspections" at regular intervals throughout the build.. I'm confused!
We need to chase that up as its a bit late now for a slab and pier inspection to be organised by us!! I was under the understanding that you could arrange for independant inspectors to carry out inspections on your behalf but it wasnt mandatory - whereas the wording in this letter suggests it is mandatory.. I don't remember ever "apponting" anyone as our PCA so..oops!

Anyone else get a letter like this in Sydney before starting their build?

Ok, this post was waaay longer than intended so I will leave you with the hope that we will see eaves, cladding & clean bricks on Monday after a weekend away, and a few quick pics from today - not much new to see sadly!

Lots of broken roof tiles. The front of site is pretty messy actually and needs a good clean up!

Not sure if I mentioned the colour of the cladding will be Dulux Dreyfus,

and the small area of cladding upstairs in the Master bedroom balcony will be Dulux Grey Pebble.

*exhale*

Ok so the big boys birthday and subsequent party is over - and after a solid week (well, longer really) of sitting every night and cutting crafty things out (yes, I have a blister to prove it) and a few solid days of getting everything ready I can now think about the million other things in my head at this time of year!

So, a house update - the electricians were indeed there doing their pre-wire on Wednesday and Thursday. I recevied a phone call from the girl in the Metricon office who works for the electricians on Wednesday to let me know that on my plans there was a sub board marked to go in the garage as we had too many circuits to fit on the switchboard, however at planning stage she didn't realise our switchboard was going on the opposite side of the house (however the sparkies obviously didn't realise this at first when they installed the power pole on the garage side of the property originally).
This meant that to wire the switchboard to the sub board was going to require a lot of extra wiring that would potentially cost around $1000, which wasn't in the quote as she didn't notice the position of the switchboard.
Her boss said he was going to try to fit all the circuits in the switchboard which meant we may be able to eliminate the need for that sub board and get a $580 refund. Yeah!

Next day she called back to say he wasn't able to fit the circuits on so we weren't going to be getting the refund however they wouldn't charge us for the extra wiring cost as it was a mistake on their behalf. So thats A-ok with us.

We have so many circuits as I have added provisions for outdoor lights, a future pool and its lights,pump etc, and we have lots of lights & powerpoints inside the house - better to be able to handle the load than not, I say!

We are getting standard batten light fittings throughout the house (except in bathrooms where they are installing downlights) and are changing them all after handover.

Jason went past the site on Friday and the AC guy was there installing all the ducting for our ducted system - and it seems lucky he did so as he asked Jason where the control panels for the AC were to be placed.
The position of the downstairs one is marked on the electrical plan so he must not have had a copy.
When we did the electrical plan initially I requested a 2nd control pad (standard is one - how ridiculous for a 2 storey house!!) but it was inadvertantly left off the plan so it was added later, we were charged for it - a hefty $550 when the AC already costs around $14K - but it appears to have been left off the final plan.
No matter though, they should be in the right spot now.

Jason had to go onsite to show the guy where to put the control panels so he snapped a few pics while he was in there.

Oh, and our beautiful big timber sliders & sliding stacking doors have been delivered!! The frames were just sitting outside the house leaning up against the garage when Jason drove by on Friday and Saturday - probably would have been good of they had put them inside out of view (and out of the torrential rain that battered our suburb on Saturday, but if they get pinched its not our problem I guess..

Woo! How exciting!

So I guess the brickies still need to go back and brick up this hole where they thought the meter box was going..

Ducting

Panels for sliding doors. Cant wait to see those installed and stained :)

Frames for doors.

I love these doors! We chose stacking sliders and sliders over bi-fold mainly due to the HUGE cost difference. Our house came with one set of bi-folds due to the promotion package we took, so we swapped that out for sliders which worked out well cost wise. These doors (3 sets in total) will open up the dining and lounge area so much I think it will be fine having a fixed panel as opposed to the open space bi-folds provide.

Apparently we are due for brick cleaning this week among other things so I am awaiting a call from our SS and will update when I have something interesting to report!

EDIT:

Have just spoken with our SS - the doors have been delivered too early and he has asked for them to be picked up again tomorrow, he said he doesnt want them there until after gyprocking is done to lessen the chance of damage ( I like his style!).

