Day 132 - Carpets Installed

Today I received my weekly update from my site supervisor...unfortunately my stupid iphone cut out half way through the call and refused to let any incoming calls be answered so I didn't get to have the chat I was after. I dropped Metricon an email asking him to call back but I haven't heard anything yet.

Thanks to my iphone I have no planned inspection date, my SS hadn't been onsite since Monday morning had he was hoping the floorboards were installed yesterday. We dropped by the house today to find no floorboards but carpet in throughout the whole house. They had to leave the edges unfinished until the floorboards are done, hopefully they'll be finished by the end of this week.

To our surprise Metricon had also filled in the slab with soil around the house. In a couple of instances they covered up blemishes in the bricks that I already have pics of and by kicking away a section of dirt can hopefully get them to fix it.

The rubbish bin is also gone which is great given someone in the estate dumped a heap of rubbish in it over the weekend. I also queried the air conditioning control because we paid for a digital thermostat of which we have nothing installed, just a manual controller. We originally asked for it to be all put on the one remote which they said was possible but we're now told that because we have different brand ducted heating to evaporative cooling it isn't possible, however we will get 2 programmable remotes.

We're almost over the line, hopefully our inspection will be next week.

Day 129 - Cleaning Complete, Getting There

It has been a while since my last entry, in some respects a lot has happened, and in others, we'er not as close as we thought we would be at this time a couple of weeks ago.

A couple of weeks ago the house was cleaned and since then Metricon have been slowly ticking off the items that need to be resolved. At this point in time we're hoping to have our final inspection in a couple of weeks time.

VIEW ALL PHOTOS AS A SLIDESHOW

The garage door is now in and the automatic door control has also been fitted. The colour actually came up really well, but we're still waiting for the front of the house to be rendered in the final colour.

The splashbacks are in the kitchen, it has been completely cleaned and all except for a broken light it is looking great.

This is the view from the rear door entry


The view from the family room.
The painters have been around the house and have painted the electrical box on the outside of the house, they left the fibre box the standard colour.


The robe doors have been installed
The bathroom with lights on
The garage door control
Where the electrical pipe in the bedroom used to stick into the room.
The bedroom doors have finally been installed and stained, not sure what happened with the vent and light.

We have also ordered our blinds and will hopefully have them available before we move in so we can get them straight away to save us having to put up paper or blankets.

We had a bit of water getting into the roof due to some flashing or tiles issues so apparently that plaster has been replaced and painted. One of the broken windows has been replaced, but not the front window, hopefully this will be done over the next couple of weeks.

I'll try to give another update by next weekend, hopefully we get out final inspection date on Wednesday.

Day 111 - Lights On, Cooling Up

I missed the call from my SS last week so it has been a fortnight since we last spoke. I fired off a quick email this morning to ask some questions in relation to the progress given it has really been non existant for the last week and a bit since the tiling was completed.

We chatted for about 5 mins, discussed a few bits and pieces which I thought Casey and myself could go out tonight to check out. What we found was a very nice sight.

The electricals have all been fitted off, all the doors are locked, but we could turn on the garage light..and guess what IT WORKED!! :) The downlights inside look great, all of the external power points are complete, the lights above our island bench are in and look fantastic.

The plumbing fitoff has also been completed, the sinks are in, taps are in, showers etc....everything looks very noice! The powerpoint for the water heater is on the wrong side of a downpipe but I'm not sure what I'm going to be able to do there. I've flagged it, we'll see what happens.

The evaporative cooling unit has also been replaced, lets hope this one stays on in the wind. All of the cooling vents are in and they also look great.

There is a little bit of rectification work still to be done including the electrical pole in the bedroom, they have actually knocked this back in from what I could see through the window but they still need to fix up the hole and they also need to fix up the fridge cavity plaster which isn't square.

We found today on approaching our block that our neighbours have installed security shutters. It would appear they are the first in the estate to install them and I now feel like I'm living in the middle of downtown LA with gunmen running the streets, oh well, we'll put up the fence and live with it.

The rear neighbour has also started building, their house will be relatively to the fence to take advantage of the northerly sun for their alfresco based on the slab configuration. It looks as though it is a single story home, at least I hope it is so it doesn't block our northerly sun to the alfresco.

Where to from here I hear you ask, well, our clean is scheduled to occur next Wednesday, after all of the plaster rectification work is done (if it ever gets done, we've been waiting about 1 month for it). The following Monday floor tiles will go in with the carpet going in on the Friday. Once the carpet is in we're basically finished, Metricon will have their Quality Assurance guys through and we'll be in for our inspection not long after.

From there it takes about a week for our bank to check the house and issue the cheque, it also allows a few days for any recitification work to take place and also enough time for the Certificate of Occupancy to be ordered.

