Showing posts with label Kitchens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kitchens. Show all posts

Thursday, November 10, 2011

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.


Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Come on in!

....and take a look around our new home.

Our front entrance.  
We raised the ceilings to 2590mm throughout and it's raised to about 2800mm in the entrance. 


Looking back at front door.  The strip of carpet is there only while it's still grubby outside.  Need some art on the wall and some downlights.


Dining and Living Rooms



I love my sunburst mirror


Kitchen



Our Kitchenaid which is responsible for the splashes of red throughout the house


True colour of splashback



Walk-in-pantry. 
There's shelving on the left as well which is where we keep our microwave & toaster.  Very hard to photograph in such a small space.


Family Room.  You might notice the blind hanging a little awkwardly? Because the window was so wide, the fabric with it's natural fall didn't span that distance so they had to "rail-road" it which simply means hang it the other way.  Unfortunately it therefore it doesn't hang as perfectly as it otherwise would however it's not quite as obvious in real life when a camera flash isn't high-lighting it's imperfections.  Oh and they (Abbey Blinds) accidentally hung block out blinds in all these rooms instead of sheer blinds so I'm hoping it will be less obvious again in a lighter fabric.


Main bathroom


Main bedroom.  Looking a little plain at the moment.  I have a few things in mind though.


Our ensuite



My son's bedroom


Still a little plain at the moment as I couldn't find another decal I really liked until recently...

 

However I bought this one a few days ago from this shop on Etsy.  The tree is just under 2m tall so should fill the wall nicely.  It's particularly suitable for my mischevious, climbing little charmer.


 
Love these little guys.  So does he apparently as they end up in his bed each night.


My other son's bedroom


Oops, just noticed his name is crooked.


Loving his feature wall!  He loves Space and Planets so it only seemed fitting.  I've had the decal for months after seeing it on a friend's son's wall (hi Lisa).  It's from My Munchkin Home.  Oh and if you think it looks a bit sparse on the left, that's where the door usually sits open and my son requested the small, medium & large star combo thingo going on if you think it looks a bit odd like 'B' did.


Here we have the playroom / guest room.  Though it's got a whole lot more of a playroom thing going on.  It's such a great room with one whole wall with wardrobe space and french doors that open up to the backyard.




So there you go, that's our home as it currently stands.  Still need to hang a few pictures and do all our lighting and that's on top of the landscaping so it will be a work in progress for some time yet.  Loving every minute though!

 

Saturday, June 25, 2011

The latest

Dropped by the house on the way to picking up my boys from pre-school yesterday and thought I'd have a peek through the windows to see what's happened since our walk through on Wednesday.

Site has been cleaned up


Here's our lovely flyscreens (can flyscreens be lovely?) Only cost $700 to include them which I believe is a little cheaper than doing it afterwards.  


After walking around the perimeter I noticed the French Doors at the front were unlocked....what a shame!  So naturally I popped inside for a little looksy...

And found the showerscreens have been put in!  Yay! 
('scuse dodgy phone pics)


But nooooooo!!!  The shower door in our ensuite is opening the wrong way!!!  It's noted on the drawings and in writing that it's to open the other way (don't want to get all chilly trying to grab a towel now do we?!)  It's all in the detail don't ya know!


No painting as yet however I imagine they're waiting for the gyprock and cornice on the kitchen bulk head but do note our newly installed rangehood...


And that was pretty much it.  I'll be looking forward to my next drive-by on Wednesday!!


Thursday, June 2, 2011

Paint (part 3) and so much more!

The Eden Brae tradies have been busy over the past week and our painting is all but finished now!  In fact as far as the painters are concerned, they are finished however they've painted the bathroom walls the wrong colour (notified SS last week but nothing was corrected!) and they haven't done the feature walls in the boy's bedrooms.

First thing we noticed this afternoon was that our lovely timber doors have had a coat of lacquer & the portico ceiling and lintels have been painted in surfmist.


Close up of walnut stain & clear lacquer


Eaves have been painted in surfmist


Down-pipes and meter box have been painted in Jasper


Cladding has finally been painted in Wooloware Woodlands Grey....what on earth?!  'B' is holding up the colour sample it was meant to be painted in.  Just a tad different!  Oops!


The tin of paint that dobbed...


Next we moved inside and saw that all the main painting has been finished and we LOVE it!!!  It's exactly the colour I was hoping for.  I love the warmth of it and the contrast to the Elusive White trims / doors without being too yellow / creamy.

Here's quite an accurate idea of the colour


Bedroom in granny flat


The painting wasn't the only happy surprise in the house!!  All of our air-conditioning ducts are now in, power-points are in, light switches on the walls and the plumbing has been done and is working!  We thought electrical & plumbing would be a week away.

Living Room in main part of the house - you can't really see but there's some TV points on the wall


Family Room - notice the light and air-con duct! 
(look at our swamp of a back-yard!)


Hello lovely!  We got the slightly bigger bath - 1700mm instead of 1500mm, mainly to fill the long bath hob.


Funnily enough, I don't mind the wrong paint colour in the bathroom as it matches well with the other colours (more so in real life) but it does draw attention the the 1200mm high wall tiles.  Wishing we went all the way up.  Oh well, once the correct white paint is on, shouldn't be so obvious.


Taps are in, we stuck with the standard range because we liked the look of them and I'm only 5 foot short tall so I like a shower head I can adjust.  

Just a note for anyone reading this still in the designing stage - get bigger shower niches.  The standard ones are 22cm high which doesn't fit any of the larger bottles of body wash, shampoo etc.  Still though, if that's our biggest regret....


Main bathroom vanity.  We upgraded to the next sink up in the range which I think was only an increase of $7.  Wish we could have gone extra spesh with the sink but the money fairy had long taken off by the time it came to choose bathroom upgrades.  Bitch.


And here we have our ensuite


Our hopefully still un-used toilet ;)



Our skylight & exhaust fan / heat lamps


Here's the granny flat bathroom, basically the same as our ensuite


This is the washer / dryer alcove with plumbing capped in the wall



Alarm pad & sensors are in


Plumbing in fridge space - bit of patching required


One of the boy's rooms.  We got ceiling fans in each of the bedrooms.  I'm not digging the fans at all though :(  They look cheap and yet cost $305 EACH!  Sob!


And here's one in all it's ugly-light-fitting-on-glory.


Took a pic of a discarded box hoping they got the model wrong.  Nope.  Oh well, will see if they can leave behind the caps and put down lights in instead.  Should make it look better.


Hmmm dented window frame


Our Dorf Veggie Sprayer tap is in


And lastly, a massive bone of contention with 'B'..... The Splash Back.........

Started off like this (they forgot to do behind the rangehood)


Then the tiler came back and did a lovely job but tiled around the rangehood (and as mentioned in a previous post, 'B' wants it tiled behind the rangeood in case we ever have to replace it and can't get the same profile, we don't have to worry).


Then 'B' went back on Monday night and noticed the tiler had been back and taken the rangehood down this time, only to do some make-do tiling thinking the rangehood would go on and it would never be noticed


And then we have today's efforts by the tiler (yet to be grouted).  It's more straight but some bits stick out more than others and there's still some dodgy looking make-do tiling going on.


See what I mean?



So there you have the latest!  All that's left now is:

  • Shower screens
  • Floors
  • Toilet roll holders / towel rails
  • Step in the garage (wondering if they've missed it?)
  • Fix some of the paint
  • Internal door hardware
  • WIP / Robe / linen cupboard shelving
  • Remaining couple of electrical bits & pieces 
  • Blinds & Shutters 

So close now!



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...