In other news: Electricians will be back to finish the rough in this week, the roof is currently missing about 10 square m's of tile as they ran out so that will be finished Tue/Wed (hopefully), eaves and cladding will go on this week also (so excited about that!) and the bricks will be cleaned. BIG week on site - this will be the last week we are driven by the weather so we need it to behave!!

The following week: - we will meet on site so I can check things out before gyprock starts, I want to take pics of all the walls to help locate noggins etc once the gyprock goes up, and that week gyprock will start.

The staircase will go in that week or the following.

Its ALL happening now!!

A break in transmission..

What an absolutely STUNNING day here in Sydney! A very welcome relief to the stormy rainy days we have seen lately.

Whats happening at the house?

I have no idea because today we are focused on our son and celebrating his 2nd Birthday! Happy Birthday CJ :)

We enjoyed a wonderful day filled with fun, presents, cake, a lovely afternoon in the pool enjoying the sun and will finish it with dinner at a restaurant soon.

I think the electricians are at the house doing their rough in because I have received calls today and yesterday about a few minor issues (which funnily kind of tie in with the power pole being installed in the wrong spot originally..) that I will go into later, and hopefully the bricks will be cleaned tomorrow or Friday but I cant be sure of that either.

I'm actually dying to go over and see whats happening but that won't happen until after the birthday party on Sunday.

Until then..

Doing a happy dance!

You guessed it folks - we have a ROOF!

I was scared to look out the window this morning, expecting the weather to be against us after some ferocious storms ripped through the Sydney area last night - and it had been raining but maybe not at the block :)

So after receiving confirmation from our SS that the roofers were indeed working today our son and I swung by on our way home from Gymbaroo class - and even he was super excited to see so much happening!!

Six guys working away!

Back view  - not far off complete

From a few houses up the street - due to the curve of our street and the setback of the two houses next door our place looks massive!

A tiny section left to add tiles - then I guess its onto the capping etc. These were taken at 11am so I assume they will finish today. SO happy to finally see that roof!!

I sent Jason a photo from my iphone and he thinks the tiles look blue! I hope not!!

Now bring on the carpenters and cladding..

NOT happy Jan...

Ok so after the wet weather held up the roof going on late last week we were told if it didn't happen Saturday, Monday would be the day. I was thrilled to see the sun this morning however storms are forecast for late this afternoon. No problem I thought, tradesmen start early, they should get most of it on before it rains..
I get a text from Jason at 9am telling me the site is empty. Again.

Jason sent our SS a message and got a super fast response telling us he was on it.

Just got word that tomorrow there will be a large crew there and it will be done.

No idea why they are not there today. The forecast for tomorrow involves rain, so let's see what the morning brings. If it rains I will scream!!!

In three weeks there has been about 2.5 days work completed on site, and we are dying to see something happen soon..

Sorry for the vent folks, I am sure those of you building feel my pain!

Another rainy morning

Unfortunately it was raining first thing this morning so no work took place on site. It had stopped by 8am and was dry the rest of the day but our SS explained to Jason that they decide at 6am if it is too wet to work (to comply with OH&S regulations), regardless of whether or not it dries out during the day.

So I drove past the house on my way home from a day out with our son and this is what I saw:

I am loving the look of the bricks right up to the fascia at the back there, really happy with my colour selection!

No roof tiles on yet - seems yesterday all they did was prep ready to put the tiles on. Doesn't seem like they were there all that long yesterday. Mind you I'm no expert on what they had to do to prepare. I know they put those yellow barriers up..

Our SS told Jason he was going to see if they could work tomorrow, not sure how the weather will be at 6am though:) The forecast is : Cloudy, Isolated showers. Not sure if they can work but if they can lets hope the rain is not at our house!

In other news our Customer Service girl called to see how things were going.  I find it interesting that if anyone calls they always call Jason, despite the fact that they know I did all the Studio M selections alone, and every contact with Customer Service has been from me, haha. She has probably had enough of my voice ;)

Happy Weekend everyone - I hope all of you building see some action over the weekend and coming week!