Saturday Surprises

I had the pleasure of sneaking past the house today and was pretty happy with the amount of progress that greeted me.

As I knew, the brickies had been and tidied up lots of loose ends which is fantastic. The meter box has been moved (which is fab as an electrician friend had questioned where it was previously..), the original hole in the wrong side of the house has been bricked up, the windows have been finished, outside the powder room (where the window was moved over) has been fixed up and we now have front steps and a step from the garage into the house. Must've been a problem with the front steps however as one is missing.

In other news- the front balcony balustrade is done, the wardrobes have been fitted out, the wardrobe doors are on, the linen cupboards and pantry shelves are in (although I added an extra shelf in the pantry and walk in linen which haven't been done (I'm guessing someone didn't check the plans! ).

Kitchen cupboard doors are still on the floor (and have been moved again!) - I've had a look and there are scratches on the bottom so will be mentioning that to our SS.

FINALLY the largest bank of stacking sliding doors has been properly packed underneath, is level and shuts - happy day!

Some pics:

Excuse the light - it is a miserable wet day here today and it was raining at the time.

Front steps minus one? Or maybe they have allowed for fill? Pretty sure there are 3 on the plans

Wonky light ;)

Step in garage - exciting stuff huh?

Walk in pantry shelves - one more to be added

Gyprock STILL to be patched in here - then tilers need to come back. Doors removed under sink for some reason too..

Outside powder room windows - hows that for an exciting photo?

Step into garage - to be finished off I assume :)

Powder room - mirror still to come

Wardrobe doors fitted

Balustrade fitted - on plans its states ' aluminium handrail' - I don't remember choosing a colour for it but I must have!

Linen cupboard #1

Wardrobe doors - master bedroom

'Matrix' panelling fixed - and corrected after our SS saw it and wasn't happy with it (neither was I so I'm glad he agreed!).  Looking forward to seeing it painted.

Two out of these three panels have chipped corners..

Looking back into master bedroom

Looking from Master Bed back through house

Ensuite - shower screen to be fitted. Cannot wait to see the house clean - its SO dirty!

Looking out to Master balcony

Master Bedroom

My walk in :) To be fitted professionally after handover!

Walk in linen cupboard

Ooops - chipped door - walk in linen cupboard

Looking through leisure room to Master Bedroom

Coming down stairs looking into study and entry

Cut out in loungeroom - view will be much nicer post landscaping!

Kitchen and family room

No hole!! Hooray! 

Garage side of house

Its a jungle out there

Looking up!

Its a long way up!

So - where to now?

Now the garage door can go on, still waiting for mirrors and shower screens (house can't be deemed habitable until they're fitted I believe?), that laundry issue has to be fixed, kitchen doors need to be sorted, painters need to come back, sparkies need to finish a few things and a few other odds and ends need doing.

House will be cleaned late this coming week apparently and our SS is hoping for PCI late this week too - although my money is on the week after Easter personally.

So close I can taste it.

A short getaway ;)

I have just returned from a few days in the gorgeous Hunter Valley with our son and a friend.

Nothing like a few days in wine country to forget about the madness of building a house!

I was last at the house on Tuesday and we now are the proud owners of door handles, toilet roll holders, and hand towel rings! Super exciting!! Oh, and door stops. LOL.
The carpenters had been back for another day on Tuesday but still hadn't finished as the Tassie Oak lining for the Outdoor Room was still unfixed.

Jason met our brickie at the house at 8am yesterday to talk about the letterbox (which we all decided would be better to do once the driveway has been poured) - so the brickies should've finished up their part which now means the garage door can be fixed.

No idea what has happened today!

No photos as I managed to leave a bag at our accommodation which had my camera cords in it!

Will update over the weekend with some pics from my other camera :)

New week, new direction?

Last time I posted late last week the only action on the house all week had been a days worth of electrical fit out. Since then the electricians have been back (Friday) and STOP PRESS - today when I drove by after the daycare drop off  there were CARPENTERS there. Thats right people - you read correctly - plural. Not one, but two.

Hallelujah!

So what did they do? Seems they finished (finally) the cladding on the inside of the master bed balcony. I didn't take a pic, will try to do so tomorrow. Its not done as the one at the display is, or the one I linked to late last week for sale so I am going to ask about that.

In this pic the cladding has a long strip at the bottom and a smaller piece at the top which lines up neatly with the pieces that wrap around and go above the doors. On ours they have done the longer bit at the top then a really small awkward looking bit at the bottom. Not feeling it!

