Fixtures and Paintwork

Good to see some more progress this week with the completion of the interior painting and the fixtures starting to go in.  It was good to chat with our site supervisor to find out when we are likely to be in, what to expect next and to see how it is all coming together. At this stage we are expecting a completion date of July 24 and a PCI on July 10th.

The door handles have gone in and I like how they look. They are standard throughout the house and are just a neutral feature.

 We have also seen the installation of the towel rails in the bathroom ( no idea why I changed the main bathroom one to a double and not the ensuite- whoops !) The soap dishes look ok and I haven't had hand towel rails put in because there wasn't an obvious space for them to go looking at plans so I decided I would add them in later as will I with the over head vanity cupboards.

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The paintwork looks fabulous and I am so so happy with the colours. The door frames, skirting and doors are a wonderful gloss white and the Taubmans Endure Winter Ice looks fabulous. The photos below were taken at the same time of day but the colour difference with the light is very different. I also took a family photo up against it and in the photo it looks crisp white with the natural outdoor light. I love that there is an obvious colour difference between the ceiling and the walls and given that we have white floor tiles that have a hint of a grey marble look in them I think it will tie in beautifully. Mum also really likes it which is great because she hates grey.

I am also very happy with the bulkhead above the kitchen cupboards.It just looks so much more finished and I won't have to worry about cleaning the tops of the cupboards. When the glass splash back and appliances go in I think it will be just perfect!

 

The next step is electrical work being completed, garage door, moroka to complete the front facade and then floor tiling I believe. We will be in the house in 5 weeks and I cannot wait!

Painting

This week saw the commencement of our painting. I know that this also means an expected handover time of about six weeks so it is very exciting. Estimated settlement date of 23rd July according to our site supervisor.
We also sold our existing house this week which is wonderful and we got a great price and the people are lovely. I know they will fit into our neighborhood and make our wonderful neighbours happy.

I absolutely love the cornices I have chosen for the main living areas..... they make a little statement of their own and with the high ceilings it looks great

Seeing the paintwork start is exciting. I have been really worried that the colour I chose for the walls "Winter Ice" might be too grey so I am looking forward to seeing how it looks .
Looking at the prep work the painters have done, I am hoping they take more care with the top layers. It just looks a bit sloppy to me. Fingers crossed when it is finished I don't notice too many faults. I have been told to look very closely at the paintwork as this is an area often done poorly.

Hiccup #6

 I may have had a sneaky peak at the house recently - and of course I discover our next hiccup. Our bathroom tiling is incorrect! We have a feature tile ordered for our shower niche and also foe the half tile strip along the front of the bath. In both bathrooms they have tiled this section in plain white tiles. So, they will now have to fix that.

 I couldn't resist sitting in the bath space. I was pleasantly surprised at how big it seemed. Won't be very deep but definitely a nice long bath.

They have corrected the problem they had with the windows and tiles not working together.
Lets hope when I do a site inspection next week that they are easily able to fix the tiling situation. We really don't want any delays with our house.

Tiling and a tank!

I am relieved that we always see progress when we go past the house. This week we saw the front porch tiling and alfresco area and also the installation of the water tank. I am so glad I made a last minute change to a slimline tank as even that is huge and takes up lots of space. Our backyard is only 6 meters deep so the round tank would have been a monstrous eye sore. I still think this one is ugly so will certainly be investing in a screen for it.

Brickwork and a benchtop

This weeks progress has been massive as they have completed our brickwork. We now have only the final payment to make on handover day so it feels like we may soon be in our new house. It's funny how you imagine it and then when it becomes reality things look a little different. Also, hindsight is a wonderful thing as you realise you should in fact have spent the money on the things you chose to scrimp on.

Our kitchen bench is also in and I love how my kitchen is coming together!

 

When i look at the front of the house I am disappointed at the dark whole of a doorway. Perhaps it is because I cannot read plans or because I didn't look closely enough but I imagined there was a pillar between the garage and the house and not a solid wall. This now makes the entryway look so dark. I am hoping when the render is done in Surfmist and the front door is painted Surfmist also that I like how it all looks. I am so glad I didn't go with a wood stained door as it would have looked so dark. We chose the Birmingham facade which was one of the two included options and I wish now I had spent the money on an alternative. I can't change it now, but I just hope it looks ok when it is all finished. 

Aside from that I just love everything I have seen so far in our house and I want it finished! 

Bricks ...... of course its going to rain!

This week was when our bricklayers were due to start.... so of course, Sydney is having a once in a decade super storm. I really shouldn't complain because my current house is fine, we are all safe and there are plenty of people much worse off than us.

But, it seems typical that when we needed dry weather, it poured and poured.
My bricks and tiles are all ready to be laid ..... and now we wait

I took this picture today...... certainly wasn't getting out of the car and traipsing around in the mud.... I really hope that open window hasn't let any water into my ensuite!

