Our New Home Presentation

So we had our NHP last Friday 22nd January.  It was meant for 8am, however our SS asked if we could shift it to 3:30pm as he wanted to have a cracked tile replaced before he took us through.

Unfortunately he wasn't able to get the tiler in on time and the tile was still needing to be replaced by the time he took us through at 3:30pm.  No big deal!

Anyway, he took us through our (virtually) finished home showing us how everything works and getting us to look as closely as we could to find any issues. Honestly? the only things we could find wrong with the place were:

1. A small pull/tear in a fly wire screen in the master (which we didn't even notice; our daughter pointed it out).
2. A light globe in the kitchen didn't work
3. A small paint touch up in one of the other bedrooms (again, something our daughter pointed out)

Apart from the tile needing to be replaced that was all we could find wrong.  Now, our SS isn't an idiot and he explained that we will find more wrong when we move in and start living in the house. So he advised to keep a list of everything and contact them to get jobs done.  Unless something is leaking he suggested to wait until we have a few issues at a time before contacting them.

So, because of those small issues we couldn't sign off on the house on Friday (even though I probably would have :P).  Our SS will have them fixed this week and we're going to meet him again on Friday 29th to try again :D

In the meantime we heard from our neighbour again about the fence.  They had gone radio silence for months even after I tried to contact them about it.  They were measuring their block and found that one of our storm water pipes had been installed right on the fence line, which obviously will cause problems.  I got straight onto our SS about it. He went and checked it out and has confirmed that it will definitely need moving. Hopefully it won't delay handover though :(  I guess it's better that it was discovered now rather than after handover.  Just wish it was discovered months ago when the neighbours said they were arranging the fence then....*sigh*

Photo time:

The first pipe in the picture above is the pipe in question. Now that it's pointed out to me, it's pretty obviously on the fence line.

Our front garden from a couple of different angles. Any suggestions on what we could do would be greatly appreciated. I haven't got a creative bone in my body.

Likewise with our backyard, any ideas? You can see it has quite a slope to it.  Not sure what to do there either.  It's a bit overwhelming to be honest.

NHP Booked!

We just received an email to say that our New Home Presentation has been booked for Friday 22nd January!!!!  SOOOOOOO EXICITED NOW!!!!!

This week will see our driveway poured and our flyscreens, robe doors and mirrors installed.  Then next week will be our appliances, paint touch ups, final clean and shower screens.

We'll have to try and resist the urge to say that everything is perfect and sign on the dotted line without really looking long and hard at our new house.  It'll be tough though :)

Forgot to mention

I completely forgot to mention that our SS cottoned on that they had the incorrect tiles for our ensuite before they were laid.  He called us to let us know and this is why tiling was delayed.

So we 'pretty much' ended up with our original idea. And by 'pretty much' I mean, the tiler still stuffed up and incorrectly tiled our niche with the hexagonal tile.

Instead of ripping it down, because obviously it would cost them, our SS sent us photos and asked if we'd be happy to keep it this way.

 

 I much preferred this over our original idea; which was to tile the niche with the same square tile covering that back wall.  This way, the niche ties in with the splashback.  So we were rather quite happy with the error :)

I stand corrected

So as usual, I know nothing about building and I stand corrected yet again with the things that were bugging me.

We took another tour through the house with our SS and on closer inspection of the tiles in the shower (now that they've been grouted), the tiles don't look nearly as 'out' as I thought they did. They actually look pretty damn awesome and I'm so happy with them. I've also decided that the exhaust fan is just fine where it is and I'll stop sweating the small things :P

Our SS is a bloody awesome bloke too. He's pointing out things I would never have noticed (at least not right away) and telling us he's not happy with the quality and getting it re-done (some tile cutting and some painting for example).

We are so close to moving in now, I'm getting very excited. It's been such a long drawn out journey.  Our SS is hoping that it'll all be finished and ready for us to inspect (and hopefully sign off) by mid to late January.  It is our hope that we'll be moved in before our daughter goes back to school at the start of February. I'm not holding my breath though.