And this is the Laguna 36 display at Kellyville Ridge. Same arrangement there with the cladding.. Hhmmm.

So close...

As I suspected that spotlight I was questioning in my last post was actually incorrect! The one above is the correct one.

This is the flooring I have chosen - Bamboo flooring in Brown Sugar (antique style)

Our front yard also had a clean on Friday - SO nice to not see the huge mound of junk anymore! Our water meter was buried among tall grass and almost obsured by building waste and we received a huge water bill recently, which we questioned. So we had to read the meter and let Sydney Water know the reading - once we located the meter! We found it had been leaking too, and today it looks like we have a new one :)

So this week the following is scheduled:
 - Carpenters back tomorrow
- Brickies back Thursday (our lovely brickie is going to build us a letterbox out of the leftovers so tomorrow I am off to Bunnings to find one that can be bricked in!
- Showerscreens by Friday
- possibly wardrobe fit outs too.

And in the next two weeks the place will be cleaned, I assume the garage door will go on once the brickies are done, and the painters are due back.

Apparently our SS is aiming for PCI late next week, but in all seriousness I will be shocked if it happens then. I would love to be proven wrong :) Still lots and lots of little things to be done!

Hope all is progressing with my fellow building bloggers!

Another week plods on by..

With not much to report.

On a positive note the electricians did work at the house on Wednesday - Jason drove by and said there were 2 trucks there, 4 guys. They did say they couldn't finish everything - you guessed it - because the carpenter hasn't done his bit.

I said I would post when there was something to report, and as I said the electrical fit off has (mostly) been done, so here are some thrilling pics!

Outside lights looking a bit dwarfed from that angle.

Spotlight

Position of spotlight - right above water tank position. Doesn't look high enough to me but time will tell I suppose. Oh - and the hole the brickies originally left for the meter box way back when the sparkies put our power pole in the wrong place..

More outdoor lights and battens we will change to downlights after handover. And a half painted downpipe.

A sea of battens. Attractive! Note the kitchen cupboard doors have still not been replaced.

Island end powerpoint - exciting stuff!

More battens. Planning on changing them to downlights after handover - to do it through Metricon would've been an extra $4k - it will be more cost effective to do it afterwards. The two in the middle closer together are for pendants to hang over the dining table.

Powerpoints for washer/dryer. Yes - my laundry cupboard doors are now also sitting on the floor!

Prep for stair lights

Downlights in bathroom

Battens, fan and wall lights on Master Balcony

Its official - I do NOT love the stain colour. Really disappointed in it actually. Think I will be having the timber stained to a darker, richer brown after handover. Looks nothing like the sample I was shown at Studio M.

So - where to next? No idea. Nowhere fast if the carpenter doesn't come back soon!

Seems we have come across another build in Sydney in the same boat as us and Sandrine & Craig. They have had PCI pushed back a number of times over the space of a month and had an inspector go through last week who picked up around 60 defects/incomplete items. Scary.

At least they are consistent right? ;)

I saw a listing for a Metricon home for sale in Sydney today on a blog I follow -

http://newbuildjourney.blogspot.com/

Kylie posted this link to the listing -

http://www.raywhite.com/nsw/sandringham/583922/

It is a Laguna, same as ours with a different facade - almost identical to the one on display at Kellyville Ridge. Worth a stickybeak people!

Have a great weekend!

Week 32 - Part Time Build?

Well the start of the week crawled by with yet again NO progress on site. Thats after a whole week last week with very little progress.

I am beginning to think of M as part time builders.

And Tuesday came and went with no PCI date - again, despite assurances from our SS. Today he told us he doesn't know when he can even give us a date for PCI, although, he is hoping for handover by the end of the month - although "don't hold him to that"..

Seems the carpenter came - and went as all the materials he needed weren't on site ( um - why not? It takes so long to get him there they should be prepared for him..) - and now he isn't returning calls from our SS so no idea when the rest of his jobs will be finished.

Apparently the brickies have been twice and its been too wet for them to do what they need to do (and there is no sand for them - it washed down the driveway about 3 weeks ago in some heave weekend rain).

The electricians are there today so there's something to be happy about - although they told Jason they will be coming back again too.

The laundry wall still hasn't been patched so the tilers can come back.

The front door glazing still hasn't been changed.

