Landscaping

We have been in the house for about 5 weeks now.  The various unfinished items are gradually being fixed, a little slower than we would like.  So far we have had the spa bath tap installed and the tv antenna fixed only.  Things are supposed to start happening this week, but they were supposed to happen last week as well and didn't.  Today we have a backyard cleanup scheduled again, to remove all the bricks and tiles that were buried underground.

On the positive side, we now have a professionally landscaped front yard, done by Herlihy and Chan Landscaping.

Landscaping!

From standing on the driveway.

All that's missing is the stones in the lower pond.  I have also overheard plans for more plants..

My mum bought a lemon tree for us.  It survived BDO day at 40 degrees.

The weeding that me and Gisele have done.  That cardboarded area used to have weeds as thick as the ones on the left.

We finally have a tap for our spa bath!  Lesley bravely volunteered to test it.

Our piano.  You can also see the stained steps and staircase railing.

Staircase rail staining, by Lesley.

The most expensive item in our house - a chair donated by Jaccy.

The guest bedroom.

And Gisele's spartan bedroom.  She doesn't know that kids are supposed to have a flat screen tv, PC, laptop and  bar fridge in their bedroom.

We're in!

Handover happened on Thursday 23rd December!  ANZ handled the final payment very well, having the final cheque available for collection at a branch on Thursday morning, after being requested Wednesday afternoon.  I was impressed.

No pictures of the house yet - we have been so busy moving!  Luckily my parents have helped out, and special thanks also to Pete and Bridget who lent their trailer and effort to get the larger items moved over.  We are now settled in, it's looking very much like a home now.  Still a long list of maintenance issues to sort out with the builder, but all are relatively minor.  The biggest issues being our TV wall sockets don't seem to provide any usable signal and the faucet for the spa bath is missing!  The spa bath was installed on the day of handover.

On Tuesday night before handover, someone took the oven, rangehood, intercom unit and also one of the draws (?).  Not sure what the draw was for, but Metricon had everything except the draw replaced the next day.  The site supervisor said there was no sign of forced entry and the doors were all locked the next day.  Presumably an inside job, but it's not worth the builder's time to catch them I suppose.

Overall things went pretty well.  And the Nawkawed bricks at the front are looking good too.  The previously huge difference in colour is now reduced to a slight difference that's only noticeable to us because we knew what it was like before.

A clean house!

We were finally able to get some pictures, after the carpet is complete and the house cleaned!  It's beginning to look like it really will be done by Christmas.  SS says we can have a walkthrough next week and plan for handover the following week.

After the flooring being finished and the house cleaned it really looks like a house now.

Preparations for concrete out the front.

Entrance and "sitting room", with "brick on cardboard" front door locking technology.

The kitchen, finally clean.

Dining room.

Dining room and family room, from kitchen.

Family room from kitchen.  AKA the TV room.

Rear door is finally clean.  It looked almost impossibly dirty before this.  Outside is preparations for concreting the outdoor room.

View out from the dining room to our future koi pond.  Unfortunately koi seem to be illegal in most of Australia, so it's going to be a "not koi" pond.  Most of what you can see out there is next door's house foundations.

Moving upstairs, the master bedroom.  We'll be replacing all the saucer lights.

Bath without the bath.

Clean bathroom mirror with the right tiles around it.

Bathroom shower.

Ensuite.

Ensuite shower with tiled base.

Carpet, Plumbing and Tiles

Things have been busy lately!  I visited the site and there were tilers and plumbers there at the same time.  Then the next time I went the carpets were half laid, and on the next visit there were cleaners going through the house cleaning up, so I let them do their stuff and didn't take any pictures.  So the carpets are done, but no pictures yet.

The ensuite shower, now with feature strip.

Ensuite tiling is complete all way around now.

Part of the bath hob tap is installed.

Tiling around the mirror is complete

Tiling here is complete too.

And here's the other wall of the bathroom shower

Toilets have been installed too, and all the other plumbing.

Carpets were being laid when I took the pictures.  The carpets are complete now.

This stuff is under the carpets.

We are proud half owners of the rightmost 2 metres of the lighter coloured fence.  We owe someone $55 for it.  Actually we haven't paid for the darker coloured part yet either, but they haven't asked.

A few overall pictures of the house.  They were cleaning inside today.

Taken from next door, where the build seems to have stalled.

From the front.

The nawkawed bricks

Nawkawed bricks at the side.

Nawkaw, tiles, floor waste!

It seems our bricks have been Nawkawed!  The results are not perfect though.  Before and after pics are blow.  Lesley described it as "bricks with heavy make-up".  The dyed bricks are still different from the others, but the shade is similar now instead of being much darker.  The bricks are still sub-standard when compared to bricks that had been laid properly in the first place.  If you look closely at both pics you can see they have actually added marks to the bricks in the middle which were too light, as well as lightening the bricks at the top.

We also have floor waste drains in the ensuite and bathroom, and some of the re-tiling has been done now.  And the kitchen window sill has finally been put back in!

Kitchen window sill.

Bathroom floor waste

Bathroom tiles.  They ran out of speckled tiles.

Tiles re-laid along the left side of the feature strip.  They didn't follow our instructions on how to lay these!  The cut white tiles were supposed to be on the inside corner.

Tiles being relaid in ensuite.  They put place-holder tiles for some of the feature strip.

More ensuite tiles.  This time they did the other wall.

Ensuite floor waste

Bricks before Nawkaw

Bricks after Nawkaw

After Nawkaw again