So close yet still so far

At the beginning of the week, when we thought we may have a final walk through yesterday, I changed my work days around so I would be free to do so.  As Friday rolled around it was becoming rather obvious (to us, not so much the SS) that nothing would be happening but it meant 'B' and I had a rare day when we both had the day off and the kids were at pre-school!

Our SS never made it to the house on Thursday (as he said he would) to check everything was completed nor did he make it out yesterday (as he said he would).  As far as he's concerned he *thinks* the house is finished & ready to handover however if he'd actually gone out on site to keep an eye on things he would have noticed there is still a fair bit to do!

'B' and I naturally dropped by the house and were stoked to find a way in!  We weren't expecting that!  So we took our time and checked everything over - without feeling rushed and now that there is nothing left to go in and in decent natural light!

Here it is all nice & clean.  The floors need another mop but I'll do that when I move in anyway.

Our original list of things left to do still stands - except 4 out of the 5 touch catches in the kitchen have now been fixed (they missed one)...

1. Clean brickwork (grubby where it's been repointed & a few of the sills have mortar chunks on them)
2. Fill in some of the gaps between cladding & brickwork at the front
3. WIP & WIR shelving
4. Shower door in our ensuite opening wrong way
5. Fix the tiling in our ensuite and where the towel rail has been removed in main bathroom
6. Install a shower head in bathroom
7. Privacy lock in bathroom
8. Silicone in bathrooms
9. Touch catches in kitchen
10. Garage step
11. Manhole cover
12. Light & fan in our bedroom isn't working
13. Roof service (cracked tiles)
14. Door service (they make sure the bi-fold tracks are cleaned and fix any scratches etc)
15. Fix dented window frame

In addition to this list, we picked up some extra things yesterday:

Paint splatters all over timber flooring

The scotia was removed when the oven was installed and never put back

The carpet in our bedroom still looks rubbish and needs to be pulled tighter

And now that we've finally been able to see the carpet in decent natural light, we've noticed the join in the carpet that looks terrible!

There's big gaps in some of the grout around the bath tub and none of the excess grout has been cleaned off tiles or floor (can see it better now that it's been "cleaned")

I don't even know how we never noticed this little gem of tile work before.  Can you see how it slopes up at the end?!  It's on top of our bath hob.

Our kitchen splashback still has excess grout all over the tiles and there is paint all over the metal ends

And ummm are the windows meant to do this and completely lift out?!  Not all do it but a few do.

Had everything been actually completed and cleaned before our PCI, we would have picked up most of these additional issues at PCI.  Lesson learned.

So, aside from feeling like a picky whinger the house on the whole is looking great and oh so ready to move into.  It's getting frustrating knowing how close we are yet how many trades still need to be coordinated to finish it off to a satisfactory level.

We're also getting tired fast of feeling like a nuisance each time we try & get in contact with our SS!   

I haven't even pointed out some of the additional paint touch ups that need to be done as we're just going to do it ourselves later.

Hopefully, we'll have some kind of result next week!

We're *this* close!

Yep, the title says it all!  It's nearly alllll ours!

We dropped by the house this afternoon and the cleaners were there and kindly let us have a quick look around!  Yesss!

The painters have been back and done all their little touch ups and repairs.

Here's the front of the house with the cladding painted in the correct colour - woollooware 

Much nicer than the icky grey it had been accidentally painted

Here's one of my boy's feature walls - Bristol Reservoir 

And here's my other son's feature wall - Bristol Regatta.  Loving both of them, nice splash of colour.

The towel rails have been removed and the correct one has been installed in the granny flat.

Some minor electrical's have been done such as fixing some of the bedroom lights.

Also, the carpet looks much better!  Someone has clearly been in to fix a couple of things and pulled it tighter because some of the random lumpy bits are gone and it is nice & straight against the skirting in our room!  Very happy about this as I thought we'd have to raise it at the final sign off.

Left to do...

1. Clean some of the brickwork around the front & on porch
2. Fill in some of the gaps between cladding & brickwork at the front
3. WIP & WIR shelving
4. Shower door in our ensuite 
5. Fix the tiling in our ensuite and where the towel rail has been removed in main bathroom
6. Install a shower head in bathroom
7. Privacy lock in bathroom
8. Silicone in bathrooms
9. Touch catches in kitchen
10. Garage step
11. Manhole cover
12. Light & fan in our bedroom isn't working
13. Roof service
14. Door service
15. Fix dented window frame

Gee, so much has happened this week I'm kind of surprised there's so many things left to do!  Mainly small things though apart from the tiling.

Don't think we're quite ready for the final walk through this Friday as SS had hoped for but I'm not worried, we're only a matter of days off now....

Blinds & shutters!

I went to the house this afternoon with great anticipation as I saw the Abbey Blinds & Shutters van at the house this morning.  When I got there I kicked a major goal as I was able to be let in by someone who had a key!!  Yipee!

House was a bit dark and not all rooms have globes / working lights yet and I only had my phone to take pics, so apologies for the quality of the pics but here goes...

We got shutters in each of our bedrooms (more about that here). This is one of the boy's rooms.

Here's our bedroom

From another angle with better light

The photo's don't do them justice, I had a colorbond moment when I walked in the room!  I just LOVE them!! 