Based on the current dates it looks like our inspection might even scrape into this month, worst case at this stage it will be early next month. I'm having some blinds measured and quoted on this week so I'll get some pictures while I'm onsite. I'm also having someone come to quote and give me some advice on a deck under the alfresco.

Its all very exciting, we just can't wait to get a few more weeks in to get our inspection date to know that we're closer to moving in!

Upgrades

Given that we're now getting a little closer to completion I thought it might be worth itemising the upgrades we made to the base house design.

We had some upgrades as part of our Luxury Promotion Pack. These packs always vary but we made quite a few upgrades again on top of this pack. For the most part it upgraded our selection categories, but we found we upgraded again on quite a few things, particuarly the kitchen.

The Upgrades:

Structural

• Higher Ceilings: 2550mm ceiling instead of 2400mm standard ceiling

External

• Front Render: Render to bedroom projection and portico, we also paid a bit extra to get 2 different colours.
• Brickwork Above Windows: By default all windows come with infills, we upgraded the alfresco and rear windows to be bricked.
• Bricks: Upgraded to Category 3 - Austral Bricks - Urban One (Chocolate)
  
• Roof Tiles: Upgraded to Category 1A - Bristile - Char Grey
• Hot Water Unit: Moved hot water unit to rear of house to make room for potential water tank
  

Garage

• Internal Garage Door: Installed internal garage entry
• Deadlocks: Upgraded all rear doors to be deadlocked
  

Windows

• Double Glazed Windows: We upgraded all windows to be double glazed, including the tri-stacker door. This also meant we had to go with awning windows instead of sliding windows
• Window Flyscreens: By default the house price doesn't include fly screens, go figure.
• Obscure Glazing: We added satinlite obscure glazing to toilet window, also not included by default

Front Entry

• Front Door: Upgraded to Corinthian Madison entry door.
• Glazing: Added glazing to front door and side window
• Entrance Handle: Upgraded to Gainsborough Trilock Level Deadbolt

Walk in Robe

• Robe Fitout: Fully lined inserts with laminated kicker, banks of four drawers, single hanging sections, double hanging sections, polished mirror

Ensuite

• Ovelle Spa: 1890mm oval spa with tiled hob and hot pump.
• Caesarstone Benchtops: upgraded as part of the package, we picked Osprey
• Basins: Upgraded to Caroma Liano Vitreous china inset basins as part of the upgrade package.
• Tiled Shower Base: upgraded as part of promotion.
• Tiled Kickrail: Bottom of cabinets upgraded to be tiled, we liked this look
• Bath Spout: Upgraded to Alder Zen gooseneck

Dining Room

• Wall Cutout: provide a 1350mm x 1630mm void in wall as a feature. We liked this from the display

Kitchen

• Colorform Gloss: Upgraded the laminate to colorform gloss doors and drawers, this cost a bit
• Fridge Shelf: Added in shelf above fridge, this space is normally empty otherwise
• Pot Draws: Added 2 sections of pot drawers each with 2 draws, either side of the oven
• Kickrail: Metalaminate kickrail which looks like metal instead of plain white laminate
• Overhead Cupboards: Cupboards added as part of promotion
• Overhead Shelves: We paid extra to put in the overhead shelves on either side of the cupboards
• Caesarstone Benchtop: Upgraded to Category 3 - Snow, we liked this better than the alternatives after we upgraded to the glossy cupboards
• Glass Splashback: We upgraded the splashback to Category 2 because we liked the colour better than the Category 1 colours after doing the benchtop and glossy cupboards
• Oven & Cooktop: We upgraded to a 900mm Baumatic oven and a separate Baumatic cooktop. These are normally one unit but we wanted them split and upgraded from the standard model
• Dishwasher: Upgraded by promotion
• Taps: We upgraded to a Zucchetti Elisse Sink Mixer with extendable 2 jet handspray & swivel sprout
• Handles: Upgraded to category 3 handles because we liked the look of them better
• Sink: Upgraded to a deeper 1300mm 1 & 1/2 bowl and drainer

Laundry

• Cabinet: Upgraded as part of promotion
• Overhead Cabinet: We added this in as a bit of extra storage
• Lock: Upgraded the door handle lock

Outdoor Room

• Tri-Stacker Door: We added in a wider, 3450mm tri-stacker door which is larger than the standard door space and and we also upgraded it to be timber and double glazed

Bathroom

• Basin: Upgraded as part of the promotion
• Tiled Shower Base: Upgraded as part of the promotion
• Tiled Kickrail: We preferred this look of the tiles and it is the same as the ensuite

Doors

• Cavity Sliding Doors: We installed cavity sliding doors in the ensuite to break it off from the bedroom.
• Front Door Size: We upgraded the front door to be higher to go with the higher ceilings
• Higher Doors: Upgraded all doors to be higher than the standard size doors
• Timber Doors: We took the lead from the display home and upgraded the bedroom and pantry doors to the timber corinthian doors with a glazed glass, we also increased the size, as above
• Privacy: We added privacy locks to the central toilet and bathroom

Flooring

• Carpet: 100% Nylon Plush Pile Carpet to bedrooms, hallway, rumpus and living room.
• Floorboards: Truelock 1000 series 90mm x 10mm timber floorboards in spotted gum.

