Complete, but not

We got the most useless letter from our builder this week... in summary; Fixing stage is complete (well yeah, I just paid the invoice)... The house is almost complete, painting makes it look real nice, here's a list of things yet to be done. There will be an inspection, but we can't tell you when yet... Sigh... I guess I shouldn't complain, it's about the first bit of information regarding the status of the house that I have gotten from the office (other than the stage invoices).

On the positive side, we sorted out why we thought we had paid a variation and they didn't... lets just say we are going to have the cost of the variation ($217.50) still left to draw out of our home-loan when the final claim is made.

Swung by the house today - no black plastic over any of the windows, and it looks like the internal painting is complete. I think all the painting that is left is the staining of the front timber (door and windows)... at least I hope so as they don't look like they have been painted yet. (-;

Anyway, enough with the boring blather, on with the pictures.

Update: We took the folks by today and I remembered to check if there was a solar panel on the roof to match the copper pipes sticking out of the wall - lo and behold there is! One more thing off the list.

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The front... the gables and eaves are painted... and the downpipes are there; but not connected to the waste yet... I'm not sure if this is an improvement as the water just gets dumped closer to the house - but at least it is progress, and hopefully the plumbing will be connected soon.

Main bedroom.... bring on the carpet and pictures!
(patience grasshopper)

Bedroom 4...not much else to say... it's painted.

Laundry... just wait till the tiles come in to break up the beige (I mean cargo white).

Kitchen - yay the cornices made it before the painting finished.
(not that I was worried or anything)

My study.
The observant might notice something waiting for the next task.

Nothing to see

Well not much anyway... When we took a look over the weekend ALL the windows were blacked out (plastic), so we couldn't see a thing. The only thing that indicated progress was the painted gables and garage roof (and an empty bucket of paint).

Today we dropped by quickly, and the painters didn't seem impressed to see me, so all I got was a picture of the garage - the garage walls have now been painted, and the plastic removed from the front windows, and they were starting on the garage door.... so I'm hopeful the rest of the walls are painted too. We'll probably drop by again on Saturday sometime, so we'll have another update then.

There's a problem

This may sound silly... but something has finally gone wrong - I feel like it's a real build now.

We took photos of the Kitchen, then realised that the pot drawers were all the same size - they weren't meant to be. We checked this morning, and they are all like that; all three banks. Called the SS and let him know, and it should be in the process of being fixed.. bit sad really because it still looks nice the way it is, and I hate to waste things - but we did ask for the change for a reason. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Meanwhile, more progress pictures!

Update:
After a quick trip to the house (got to go inside - yay!), we have decided to leave the drawers as they are. The reason is that while we would have been happy with the drawers the way we asked as the top drawer would have fitted our coffee mugs,pot lids, and utensils... we found that the drawers as they are fit the biggest pot we currently have to put into them, while tall glasses would not have fitted into the smaller drawer. So leaving them as they are makes them more flexible. Even though the extra 3cm on the bottom drawers may have proven to be useful, it is only 3 cm. Add to that the delay in ordering new fronts, the mess created by moving the drawer runners, and the compensation offered by the cabinet maker to accept them as they are, and it just seemed better to leave it and move on. Done.

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The eaves are all done now, still missing the finials... but the truck is the interesting thing here... the guy was here to take the templates off to make our stone bench-tops - can't wait to see them installed.

These are the offending drawers... clearly all the same height, while the top one should be 25%, the remaining two 37.5% each.

I was also able to confirm that our bathroom cabinets are definitely in.

...so are the top laundry cabinets...

... and the bench in the study nook (and WIP)... all the shelving beading is in place (but not the shelves). In fact I think the carpenters have finished round one of the fit-out; waiting for painting, which will be next - and probably take two weeks.

Here's the view of our front door from the other side... wonder who will be the first guests we open the door to?

What do you feed a Gobbledok?

This week the chippies have been at our house.

Good progress has been made, 95% of the eave lining boards are in place - just the bit above the main bedroom window to go (where the bricks have just been added). Most of the skirting boards are in place, and I think all of the architraves. More importantly the kitchen, en-suite, laundry, (and I assume bathroom) cupboards have been put in place ready for the cornices around the overhead cupboards. I think another week should see the carpentry pretty much done!

A bit of a downer with the rain this week is that the downpipes are still not connected (except for the one stubborn temporary downpipe), so the site is muddy again (should have worn my gumboots... actually I should buy some gumboots)

Oh, and I forgot to mention (last week); that it looks like the sparky has been through and made some holes in the plaster (and stuck some wires through), one more thing off the list.

Thankfully we took both cameras with us, as the one that was in the car was missing a memory card. So here are the Alice through the looking glass pictures:

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Here's the front of the house, you can see the gables are filled in now (yay for keeping the rain out), though the fretwork and finials are yet to be added.

The front door... you can see the eaves lining boards there...
and not there...
yet.

Midget cam...Most of the skirting is done throughout the house, this is the rumpus (marked theatre on the plan)

Dimly through the protective plastic you can see the laundry cabinets... and it looks like the sink is there waiting (for the stone bench-top) as well.

The Kitchen! Unfortunately as the missing window pane has been fitted, I can't stick the camera through the window any-more to get a different angle. But SO exciting... something that is beginning to look more like a home than a construction site (just imagine what I'm going to be like when the painting and tiling is done!).

Lastly, the en-suite... nice...

Access portals

This week, I saw the site supervisor for the lock-up stage review. He was a little late, but being a busy Monday morning the only surprise was that he tried to fit me in at all.

