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.

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.

We have bricks! Part 2

Well I wasn't disappointed at this afternoon's drive-by.  Everything is looking so great! Bricks are 99% completed with one of the brickies coming back tomorrow to finish off the last few bits & pieces.

We chose the Newcrest Facade and turned the 3 narrow windows into 2 bigger windows 

Cladding will be going above the front windows, similar to the house below

Front of house

Ducting for air-conditioning has been delivered so I imagine that will be installed soon

We've been wired up!

A few finishing touches to the windows and around door frames and the bricks should be finished

'B' noticed a cracked and lifting roof tile that we need to have replaced

With SS approval, poor ol' 'B' moved all these bricks by himself from the front to this pallet in the back so we can use them in the landscaping later

I believe the Council Inspector is coming out next week to suss it all out and (hopefully) give it the big stamp of approval.

Final brick post to come once everything has been finished and they've been acid washed.

Roof Tiles & Windows

We have a roof!  And all our windows are in!  (Colours choices can be seen here.)

We've gone against the trend and gone for a lighter coloured roof which should hopefully be somewhat thermally efficient.

We're really happy with how everything is coming together so far.

Looking up from the road

Looking in from the backyard (a truer colour of the roof tiles)

Our brick delivery - yay!

Windows in Bedroom of unit

Living area of unit

Main bathroom

Looking in towards kitchen and dining room

Looking into kitchen - sink & dishwasher will go where those black pipes are

How beautiful was tonight's sunset? This was taken looking out the front entrance

Hello sunshine!

After my rather premature rant on Monday about the recent down pour in Sydney, we now have glorious sunshine and not the wet week of weather I was expecting.

We met our SS on site this morning and sorted out the missed drainage point.  Seems head office had taken it off drawings given to SS but on official drawings it's there - go figure!  SS seems like a nice guy, only too happy to help and appears (and by all accounts does) run a tight ship.

Our gutters and fascia were put up yesterday (and look awesome!), sarking & roof tiles are going up tomorrow.  The plumbers were there doing their thing too and they needed a few things clarified so it was a good morning to be there.

Windows are being installed tomorrow and bricks will be delivered on Friday with the likelihood of going up mid next week.

So exciting!

Colour Appointment

Well it's been a while between posts however apart from signing our life away - I mean contract, a couple of weeks ago not much has been happening unless you count moving house (to my Mum's while all this house building business is going on) and the endless hours of 'homework' such as multiple trips to PGH Bricks etc to work out our colours!

Packing our life away into storage! Couldn't have squeezed another thing in there! Thanks for your help Steve, Steve, Mark & Jules!

However, yesterday we had our day at Home Option Gallery (HOG) to choose all of our internal & external colours, along with kitchen design and so on.  We were prepared for a pretty full on day and in the end we were there for 6 hours but it all went really smoothly (much to our surprise).

We didn't go to the 'HOG' feeling overly confident based on a lot of feedback from fellow builders but our Colour Consultant Josie was excellent.  Everyone else we saw were also very helpful and prepared.  Each time we sat down with someone new to discuss something we felt they'd already looked over our plans and were familiar with it all before going over things.  As for our kitchen appointment (which is the area we'd heard the most negative comments) - it was ok - not a lot of forthcoming advice or recommendations but we had a really good idea of what we wanted and together we got the end result (nervously awaiting the quote now though!!!).

So, here is what we chose:

External
Bricks - Gravel (with off white 'ironed' mortar)
Roof tile - Wild Rice (traditional profile)
Cladding - Woolooware
Gutters - Dune
Fascias, down pipes & meter box - Jasper
Front door, timber bi-folds & timber french doors -walnut stain
Windows, eaves & garage door - Surfmist

Our bricks and roof tile

Internal
Walls - Antique Ivory by Taubmans
Skirting & Architraves - Elusive White

Below, you can see our colorbond colours on top left - Jasper, Dune & Surfmist.  The Woolooware coloured cladding is top right and our internal wall colour Antique Ivory and Elusive White for trims is just under that.  On bottom right are our bathroom vanity colours.  Ignore the 2 colours in bottom left, they were the original kitchen colours that we've since changed to below...

