The weeks since handover....

It's been a crazy few weeks since we got our keys! We have done the fence, turf and laid timber vinyl click flooring through the whole house except media room and bedrooms. Our carpet has been installed too (absolutely loving our shag pile carpet in the bedrooms!!!) and I've finally been able to make a start on unpacking some boxes. I am absolutely loving the house, I find myself staying up until midnight most nights without even realising, I'm happily moving stuff around and sorting stuff out and before I know it it's way past my usual bedtime.   Also loving our vacumaid and vacpan.  I wasn't sold on the whole idea but I'm glad we got it - the vacuum cleaner is so powerful and the vacpan in the kitchen is a god send.  You simply sweep towards it (it's in the kickboard of the kitchen cabinets) and then tap it with your foot and the dirt gets taken away by the vacumaid hose!  Our floors are great too - they are a vinyl click together product sold by Harvey Norman called Allure Loc.  They carry a lifetime residential warranty and have a commercial wear layer.  We tried to scratch them with knives and keys when we first looked at them and couldn't!  They are a DIY product or you can pay someone to lay it for you - we chose to DIY as it was a saving of close to $4,000.  Andrew was cursing ever saying he would do it after a few days - whilst they are click together they are still very fiddly and time consuming.  We love them and think they look great and they also hide the dirt really well.  We've had a lot of comments from visitors too!

The first few days Andrew was back he noticed a number of things around the house he wasn't happy with (he wasn't around for PCI) and our supervisor happily came out to the house and noted everything down and arranged trades to come and fix them all. We're still waiting on the plumber to fix his part but I'm told he will be out on Saturday.

We hadn't planned on sleeping at the house until the floors were finished but of course I managed to twist Andrew's arm and we set up our camping bed in the middle of the lounge room! Had a horrible sleep on that so ended up putting a mattress on the floor and moved ourselves into the media room for a bit more privacy. Once we had some old sheets on our bedroom windows we then moved said mattress into our room. At the moment I still don't have our bed at the house so the mattress is still on the floor, though having carpet now makes it much more "liveable"!

 

Our previous home was only a 3 bedroom weatherboard so we really don't have all that much furniture, just a dining table and chairs, our bedroom furniture and two couches so the house is looking rather bare. In the coming weeks / months (when funds permit!) we will be purchasing a new bedroom suite, desk & bookcase for the study and tv unit for the media room and a few other bits and pieces. As well as those things we had wanted to get a new lounge and on the weekend Andrew's parents very kindly bought us a black leather lounge for the media room, it is arriving on Saturday so I'm excited to see that go in. I bought some cushions for it tonight too. 



Our new lounge (in black)

Cushions for the new lounge!

Hoping to get some electrical work done over the coming weeks, including putting up our feature light in the entry way. I attempted to put it together tonight but didn't get anywhere!

Next week our driveway is going down so I will finally be able to drive in the garage at night!  Then after that we'll be looking to get the house rendered (currently only the front is done), the decking on the entry and alfresco done, and get started on the gardens.  I have a fairly long list of odd jobs to do already including filling and sanding nail holes on all skirting boards and giving them two final coats of gloss (we took the skirting off and then put back on after we had laid the floors to give it a neat finish), sorting through our mountain of clothes and looking in to those wardrobe fit outs with drawers etc, organising the block wall for other side of entry and gates for the front, and backfilling our other side against the retaining wall and looking at ground coverings for that area too.  I guess the jobs don't stop once the house is built!

A few pictures below of the house happenings of the past few weeks....

 

Getting closer to the finish line... for this area anyway!

The finished product (complete with mop streaks!)

 

 

 



Turf laying progress shot.

 

 

Our shag pile carpet!

 

Media room carpet.

Finally in our own bedroom ..... but the mattress is still on the floor!

My bargain find at Far Pavilions - $105.00 reduced from $350.00 - currently in our entry way!

H-A-N-D-O-V-E-R !

Just a quick post to say we had handover today! Received a really lovely picnic set cooler bag set which is perfect to have in the car for weekends! An even better surprise was that Andrew rang this afternoon and said his boss is so happy he has caught him up on a heap of work so he can come home a bit earlier than planned.

