He's Baaaaaack!!!

Well, our SS is back from sick leave and it is apparent with a flurry of things happening at the house. The outstanding list of issues to be fixed is now down to 6. Amazing!

Regular readers will know I was very frustrated with the delay in the last few weeks. Interestingly, I found out that the painter was responsible for the delay. He put on the undercoat and saw that the plasters had done "a pretty crap job" on almost all of the sheet joins so the undercoat was very patchy and there were quite a few cornice joins and corners that were not good enough in his opinion either. So, he stopped work to get the plasterers back to get it fixed.

The painter “B” is very particular and whilst he is happy to fix the nicks and dings, this was way too much for he and his mate to do. Very time consuming and costly. So the delay was waiting for the plasterers to come back and fix all the areas he had marked with the pencil. That way the plasterers wear the cost of their "pretty crap job". It seems that the plasterers were not too impressed with him or his opinion, but he won out in the end and it was fixed. When they had fixed the issues, "B" came back. After a long conversation with him, I feel very lucky that we have him as our painter. He takes a lot of pride in his work. Our tiler also told us we were lucky to get him as he is the best painter he works with. It made us feel better to get a recommendation from another tradie.

So, now I know that the delay was in order to get a better job, I feel a bit like a nutter for complaining. This is where better communication would solve almost all our problems. Although I can hardly blame the SS for being off sick!!

Update:

The outside painting is almost finished; the insert on the garage roof has been painted as has the alfresco timber beams. Only the Laundry door to go, the inside has been stained but the outside is going to be Ironstone.

This looking into the laundry, with the cupboards along the left hand wall. You can just see the first tile sitting in the bottom corner near the door.

Shelves have all been installed in the laundry and two linen cupboards as well as the Walk In Pantry. I suspect that the space for the fridge has been left too small to fit our fridge in, so we will need to measure that before we go too much further. It was a very pleasant surprise to find out that although the contract says “painted particleboard” we are told by our SS that PD now use a wardrobe company to do all of the shelving so we have white melamine shelves. Bonus!

Walk In Pantry shelving

Rear linen closet shelving. Shelves at my height LOL Notice the large expanse at the top!

Best of all, the under bench sink has now been installed!! The edge of the stone has been polished and the tap hole has also been drilled. It needs to be sealed around the edges properly, as it does not look like they have done that at all.

Not to mention the fact that it is flithy!

Tiles arrived on site on Friday afternoon.

They have all been labelled by some helpful person, pity that they couldn't be bothered to read and check all our selections.

We then met the Tiler "J" on site this morning. Hmm, National Tiles! I had dramas from the first with them. Firstly, not sending me the tile list/layout as promised, then when I did get it, sending me someone else’s tile plan. Then stuffing up the codes. They finally got it right in December when we did the selection in September!

So, after going through the tiles with "J" as he had laid them out, found out that they have sent double the quantity of floor tiles for the laundry and have marked them to be used as the splash back as well. Went back through the paper work and I am right!! The splash back tiles are supposed to be white. Wrong paperwork again! The paperwork the tiler was working off was an older incorrect copy (around October I think)

Popped back this afternoon and there were tiles laid on the ensuite floor already!

On another note, for anyone who is interested, I have been getting quotes for blinds so that we can install them ourselves at handover. I have got free samples sent from “BlindsOnLine” and took them to the house to look at them compared to the wall colour. We are happy with the quality of the samples and the savings buying on line and hanging ourselves is up to $1,500 difference in one case. I have done a comparison for what we need and I think I can do the whole house (minus bi folds) for about $1400 delivered from these people. And they are made in Australia, so I am supporting Australian manufacturing which makes me feel good and saving money which makes me feel even better.

Best news is that the tiler thinks he will only be a week to finish and then the SS has promised me I will get a PCI date. Fingers Crossed!

Movement

There’s been movement at the station this week…

Things seem to be moving again, thank goodness. Apologies in advance for the poor picture quality, I only had my phone with me.

Our splash back has been installed and the colour is absolutely stunning. I am so happy with it! I know it is not everyone’s cup of tea but I LOVE IT!!

Splash back…

Our water tank was delivered on Monday/Tuesday and then today (Thursday) the plumbers have been and have connected it all up. We have one of the neat tanks that have the pump built into the unit, so cool. We think our solar panels have been installed as well. We can just see the corner of one of them. We are supposed to have two, so we may have to either take up a ladder or ask T&L next door, if they can see any solar panels on our roof. LOL

Water tank all plumbed in..

Plumbing for Solar Gas Hot Water

Met the painter on site and our feature walls were news to him, the Hopetoun sheet he is working off is 30 October, when the last revised one was 8th December. So he obviously did not know about the feature walls or the gable colour either. He said he cannot remember the last time he did a house with three coats, but that was at least what he’d do on his own house. Seems like a really nice guy. When we had a look around, he looks to have done a really good job so far. Told me to come back Friday, when it should all be finished to have a look then. Guess where I am going Friday morning before work.