In our living areas we chose sheer blinds because generally we just want nice, big, un-obstructed windows during the day to let lots of light in.  The blinds are really there for privacy at night and the sheer fabric enables some light to filter in during the day if needed but you can't see through them at night.

Problem.  They've gone and put block-out blinds throughout.  Sigh...

Not the greatest pic but you get the idea.  Should all be good though, it states "sheer" on the signed quote and at least in the meantime while we wait for their replacement, we'll have some privacy.

The Tyrrell's Inspector also came out today.  I noticed some of his green tape around marking a couple of things we missed.  I'm looking forward to seeing the report next week.

Paint touch ups were meant to happen each day this week however nothing has been done yet.  Has probably worked out for the best though as Tyrrell's have pointed out some extra things anyway.  I think we've also been waiting for the Carpenter to re-fix the skirting (after they were removed to put floor boards down) and make our internal garage step before painting happens.  Our SS indicated they should be there over the weekend.  Hopefully anyway. 

Neeeeeearly there!

What a bad lay!

We were so excited to check out the house yesterday afternoon and as luck would have it the front door hadn't been pulled tightly enough closed so we could have a proper look around!

Started off well enough, the carpet had been installed by Di Lorenzo only that same day and the first room we saw looked pretty good.

Then we walked through to the Living Room and thought it strange to see the indentation and thought perhaps it was the crease where the carpet had been rolled....hmmmm....... (never noticed such a thing when I've had carpet laid on 2 other occasions though...)

But wait, it gets way more dodgy!  Then we walked into our bedroom.  

And if you can't see the sea of ripples above, check out how dodgy it looks against the skirting.  

There are no other words than WTF?!

A lovely little finishing touch!

How about the quality below!  Nothing like not lining up the lines and having a bubble of carpet for no apparent reason.

Seriously!  Could you imagine doing a job like this and thinking it had been done well?  I just don't get it.  

To top it off, the carpet was the only thing to happen so far this week!  I know it will all eventually get there but it feels like it's slowed down to a snails pace again.

Left to do:

1. Tyrell's inspection (might have been done, need to get a copy)
2. Brickwork around the front
3. WIP and WIR shelving
4. Correction of shower door in ensuite 1
5. Door service including fixing the gaps at the base of the French Doors
6. Roof service
7. Tiling in ensuite 1
8. Removing towel rails & replacing the tiles they were attached to in ensuite 1 & bathroom
9. Silicone in bathrooms
10. Touch catches in kitchen
11. Privacy lock in bathroom (missing)
12. Missing wardrobe handles in Rumpus Bedroom
13. Missing shower head in Bathroom
14. Garage step
15. Manhole cover
16. Lighting in bedrooms

Wish us luck!

Almost there....

We did a drive by this morning in the hope of seeing a finished house peeking through the windows and seeing some carpet down but we found a window unlocked.... Happy days!!

Last Friday it was mentioned that we'd most likely be having a walk through in another week from now so naturally I expected a fair bit of activity to have happened over the last week.  Especially based on past speediness.

Seeing that the wooden floors finished last weekend, I had thought the carpet would now be in as well as the shower screens that have been sitting there for a week.  Some paint corrections maybe?  Not so.

Wasn't a complete downer though.  They've put most of the door handles on, finished the electrical, done the wardrobe / pantry fit-outs, bathroom mirrors are up and kitchen splash-back has been re-tiled (5th time lucky eh?!)

Can I have a hallelujah?!

Bit of door hardware (they've missed the privacy lock on the main bathroom door though)

Basic wardrobe fit-out (actually it's an upgrade from the standard wire shelving but it's just a shelf and hanging rail, nothing too exciting)

WIP fit-out - The microwave will go on one of these shelves

Other side of WIP.  There are meant to be 5 shelves and the shelving is meant to also be on the right wall.

Powerpoint in the island bench. Had to go here as it couldn't go on the side where the dishwasher is or where the cutlery drawers are.

One verrrry excited little boy in his new bedroom!  I love how he doesn't even reach the bottom of the window sill yet!

Bathroom mirrors in and shower screens still waiting to be installed

Oh and my personal favourite..... the towel rails that have been installed that we requested not to have put in.  I even sent an email reminder to our SS 10 days beforehand so that this didn't happen.  We are putting in heated towel ladders after hand over.  Now they'll have to replace tiles in the main bathroom and our ensuite.  Oh and they've been sure not to put one in the Granny Flat which is the only bathroom they were meant to.  How much freaken easier can you make it for them not to stuff up?

Anyone else notice something wrong with this picture?!  We figure the plumbers in the bathroom on the other side of the wall got a bit excited and this is the result!

If you can get past the terrible clashiness (yes I just made up a word) of the different wood colours, can you see the gap at the end of the door sill / jamb / thingy?  Looks a bit un-finished, don't you think?

Hard to see but it's the same at the other end.  By the way, in real life the colours all blend in much nicer than shown here...

Anyone know what this is?  It's just above the internal door from garage.  It's not an alarm sensor as they look completely different in other areas of the house.  It's not the door bell as that's in another spot and it's not a smoke alarm.  It's also not mentioned on electrical plan.  Just curious really....

So there you have it... we're almost there!!