I had our storage POD delivered today and Mum and I managed to get it completely emptied in under 3 hours. There are boxes everywhere and still more to come from Mum & Dad's but I can't tell you how good a feeling it is to have our stuff in our home!

The rest of the week will probably go by in a blur so I'll be back next week to update on progress!

Playing the waiting game ...

Well our original handover date didn't happen yesterday, isn't happening today and won't happen tomorrow either.  We've been pushed back until Monday though I'm doubtful on Monday going ahead either. 

Since PCI last Friday, I have noticed a few more bits and pieces that need fixing, one being the plaster on the bulkhead in the kitchen.  I don't know how it was missed, although it is hard to see the problem in daylight, (I saw it at 10pm Sunday night on my way home from the airport!) but the plaster was all wobbly and weird (see photo below).  It has since been fixed and we're just waiting on paint now.

The house also failed the final plumbing inspection, despite me voicing Andrew's concerns (he is a plumber) a number of weeks ago to the supervisor regarding a few things, our supervisor assured me all would be fine.  Seems so silly that the plumber who was doing the work wouldn't have done his best work considering he knows the owner is a plumber?!  Anyway, still waiting on a number of items to be fixed by the plumber, along with a missing flyscreen, broken window, tiling issues and the list goes on.  When I dropped round to the house last night only a handful of the PCI items have so far been rectified. 

We also found out yesterday that our bank stuffed up the final payment to the builder and ignored our request for a bank cheque to take to handover and instead paid the final invoice on Tuesday by EFT.  So we're now paying for a house that we don't even have the keys for and can't get to the keys to until the problems have been fixed!

Origin Energy also managed to completely stuff up our gas & electricity connection.  I sat on hold for 1.5 hours about two weeks ago to organise our billing account etc and when I hadn't received any paperwork, (as they said I would) I called them on Wednesday to check everything was okay.  After waiting for 40 minutes and being passed through 8 customer service people, the end result was I didn't exist to them and there was no record of my call.  After a further half hour they found me under the wrong spelling of my name and at the wrong address.  Duh!

I've been busy scheduling carpet layers, turf deliveries, security & ducted vacuum fit offs and delivery of our storage 'POD'.  Tomorrow my Dad and I, along with one set of the neighbours are getting the retaining walls done and then Monday Mum and I will be starting to unpack the storage POD, and if we're lucky we may also get handover too!  Luckily our supervisor understands that I have already booked the POD delivery etc in and we have a construction key for inside access so he doesn't mind us getting a head start.    The plan for the next few weeks is to have the POD unpacked in to the garage Monday & Tuesday, back at work for Wednesday & Thursday then off for 2 weeks.  Then Andrew is flying back down for 1.5 weeks from Thursday night (yippee!!), fences and turf Friday to Sunday, start laying our timber planks from Monday onwards, have a small (but necessary!) party on the Saturday night and then the carpet is being laid on Monday before Andrew flies back up on Tuesday.  Then I'll be left on my own to organise the driveway and sort out all of the boxes inside!

So out of all the weeks since the build started, this week has definitely been the most stressful and frustrating. Really starting to feel a little bit over it all and it's the first time I've really felt annoyed that Andrew isn't here!  I'm at the stage where I just want to get in to the house and start unpacking!

I hope you all have a good weekend ... Spring is definitely on it's way!

PCI - done & dusted

A quick update before I head off for the weekend.. I had our PC inspection this morning and took my boss and her husband along for the ride (they have owner built a number of times and he is a carpenter). Happy to report that everything is on track for our handover next Saturday. Our supervisor has 5 handovers next week and very kindly offered to do ours on Saturday rather than wait until Monday the following week. There are just some minor fix ups here and there, as expected. I would have liked to have seen the house cleaned this morning but the cleaner was running behind so she is doing it tomorrow. A few pictures below... Ignore the batten light fittings as they will be changed and the lovely brown bricks will be rendered after handover too.

Have a good weekend in this beautiful Brisbane weather!