Monday 25 January 2016

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.

Tuesday 12 January 2016

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 :)

Sunday 3 January 2016

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.