Kitchen (also see here for our latest plans)
Island Bench - All lower cupboards / drawers & back of Island bench - Alaskan laminex
Drawers & upper cupboards along back wall - Polar white laminex 
Squareform benchtops - Stipple Seal laminex (will replace with Essastone later on)
Splashback - VM319 Metal Blend / Natural Stone (as seen below)

Close up of splashback colours 

Notice our rear opening cupboards on island bench below?

Bathrooms - See pics in Floor / Tiles post.

All floating vanities - Polar White laminex in main bathroom and horizontally laid Fudge Stream laminex (in ensuites)

Squareform vanity bench tops - Pure calcite laminex (again may replace with Essastone later)

Wall & Floor tiles - see below.

Here's the Fudge Stream laid horizontally with a similar coloured bench top.  Both ensuites will have this vanity.  The main bathroom is going to have a polar white vanity as I didn't want it to compete with the feature tile all around the bath tub.

Another pic. Will probably date in 3 minutes but hey, we like it! 

A bit of a jumbled photo but the top middle tile is our bathroom floor tile and the long, thin mosaic tile will be laid horizontally up the front of the bath and on top of bath hob.

Window Furnishings
Thinking of plantation shutters in all bedrooms and sheer blinds in all living areas.  We were going to do it the other way around however we can't really do shutters on our bi-folds and we want lots of light in our living areas and thought that all the shutters may actually cut a fair bit of that light out.  The girls from Abbey blinds are giving us a quote and from prices they mentioned on the spot, they seemed pretty reasonable.

Floor Coverings - see latest post
Yet to have our Dilorenzo appointment however we're pretty certain we're going with the 'Teak' laminated flooring - beautiful colour and very hardy.  There are so many options when choosing a 'wooden' look flooring but we don't have a lot in our budget to pay for real wooden flooring and having young boys the laminate will be nice & hard wearing.  Basically we wanted the warmth from the look of wood and are happy that we'll achieve that with this flooring.  Will come back & update once we've finalised wet area floor tiles & carpet.


Upgrades & approximate pricing
Off white mortar - $250
Stain to front timer door instead of paint - $250 (same front door as below)
Flyscreens for all opening windows - $500
Parent Retreat Entry Door - feature door - can't recall exactly but around $150

Solid door & deadlock from garage into house - $200

Privacy lock to main bathroom - $30

Freestanding 900mm oven - $750
1700mm bath instead of 1500mm - $40
All toilets to next model up - $25 each
Kitchen tap - Dorf vege sprayer - $200
All showers to frameless - between $300 - $500 each
3 coats of Taubmans living silk paint (1 undercoat & 2 coats of living silk) - $1500
Double towel rails instead of singles - $20 each
Converting all shelving in pantry / wardrobes to malamine - $500
Sound proof bats in walls between my Father's bathroom and our living room and also between the laundry and our bedroom - $500

                Our beautiful front door will look exactly like this!

Our beautiful french doors

We were going to get some heated towel ladders in our ensuite and main bathroom however at $740 each plus the cost of installation and the cost for power - we've since realised you can do it for around half the price after handover.

Re wardrobes, still deciding in our WIR whether we'll get any shelving as we are most likely going to fit it out ourselves afterwards.  

Kitchen - I've come back to edit this a few weeks later now that we have our quote.  We've gone back & forth a few times with the kitchen people but in total we're spending around $6,200.  This includes:

• over head cupboards (with light boxes for downlights) above 'cook run' (back bench with oven)
• bulk heads above cupboards
• 3 large pot drawers on either side of oven (instead of cupboards)
• 900mm wide island
• rear opening cupboards on island behind sink and corner space which otherwise would be dead spaces 
• wider cuttlery drawers 600mm instead of 450mm
• Bin drawer with 2 bins in it (this was just over $600 alone! cough cough)

The $6,200 does not include the cost for oven, sink or tap upgrade.  Nor does it include a dishwasher.  I didn't want the crapola one they offer (for a cost of course).  I actually want one that cleans dishes, so we'll put one in after handover.

What we had to miss out on due to the extortionate costs from Kitchen Company - Essastone bench tops & soft close cupboards & drawers (total of these 2 things were $10,000 and while soft close mechanisms can't be retrofitted, we know Essastone would be a LOT cheaper to do ourselves....one day!)  Oh and forget the polyurathane cupboards unless you feel like spending an additional $6000 or so!!!!