We’re really, really happy with the wall colour too. Divinity, it’s not beige or white or sand or peach or pink or cinnamon but kind of all of them LOL. Really cool colour as it seems to take on the tones of what you put near to it which is great.

Bedroom 2, the wall colour looks so different in the different light, really amazing..

Doors all lined up to be painted.
So, no update from the SS or the CSC for two weeks, as the SS was sick and might still be for all I know. I have not rung him because if he is still sick, I think that’s a bit rude. I certainly would not want my clients phoning me. "N" our CSC was going to ring with an update when she caught up with him. I expect a call from her tomorrow ( Friday) and I will ring her if I do not hear by lunchtime. I want to know what is going on with the Kitchen bench/tap issue, I don't want this to cause an issue right at the end, I'd rather it was dealt with now. Nothing has happened so far and the fix invoice is still outstanding.

Have a great weekend people and good luck with your builds :-)

So one snail said to the other...

...Gee things are slow around here.

Well, I am getting more and more frustrated. I think the painters were there this week as our eaves and the portico ceiling have all been painted. The internal doors have all been lined up and have been undercoated too. I am pretty sure this happened last week though. I am really impatient to see my wall colour as I picked it from a sample. You can see that it seems that they have cut in the wall colour just under the cornice in the pic below. They had done this early in the week.

The Front door and sidelight and the French doors, bi folds and the timber window in the alfresco have all been stained. However, they have not stained the laundry door??? Yep, it’s in the contract (had me doubting myself there). Love the look of the stained timber, the colour is really rich and the front door/sidelight looks stunning!

Outside the alfresco area...

Bi Folds and timber window from inside the family room...

French doors from inside the family room...

Friday the garage doors, both the roller door at the back and the panel lift at the front were installed.

House from the front with the panel lift door in ironstone!

From the inside of the garage, ceiling painted...

Still no sign of a tiler, and it seems that the plasterers have come back to fix up a few bits and pieces??? The undercoat went on and now inside there are new pencil marks again on the walls. Does this mean that “someone” decided that there was plastering that needed re doing?? Is that why there has been little painting action this week? We’d love to know but our SS has been sick all week and our CSC has no idea what is going on. According to her, the tiler started on the 22 April. Well, umm, no, he might have turned up, but there are no tiles, so he probably went home again.

Are taps and toilets part of the “fix stage”, this is a question we are asking ourselves at this point. Does anyone know? We are still waiting on the under bench sink to be installed before we pay the fix stage, when we realised that the taps aren’t there either. Also a bit of a worry is that the sink does not have a tap space, so we think that the hole for the flick mixer also needs to be cut in the bench top too. We have called/emailed but as the SS is sick, we can’t find out.

Have I said that I am getting frustrated? PD obviously have been going great guns until just before Easter, now it is getting really disappointing to see that night after night nothing has been done. Spoilt, yes I am! Or was! And I want to be again!!! Not to mention, that a number of blogs I am following are at or getting very close to PCI/Handover. Yes, I am aware that jealousy is a curse. LOL.

Have a great week people!

Move along.... Nothing to see here!

Hello All and Hi to Grandpa in Novogrod, keep warm

Well interesting week, dare I say. The painter finally arrived on 22 April Yipee!! He obviously found the house after two weeks, marvellous things those GPS units! Ummm, missing the tiler that was supposed to start then....


Sorry no pictures, nothing to see because they have taped down all the windows and the timber doors with at least three pieces of thick plastic which is totally impossible to see anything through at all! We can't get in and we can't see in either!!!


We can get into the garage so we know that the ceilings have been painted and it looks like quite a tidy job. The cabinet maker went in on Friday while the painter was there to measure up for the quote for our study joinery. We also got the concreting quotes. Holy hell, prices have gone up from when we set the budget last June! Concrete and reo have gone through the roof in the last 12 months it seems, because everyone was around the same ballpark figure.


The best I can do is a picture of the type of driveway/walkway we are having:

It's called slatecrete and it's your basic charcoal colour. We'll have this for the driveway and paths at the front of the house, plain coloured concrete for the walkway down the side of the house and something a bit daggie for the alfresco. Shhh!! Only we and the concretor are supposed to know that.

We had our building inspector in for the fix inspection too. Result - fix invoice still not paid. The stone bench top got liquid nailed to the cabinet tops before they put the sink in the middle (it's an under mount) so, we're waiting for them to come rip it out, put in the sink and then put a new stone bench top on. What an absolute waste! It was obvious that the cabinet tops had been routed to take the sink, but no, they put it on anyway. Apart from that the house got the thumbs up at the stage which is good to know.

Apologies for the absence of pics, hopefully the plastic will come off sometime this week! It's like waiting for Christmas, all those presents wrapped up and you can't open them.

Fingers crossed for all of you not locked up that the weather does not slow you down or do too much damage!

Have a good one all!