3 Month Maintenance Inspection

Hasn't time flown?  On the 15th November, we'll have been in our new home for 4 whole months!!  Feels like we've been here for years and only 5 minutes all wrapped up in one.

True to their word, Eden Brae came over on Tuesday to conduct their 3 month maintenance inspection.  Tim couldn't have been more helpful and happily wrote down everything on our list.  Even the missing toilet roll holder from the granny flat which technically was our mistake for missing it prior to hand over!

So, "How has the old new gal held up since moving in?", I hear you ask.... Pretty well.  Nothing major, really.  Here's our list...

1) Carpet in our bedroom still rippling and not secured at the edge near ensuite

2) Carpet edge in Living Room not secured properly and is fraying.  Di Lorenzo Carpet were really the weakest link in our whole home building experience.  Shockers!

3)  Few spots need to be re-grouted in all 3 bathrooms

4)  Some timber quad (trim) lifting in the kitchen

5) Patch & paint dent on pantry ceiling

6) A service and some sanding & re-staining required on bi-fold doors.  They're a bit 'sticky' to open which causes the doors to scrape on the bottom door frame.  Also, where they've patched some nail holes before staining is showing as a different colour.

7)  Patch & paint some damage on the Alfresco ceiling

8) One of the touch catches in the kitchen isn't working

9) Some of the floor boards near laundry are a little springy & one other spot seems un-even

10) Door lock on internal garage door doesn't work

11) A few cracked roof tiles that had never been fixed but should have been prior to handover

12) Cracked tile in Granny Flat ensuite where they've secured the shower screen

13) Toilet roll holder missing in Granny Flat ensuite

14) Repair brickwork at front of the house (this section has never been right!)

15) Point up some brick sections at front porch and clean down bricks

16) Stormwater pipe broken at end of driveway

No cracks in walls, no leaking pipes, all major appliances work i.e. air-conditioning, oven etc, so not too bad really.  Majority of these things were picked up within a couple of weeks of moving in so it's not like things have continued to deteriorate or anything.

You only get one chance to make a list by the way, so it helps if you write things down as you notice them.  Also, best to keep a few bricks just in case you need some replaced like we do at the front of the house.  If they had to order some more bricks, chances are they'll look a different colour as each batch slightly differs.  Also good to keep some spare roof tiles (make sure yours don't get taken away by the cleaners like ours did!)

Our Maintenance List has now been handed over to MGH Contracting to coordinate the relevant trades to do the repairs.  I heard from them the same afternoon Tim had been out and twice since.  Everything has already been pretty much confirmed and lined up for a few weeks time.  They ask you to provide about 3 dates within a week or two and then they try and get all the trades to come on one, maybe two of those days and then organise the painters to come on the last day if required.

Assuming all goes well from here, I'm impressed.  Again, this has been straight forward with no hassles.

Bring on the warm weather!

The backyard is nearly finished!! 

My Dad and 'B' have been madly building a deck.  All the joists and framework has been completed and the merbau boards will go on next. The retaining walls are all done, just waiting for some soil and turf to go down now (we've been letting the new ground level settle and settle it has with the recent lot of rain).

In celebration *cough* call it what you will, I just "won" the following outdoor table & chair set on ebay for $898.88!  'B' is stoked when I win on ebay, no truly. He loves nothing more than driving all over Sydney picking up my winnings!

Here's a better idea of the colour, it's showing up a bit dark in above pics!

It's verrrry similar to another set I saw at BBQ's Galore over the weekend which sells for $1999! Happy with my $1100 discount, thanks very much!  And this is where I should add that 'B' truly is happy!  He loves a dollar saved, that guy. Bless.

What I love about this outdoor setting is that the chairs all sit flush under the table (with the exception of the end 2 which will sit on a separate section of deck when not in use).  Sitting flush is quite important to us because when our lovely bi-fold doors are open, they take up quite a bit of room - which has meant our ginormous, wide 10 seater setting is about to get an ebay listing all of it's own!

See what I mean?!  And I know!  How shameful I don't have a current pic of our doors!

Anyway, the budget has all but been spent now (and then some) so it will be a while before any new purchases I imagine.

** I wonder if anyone who builds a house comes in on or under budget?? **

Promise to be back soon with a backyard piccy update.

Lick-o-paint! Part 2

Our painters have been busy and it appears 2 coats of high gloss Elusive White have now been put on all our doors and trims.  It's looking FANTASTIC!

Granny Flat

One of the boy's wardrobes

Close up

Internal door to Granny Flat

Our bedroom, looking at WIR & Ensuite

Granny Flat bathroom (standing in shower, looking out)

Main entrance into Granny Flat

Our front door, now with door handle

Gainsborough Tri-Lock Door Handle

Brickies have now fixed the section under bi-folds....much better!

Guessing by the end of next week our painting will be finished! Can't wait to see it.

Lick-o-paint! Part 1

I took the step ladder today to assist in my sneaky entrance this afternoon only to find the joint wide open.  Lucky too because the window I'd left open a crack was now locked!