Our next dilemma will be what to do with our front yard.  It slopes down slightly (towards the house), so we're thinking a retaining wall of some sort.  We're also having an exposed aggregate driveway, with a small section at the front of the house and the porch also being exposed agg.  We had no idea what to do at the front, so we just left it up to the builder to 'design' it for us.  We're likely to cover it with decking at some stage (yes, I know, even though we've paid for the exposed agg).


Something we didn't really notice when we signed off on the plans. A strange added on bit at the front of the porch.

Our original idea was to build a deck stepping down from the footpath to the front door. But our latest issue we've discovered is the front taps are in the way.

It's hard to see in the photo above, but the deck would need to be cut around the taps as they intrude slightly.

We could perhaps have a plumber move the taps slightly, although I'm not sure if you're actually allowed to do that and it's just another expense I don't want.  We might have to come up with another idea for the front yard. We're not terribly creative though, so this might prove to be a large challenge.

Ever so close

Thankfully they left a door unlocked on the weekend, so we were able to go through and take some photos.

Also, after our meeting with the SS I mentioned the things that irked me and was happy to hear that he noticed most of those things also and they'll be tended to.


Garage door installed

 

Loving our floors (despite them being filthy at the moment) 

 

Black glass splashback installed. Was nervous about this one, but happy with our choice.

Main bathroom - happy with how this has turned out also

Ensuite - love the tiles, but 2 things are shitting me about this room.
1. Exhaust fan is at one end of shower rather than centred.  We've been told it couldn't be centred due to trusses in the way, so it apparently looks better at one end rather than 'off' centre.
2. The grout lines of the wall tiles do not line up in the corners at the back wall.  We've been told that due to the different tiles, there is sometimes a 1-2mm discrepancy in tile size which leads to the lines not matching exactly.....hmmm....feel I'm being taken for a bit of a ride on that one.  The lines are out by way more than a couple of mm.

Feature tile splashback

We're going through again on Wednesday 23rd for a final look before it's all locked up for Christmas.  Will certainly be inspecting these grout lines more.

Things that irk me....

Looking through the place today, some things are really irking me.  They don't seem to bother Matt much (or at least not as much as me), but they're just really irritating things.

We're having a walk through with our Site Supervisor this coming Friday, so they're things I'll bring up with him.

Things that irk me #1


Shitty paint work under the eaves around the render

Things that irk me #2

Shitty paint work around windows

Things that irk me #3

Pull handle installed so low the door looks like it's upside down

Particularly on this inside

Things that irk me #4

Poorly installed drawers that don't close properly

 

The drawers on the left and right in the picture above are stuck open and the cupboards under the sink don't open at all. They all seem to catch on the bench. Obviously this is something they'll have to address, but like the topic suggests, it just irks me....

 

There are also plenty more irksome paint jobs around the place (they don't show up very clearly on my camera).  You can see were they've cut in around doors, the shadow line of the cupboards above the fridge has gaps, the timber around the theatre room doors looks shithouse too, like when you paint raw timber with just a coat or two of paint and it looks like a sponge has soaked it up?

Conundrum

We have a conundrum....
We noticed a big pile of tiles sitting in our theatre room awaiting installation.  For the sake of this story we'll ignore the fact that we were told tiling would be completed this week.

Anyway, we're checking out our tiles and notice that there seems to be crap load of our hexagonal feature tile we selected for our vanity splash back.  This was meant to be just a strip of tile, long enough to span the vanity.

Ensuite floor/wall tile, cabinet colour, vanity bench and feature hexagonal splashback tile

Now, for a feature wall of our double shower, we chose a similar coloured 'square' tile.

 

So our conundrum?  It looks like they've accidentally ordered the hexagonal tile as our feature wall in our shower also.  I could be wrong, but there were boxes of the hexagonal tile and we couldn't see any boxes of the square tile.  Hmmmm......do we prefer the hexagonal tile as a feature in the shower? Do we keep quite and let them install that instead of the square tile?

So now we'd have this instead....

 

Decisions, decisions.....