When we were there on Saturday, there was a big mud splatter on the bedroom wall that we were going to ask about. But by the Monday the brick cleaner had been through and done his thing (by all accounts he was very happy with the brick layer)... one less thing to bug the SS about.

I was right, the bricks were to fill in the gable (pictured above), 400 is the minimum order. I don't think they forgot so much as changed the standards, but either way I'm happy, bricks all the way up and plenty left over for a letterbox.

The plasterers finished on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday saw the carpenters come and start their work. Not sure when the brickie returned to do the gable, but it was done by Saturday. Here's the progress in pictures:

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Here are the doors and other bits and pieces that were delivered on Monday.

More stuff for the carpenters - taking up space in the hallway.

The shower has it's vilaboard... as far as I know it's still waiting for the waterproofing. The downpipes should be happening shortly too.

The en-suite toilet has it's door and architraves.

Now the doors have been hung in the bedrooms (this is Bed4)

This is the main bedroom looking towards the WIR... doors but not much else.

So does the door to the en-suite - and to the left you can see they also started the skirting boards.

We also have the external door to the en-suite! (Don't worry we plan to put some sort of frosting / curtain on it!)

We also have an internal access door from the garage... they had fully plastered over it for lock-up stage! 8-)

And last but not least - the front door! Yay - looks so much better than the temporary one!

All in all, we are very happy with the progress.
Carpentry continues for another week or so, then painting and tiles, little by little every day...

Totally plastered - almost

This week we had a site clean... bye bye to most of the rubble from the frame and bricking stages. More importantly, the plastering continued and the patching and cornices are almost all done (just a few rooms to go). One way or another the plaster in the alfresco was put up - the SS mentioned something about the business owner coming in to do the finishing off. No mention of a variation... my wife says I'm a worrying fuss-pot.

Another curious thing, a new delivery of bricks arrived, which was a surprise... though I think it has something to do with the bricks above the front bedroom window. If I'm reading the plans right the bricks need to go all the way up (as the background in the gable), and they either forgot it, or ran out of decent bricks to use... Either way there should now be plenty left over to build a letterbox with. We are meeting with the SS tomorrow so I might provide an update to this story then.

Oh yeah, and I bumped into Lou and Neen at their house as I was wandering past - nice to meet them and nice to know which name goes with which face. Shouldn't be long before they make the Avenue their home.

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Just a few photos this week as we had to take them through the windows that didn't have the protective plastic covering them. Here's the main bedroom, en-suite on the left, WIR on the right.

And the family room - the cornice in here is a feature one; "Classic", it's got a kind of compound curve to it that is really nice - no real sharp edges or shadow lines either.

Ok, my descriptions suck... so here's a picture or the feature cornice instead!

And the view down the hallway from the entry window. The entry bulkheads are in and looking good.

Bricks and Rocks (Gyprock that is)

We are pleased to announce that great progress has been made this week. Despite the rain, the last of the bricks have been laid. And inside, laughing at the rain, the plaster has been hung on the roof and the walls. What a difference it all makes! The biggest difference is you can get a real feel for the size of the place, and I couldn't be happier. Slight delay with the plastering as the insulating team had forgotten a couple of internal walls... no matter, it gave us a chance to add some in a couple of other walls we should have put it in as well. Enough rambling, on with the pictures!

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The front of the house has all it's bricks, window sills and all. I am eager to see the roof gables filled in, then it might start to look liveable. (Though the builders rubble might have to go as well.)

Family room / verandah brickwork. Slight drama here... the plasterer wont put the plaster on the roof as it is over safe working height without proper scaffolding (and no concrete floor)... not sure what the builder is going to do.

Back brickwork all done... on a roll!

And down the blind side back to the garage.... All bricks done! Yay! Of course the downside is that I am sure we will get the invoice for lock-up stage this week, but it had to happen sooner or later, and in one way, sooner is better; yes?

Here is our main bedroom. Nice and light. Any suggestions for window coverings to make sure the light doesn't get into the over-bed window until we want it to?

Here's the plaster in the family room - the alcove where the TV will go, looking out the window to where the deck will go.

Looking back from the window to the other alcove in the family room - we made this bigger than the one in the display, can you tell?

Looking down the family room. You can see (from left to right), the fridge alcove, the door to the rumpus, door to the walk in pantry, the two openings for the study nook (through which you can see the opening to bedroom 4), bedroom hallway entry (and through that the laundry entry), and the family room alcove... phew.

The rumpus, where we plan for our little girls to play... of course where they actually do play will most likely be an entirely different matter... has anyone had a three year old do what they were told?

And the laundry, ok not the most glamorous, but I like the sliding door, should make being in the laundry as nice as possible.

Bats in the belfry

Things are progressing. Most significant is the addition of insulation to the walls...

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... and, as I said in the belfry... ok, roof space. Awaiting the plaster I presume.

This is how the bats hang out around france.

The sound insulation for the bedroom - looking back from the french doors.

Here's where my wife will spend most of her time... once the Kitchen cabinets and bits and pieces goes in of course.

Here's where my wife would like to spend most of her time - just her and some bubbles (not bathing the kiddly-winks).

Oh yeah, and some more of the bricking has been done too! The front is pretty much complete - just the window sills to be done.

More done around the side... for some reason the kitchen window sill has been done. I wonder if that is because they wanted to unwrap the kitchen window?

The view from the back corner of the block.

The back and blind-side are not as progressed as the rest - but hey progress is progress.