We were very happy to see our painting has started!!  One coat on and 2 to go.  You might notice no cutting in has happened yet.

Quite liking the colour and of course it should be way nicer once all 3 coats of Taubmans Living Silk are on.  At least it should be Living Silk - didn't see any evidence of it being anything other than the standard paint....

An upgrade of course for 3 coats and the Living Silk - the standard is one base coat and 1 top coat of trade paint.  We chose the 3 coats for a nicer finish and because the Living Silk is easier to clean with little people around.

The kitchen is looking very....ummmm.....white now that the paint is going on.  Shouldn't be so stand-outy by the time our white stools go in as well as some other white bits-n-pieces.  That's the plan anyway!

Unfortunately they seemed to have missed the note about all bathroom walls being painted in Taubmans Crisp White... Also appears the feature walls we have going in the boy's rooms has been overlooked.

The tiler's been back and tiled up behind the rangehood - yay!  BUT 'B' requested for the rangehood to be removed and not have tiles just cut in around it which is what we were led to believe would happen but the tiles have just been tiled around.  Looks great and I'm inclined to leave it but 'B' has a really good point in that if we ever need to replace the rangehood and can't get the same profile, then we have to replace the splashback too. 

All our external doors have been stained now in Taubmans Walnut Stain

Wonky bricks have been knocked out!

And I'll leave you with a pic of tonight's gorgeous sunset :)

It's getting close now!!

26/05/11 ~ ETA: Our SS responded really early this morning to my email from last night and mentioned he was ticked off with the tiler who he had specifically asked to remove rangehood first.  Will be fixed soon.  And he's going to check out the paint situation shortly.  Gotta love a prompt response!

What we're looking forward to this week!

I spoke to our SS this morning to touch base and discuss some of the issues I picked up last visit to the house. 

Firstly, he informed me that our bricks were cleaned over the weekend, so I can't wait to see that! 

Regarding the dodgy looking brickwork under the bifolds, he told me some type of skirting is yet to go on there so I'll just see how it ends up.  Apparently the brickie was meant to go back last week and brick above the entry and laundry doors too which he is chasing up.

He assured me no electrical points have been missed.  For the wet areas, there are certain distances they have to be positioned, so they wait until the vanities have been put in.  Not sure why the 2 in our main bedroom aren't there - could be something to do with backing onto the laundry??

Roof tiles get checked at the end and I forgot to mention the 2 tone mortar but it will be better to see if it does change after another week or so has passed before bringing it up anyway.

So this is what we have to look forward to this week:

Council inspection......Tuesday
Insulation...................Wednesday
Gyprocking...............Thursday (should take 3 days he reckons)

Wednesday, next week after Easter he said our "Fix out" should be happening.  That's the doors, skirting, architraves etc.

When I commented at this pace we'll be in before our completion date of 31st August, he sounded surprised and thought it was a later completion date.....what the?

I've got it in writing from Head Office, so shall forward it to him to compare against when he believes it will be.  In my head I'm giving it till October / November anyway.  Anything before Christmas would be great!

It's all in the detail

There hasn't been much going on in the last few days, I imagine because EB are now waiting for the approval from the Council Inspector before proceeding with the gyprock.

It's worked out quite well because instead of going into the house for a look and being WOWED with heaps of progress and only seeing the big picture, I've been able to cast a more critical eye over things and pick up anything that needs to be addressed with the SS.

So, in keeping it real - highs and the lows remember? Here's what I picked up today...

Ok, so what's with the 2 tone mortar?  The middle section of this pillar looks like it's still wet but it was completed over 6 days ago...

And talking about 2 tone, the back of the house (top section) is also more of a standard mortar colour instead of off-white. Looks like it's in a shadow but it's not.

Little tricky to see but there's a crack zig-zagging down the mortar at the bottom of the pillar.  Surely not meant to be cracking yet?

I believe this is an expansion joint - however I could see through it??

This is the other side of the expansion joint.  Bit hard to see but surely you're not meant to see daylight through it?  What's to stop moisture getting in and mould forming on the internal walls?

Noticed big gaps (approx. 10cm) above the laundry door and French Doors on Playroom.  Don't know if it's meant to be like this for a reason but wouldn't the door sit in the door jam?  Maybe they put some kind of cladding around it?

Cracked tile

Lifting tile

Brickwork at the base of our bifolds.  One side is neat and lines up with woodwork.  The other side, as you can see has gaps and doesn't line up at all??

Here's the big gaping, not so straight brickwork! What's the go?  All other brickwork is great!  

Some of the fluffy stuff (yep, technical term) coming out of bifold door frame...

And while I'm documenting everything, I also noticed there are no powerpoint plates set up in any of the bathrooms (which makes me think this has been done for a reason - perhaps waiting till vanities are in to get heights right) and the 2 powerpoints in our main bedroom are not there.

So there you go... nothing I'm losing sleep over but hope to get sorted soon.  Especially the weirdo brickwork around bifolds and the roof tiles.