The garage door can't be fitted until the brickies finish.

The laundry and powder room doors don't shut as the carpenters don't seem to have allowed for the thickness of them (they are timber and glass feature doors) so that will have to be rectified which will probably mean patching and repainting the door frames

There is water leaking into the cabinet under the kitchen sink - and yesterday was leaking out from under 3 sides of the island.

In the words of our SS it's all "little things" left - yeah but a LOT of little things.

Feeling defeated, deflated and over it right now. I let go of the hope of being in for Easter long ago and though maybe Mothers Day? Seems thats a joke of a target now too - I wonder if the June long weekend is aiming too high??

Will post when there is something to report on - don;t hold your breath people!

Little progress & 6 year old tradesmen???

Morning All, I wonder how many of you were up nice and early with kids today who have no interest or care in the fact that daylight savings ended last night? LOL!

I've been slow to write this post as it has taken me the best part of a day and a half to calm down and let the steam coming out of my ears dissipate enough to write this with a clear head..

I had the opportunity to quickly go past the house on Friday afternoon so I jumped on it and quickly discovered it was NOT a good way to start the weekend and that I should've spent the time doing something- anything else...

Despite a message from our SS on Tuesday night (after ANOTHER TWO WHOLE days with no work on site) assuring us a carpenter would be there the next day, as would painters (why weren't they there Mon/Tue???)- and that he was 'working overtime' to make sure everyone was on it, seems very little has been done. Another week of little progress.
Oh, and I was there at 3pm Friday and you guessed it- site was empty.

We have a gas socket - thats exciting I guess? The electricians had been there at some point as I spoke to the girl from their head office who phoned me to quote me for them to connect us to the mains - thats right, when you build a house they don't even include the cost of connecting your electricity. Another $1020..

The painters have mostly finished upstairs by the look of it but still have a lot to do downstairs, And the stairs still need another coat of stain. Outside needs a few things painted too- but those would require a damn carpenter to actually finish his job first. Our portico still has no ceiling, the master bed balcony still has sheeting to be fixed to the walls (someone has spent ten minutes doing something out there but it's far from finished), the last few bits of cladding have to go on and the Tassie Oak ceiling needs to be re-fixed on the Outdoor Room. All of which were supposed to be done by said carpenter.. Hhmmmm....

But that wasn't what left me wishing I hadn't gone there.

On my quick walk through I decided to check the toilets- when they were fitted I mentioned to Jason they had no seal or anything over the seats and I wasn't thrilled as I KNEW that would mean they would be used by tradesmen. And used they are.

There is urine all over the two toilets I checked and on THE FLOOR. Seeping into my NEW grout. All over our gorgeous floor tiles. To say I am furious is an understatement. Are these painters 6 years old? Do they do that at home?

Why is too much to expect a little respect for someone else's HOME? Might sound dramatic but it made me feel physically ill, and I'm not sure I will ever be able to stand barefoot in the powder room or my own ensuite...

Our SS must've been feeling the rage as we didn't get our usual update call on Friday- maybe lucky for him..

Last week he told us we would have a PCI date on Tuesday- this week he told us we would haven next Tuesday. so much for his aim to have our house ready for PCI at the end of March! When he said that initially I said to Jason there was NO WAY it would be ready then, and I was right..

To say I am at my wits end it an understatement. The last few months have seen painfully slow progress and wether this is due to poor organising of trades, poor communication, lack of resources or a workload that is simply too demanding for Metricon to keep up with I'm not sure but in my opinion it's simply NOT good enough.

And I know we are not the only ones feeling this way.

I would suggest to Metricon that they either need to employ more trades or more Site Supervisors to cope with what I am sure is an ever increasing workload- especially now that they are advertising more and more here in NSW. Of all the blogs I follow the majority of builds progress much more smoothly at this stage (not Metricon builds I should note)- and this is where it matters- this stage is what clients will remember when asked if they would recommend Metricon to others..

Not many pics (although I do have photographic evidence of the violation of my grout and tiles)..

Bedroom - painting finished

Another bedroom - painting complete

Leisure room

Staircase

Bit of a gap there between the door and the slab...

Woot - a gas socket. So by the time we move in (when it will probably be cold at this rate) we can plug a heater in ;) 

If you made it this far - thanks for sticking with that rant-tastic post..

Hoping to have more sunny news to speak of when next I post. Electrical fit out allegedly scheduled for Tuesday.