We Have Moved In

We are finally in our home with only the pictures to be hung and the inside would have been done. We can already fit one car in the garage and by the end of the week both cars will be locked away safe & warm, not a bad effort in a week.

Handover went very smoothly and the only things to be done were very minor and I am only waiting on the outside windows to be cleaned as the Construction Manager wasn’t happy.

I must say I have been very happy with my builder and in particular my Construction Manager Adrian. His standards are very high and considering some of the horror stories I have heard my builder has been a dream to deal with.

My planning worked a treat and everything I ordered arrived on time or early, well nearly everything, I still don’t have foxtel, it would appear that Telstra needed longer than the 2 months I gave them. It has taken numerous phone calls, an official complaint, which they have not called me back on and in the end I called foxtel to get the install done and I will transfer later on.

Fair dinkum Telstra are an ordinary mob when it comes to customer service and if I could get adsl and other providers had their network coverage I would not be a customer of theirs in a pink fit. They think they are losing customers because of people moving away from fixed lines, I can tell you it’s because their service is so far down the sewer I am not sure they could ever improve. If you own shares dump them because the service I have received means they are on a downward spiral to oblivion.

I would also like to acknowledge all our family & friends that helped us over the weekend, without their support and hours of toil we could have hoped to un pack as many boxes, build a fence & a gate and we certainly would have gone nuts with our kids snapping at our heels while running around.

Also a big thankyou to MrsB's parents who put up with all 5 of us for 5 and a bit months, thier support was amazing and we couldn't have done this without them.

The kids love their new home and it was like Christmas with all thier old toys coming out of storage so apart from being skint and being left with a mud pile and no dishwasher for months we couldn’t be happier.

Below are some photos taken early on Saturday morning before the removalists arrived.



Photo looking towards the rumpus with the bi-fold doors open

Photo looking towards the rumpus with the bi-fold doors closed

Photo looking towards the front door with the bi-fold doors open

Photo looking towards the front door with the bi-fold doors open

Front door with flash on the camera

Front door with no flash on the camera


Another shot looking down to the rumpus

The kitchen



The family room and my new entertainment unit


Main bedroom

Ensuite & walk in robe

Ensuite

Our shower

Transition from carpet to tiles

Laundry

Bathroom

Bathroom shower

Our Towel Ladder

Hallway down to kids bedrooms

Transition from carpet to bamboo boards

I may just have a break from posting but many thanks to you all for taking an interest and passing on your good wishes

Ciao

PCI & 10 Days to Go

Well what a week we have had. At one stage it looked like we were not going to make it & I seriously considered delaying our move in date & I still may do that except now I am a lot more comfortable and confident that it will all work out.

We had our Project Completion Inspection (PCI) today and while it might have been a little early we needed to do it now so I could get the ball rolling with the bank.

I must say I am very pleased and most of my issues are very minor, a touch of paint here a fly screen required there. There are some big ticket items still missing like a driveway, hot water service, Air/Con vent, security doors, fly wire screens, insulation, oven, gas hot plates, range hood & all up there are 37 items.

For the big ticket stuff I have a schedule of them being completed and the driveway guy started while I was there so once again I am confident we can make it and my Construction Manager (CM) has told me to come around again next Tuesday to see the finished result. I suspect Wednesday and since I will only be able to make it first thing in the morning I will suggest Wednesday the 28th.

All I need is the Certificate of Occupancy to start the ball rolling with the bank. I should get that tomorrow and if I do it should be all systems go for a 10am handover on Friday April 30 where after 328 days we will be in our new home and once again I will be king of my little castle, woo hoo!!!

Below are some pictures of the house taken over the last week.

10 Days to Go, cant wait!

311 days down 17 to go

I spoke with my Construction Manager (CM) today and it would appear I jumped the gun on appointing blame for the telephone cable & fit off. The dodgy so & so’s who did the crappy work was Telstra and considering their reputation and the fact they have waived the $300 installation fee I guess I am stuck with their workmanship, well at least to handover when I fix it.

When talking to my CM he informed me that our driveway will be installed by the end of the week, as will our bamboo floor. The plasterer comes in on Wednesday and the painter is due on Friday. There is the first wave of cleaning on Monday the 19th with the carpet being laid on the morning of Tuesday the 20th.

That means our project completion inspection (PCI) is in the afternoon of Tuesday the 20th of April. This time in a week we would have seen 99.9% of the finished article, only another clean, an oven and hotplates to go, oh and any thing we find in the inspection.

The countdown has begun and MrsB and I are starting to get very keen and increasingly impatient. Considering we walked into the sales office on Saturday June 6th 2009 it’s been a long 311 days so far.

By the time we get the keys it will be 328 days since we walked into the sales office and decided to build a house, 300 days since we signed the building contract and 218 days since construction started.

When you have already been waiting 311 days, another 17 doesn’t seem so bad.

The End Game

I was always warned that the most difficult part of building was the end game because this the time that the plastering, the painting and the fit off occurs and it is this time where the quality of the finish matters.

Well the fit off is well underway and I have already noticed some “issues” which I have escalated to the Construction Manager via head office. I have decided to document my issues so that they can’t complain I have not given them fair warning I expect these issues dealt with prior to handover.

The plumber has finished, apart from the gas cooktop and hot water service and to date I cant fault his workmanship.

The tiler has done a wonderful job and the painter apart from not being able to read a colour selection chart has done on the whole a good job. The AirCon guy apart from stuffing up one outlet has also done a good job. I have a bulge in the plaster wall in the garage & I would expect that it will be fixed, surely a bulging wall is not “commercially acceptable”

I have discovered this term “commercially acceptable” and the cynic in me says it’s a dodgy clause used by builders to get away with shoddy work. Now I should give my builder the benefit of the doubt as this issue was only discovered by me on Saturday so they still have time to fix it and they have not come to me and said they wouldn’t so time will tell.

One trade I am not happy with is the sparkie. The exterior power point for the water tank pump is shoddy and the way they have connected the phone line to the Telstra box is just plain unacceptable. In my email to the builder I stated that I believed it was the work of an unsupervised 1st year apprentice, surely a fully qualified tradesman wouldn’t be proud of that kind of work.

As I said I will give the benefit of the doubt to my builder that these issues and more will be addressed, including the missing power point in the extra kitchen cupboard, the silly idiot electrician wired for it, just didn’t fit it off!!

Our Strand Woven Bamboo Borads, cant wait to see them actually laid.

The ensuite toilet, I am actually impressed with our "standard" toilet

Ensuite sink & taps, again we are happy with the standard

The main toilet, obviously its just the same as the other one

Bathroom sink & taps, again they match the ensuite, funny that!!

The external power point. It should have 2 conduit clips and the hole should be filled with silicone to stop moisture entering the walls.

This piece of workmanship is simply not good enough and is rough & lazy. One they should have used conduit to ensure the Telstra box was over the hole or at least used conduit from the hole and again there is no silicone, tsk tsk. This will be fixed.

Our door handles, another standard item

It would appear people are using our site as a rubbish dump, garden waste appeared last week and now a whole heap of MaxFactor makeup boxes have been dumped. If I was the builder I would be pissed off. I wonder which neighbour is the culprit?

I plan to play fussy bugger and be very stubborn to ensure a tip top finish, besides they stung me hard over the crossover, so if I have to stick to the contract, so do they. I just hope our relationship, which has been good too date doesn’t degenerate into a slanging match, I still want my keys on April 30