Kitchen , Bathrooms, Stairs

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It was exciting to visit the house this week and realise that so much progress had been made. I had a crazy work week so hadnt even done a drive by to see if we had any progress. I am so glad I got to see all this work! The kitchen of a home is to me the centre piece and most important. In our house it is also actually smack bang in the middle so it needs to have a little wow factor.

I had increased the size of the island bench and added a cupboard on the hall side and seeing it all as I had imagined is just so exciting! I love it! I do worry that we wont have enough power points in the kitchen but we can add more later.  We will have all stainless steel appliances and a silver glitter glass splash back so I think the kitchen will look pretty amazing.

 

Our cupboards were upgraded to Formica Warm White Gloss. We have standard cupboards rather than the lift up cupboards above the main bench because Mum is short and couldn't reach when the lift ups were open.I am so happy we splurged on the bulkhead. I hates my previous house getting all greasy above the cupboards and gathering dust and such.

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 Lets hope the laundry tub does not become a feature in my kitchen as it is here

 We have a decent amount of space between the bench and the island which is great as we are all generous sized people and I hate squashy kitchens. This is the standard distance though

Another important factor for me (which did actually cause me a sleepless night) was making sure that there was enough room between the fridge cavity and the island to slide our enormous fridge into. I knew the fridge cavity was plenty big enough but really that would be no use if we couldn't get the fridge past the island. Thankfully after checking measurements multiple times and seeing the space, I know it will fit.

Even the kitchen bin is in. There is no space in our kitchen to have a free standing bin and I don't like the idea of the bin (dirty) being in the pantry. That is also why we don't have a butlers pantry..... the concept of wet areas in a pantry is not something that appeals to me. We opted to not have the microwave down low in the island bench as is standard but instead have a set of drawers but we are now left with either the bench or the pantry for the microwave. I think it will end up being in the pantry but again I don't really like that idea. We don't use our microwave a lot though so perhaps I will get used to the idea.

Also added into the house this week is the bathroom vanities.

 The main bathroom has a single vanity and we have not added above bench cupboards. I am sure once we move in we will want them but it was just a cost saving measure initially as I was not sure how much additional money I was going to have. Hindsight tells me I should have but that's a lesson learned. The vanity colour is Laminex Zincworks in the silk finish (an upgrade)  and the bench is Laminex pure calcite which was standard but the 40mm thickness was part of the promotions package when we purchased.
The sink is standard and to be honest I am not sure whether I love it or hate it. Mum doesn't like it at all because it is too modern but it was standard and again, we didn't want to spend extra money here that perhaps would have compromised spending elsewhere.

The Ensuite bathroom

 This is the standard double vanity included in our package. I kinda think the bit that goes over the bath hob is a weird space but the drawer they had in the display house seemed odd also so we just left it as standard. Mum and Dad don't plan on using the bath at all so they plan a couple of baskets to fit into that space for storage as they don't have overhead cupboards either.

The colour of this vanity is Laminex Platinum in a silk finish (an upgrade) and the bench is 40mm Laminex Pure Calcite. We have different colours in both bathrooms as we like different things and also they are far away eough from each other in the house that it won't matter.

Something we have also noticed is that in order to open the window in the bathroom you will need to actually step into the bath to do so. When we chose to upgrade our tiling to go full ceiling height they had to change the windows to be wind out ones. That is actually really difficult to do leaning over the bath as its quite a distance. I suspect our bathroom windows will live open a small amount.

The golden steps were also added in this week........ why do I call them golden? well they cost almost as much. In our tender presentation we were informed that our house would need to have the garage dropped 5 bricks to fir onto the block due to the slope. This then meant that we needed to add in a set of steps to allow access from the garage to the house. The only option we were given was wooden steps as to have cement steps would mean huge expense due to the return visit required by the cement layers. So, wooden it had to be and they were $1381.

I cannot for the life of me understand this huge cost when a similar ( all be it not the same ) cost  $84in Bunning. I cannot imagine installation coasts being more than $1000!Anyway, despite asking if we had other options we had to go with this option because we would not have passed council and received our occupation certificate without them.

Having now seen them I think we will also have to pay to have a railing put with them for safety of the elderly parents. Another thing to add to the post completion shopping list.

So far along the way we have noticed a few things we plan to change when we have the finances post completion...... they are

• sliding door to children's retreat........ my son likes to sing loudly..... I should have though of that sooner as we are now not sure whether it can be done as we don't have many walls without power points etc added in.
• shelving to the walk in robe bedroom 2
• shelving to wardrobe in bedroom 3 as my son is going to be using the allocated linen closet for storage leaving us without a linen cupboard and the spare room seems the logical place
• bench and underbench cupboards in laundry and overhead cupboards - we have already identified a distinct lack of storage 
•  power point in pnatry
• we may have a row of cupboards and a desk built into the children's retreat..... again, more storage

None of these are crucial changes and we may perhaps find once we are living in the house that they are not so necessary..... I am sure there will be many more and diffierent things added to the list.