Decking

• Portico Deck: we are having the front deck done which is going to be done in 90mm x 19mm merbau decking

Electricals

• Downlights: We put downloads in the main living areas
• Garage Lights: We substituted the garage baton light for 2 florescent lights
• Front Lights: We added downlights to the front of the house including 2 feature lights on the front portico
• Front Sensor: We put in a front sensor light to light up the downlights and front feature lights
• Dimmer Switches: Added in 3 dimmer switches to the downlights
• Exhaust Fan: Added in exhaust fans into toilets and showers
• Power Points: Of course we added in a whole heap of new powerpoints and light switches etc on top of the standard
• Surge Protector: Added in a single phase surge protector which wasn't included by default

Heating

• Ducted Heating: Added in a 4 star Bonaire ducted heating system with 13 ducts, this is compatible with the evaporative cooling to use a single control

Cooling

• Evaporative Cooling: Upgraded to 4 star VSM 65 Summer Breeze cooling unit with additional cooling points in each bedroom

Additional Upgrades:
There are a number of additional items we added that weren't through Metricon that will be completed after we take the keys.

Alarm
We have a friend that helped us out with a high end security system for the house which has blanketed the entire house after we added in additional sensors.

Ducted Vacuuming
This is something we tossed up about but in the end we're really glad we decided to put it in.

Entrance Security System
We have allowed to put in a front door sensor and doorbell with a screen inside the house so we can see who's at the front door from the living room.

Data & TV Cabling
We had all of our tv and data cabling done by a company named Techlife. We removed out Metricons tv points and and it all goes back to a hills hub that we are putting in to centralise the cabling.


Summary:
All in all, most of the upgrades were your default stock standard upgrades that you do as part of any house. We decided to do quite a few things through Metricon, although it was more expensive, more than anything it was just easier. The electricals cost a fortune through Metricon, however we did leave standard baton lights in most areas, and we only put the downlights in the main areas and to save having to do painting etc later, we just went with the downlights.

The optional upgrades, like alarms and ducted heating are very expensive through Metricon, it is normally retail plus a markup.

We also decided to spend a bit more now rather than regret not doing things at a later point in time, the attention to the detail will hopefully pay off in the long run.

Day 105 - Tiling Complete

About a week ago now the tiling was completed. I've been a little slow to update the site given we're also not far away from the wedding and with the house progress slowing up now it is taking up less of our time.

I missed the call from my SS on Wednesday so he left a message advising us that he had kept the end of this week and all of next week to rectify the couple of plaster issues we have. This should also hopefully give him time to get the plaster fixed and the paiting also done.

There are a few updates that are worth noting.

First off, I took a few pics of what the evaporative cooling unit looks like since it blew off it in the wind.

This is where the unit was:

This is how it looks now.......

This is where the evaporative cooling unit ended up, it blew off from over the other side of the house.

They aren't sure why it came off, let's hope they fix it properly when they do put it back on, perhaps they'll use bolts instead of blutac next time round.

The tiling is also complete, we're really happy with the way that it has come up. We can't wait until the tiles are all cleaned up and the colours come through. The ceasarstone is also installed and looks great.

VIEW ALL PHOTOS AS A SLIDESHOW

The ensuite:

View from bedroom, mirror isn't installed yet.
The feature shower wall.
Another one of the bath.

The kitchen snow ceasarstone installed, hard to see due to the wood over the top.

The ceasarstone in the kitchen:

The bathroom tiling:

The laundry tiling, the laundry is basically finished now.

I started to take a few photos of the front of the house to play around with some landscaping ideas. We have been thinking about putting in timber stairs but that would mean that we might need to adjust our driveway layout. I took these photos anyway to play around with:

and another:
I haven't done to come to any firm ideas around the front but I got the image looking from this:

into this, however this is only a peak at how the driveway etc will look, we haven't had the driveway paved yet.

We're about a week away now from fitoffs, the fence hasn't progressed on our neighbours side. It looks as though today there was a gas pipe laid however it goes a long way up the side of the house. I was thinking of putting in a fence and at the moment it means the fence is going to be a fair way back and it will probably change the look of the front of the house.

The external painting of the render should also be done over the next few weeks.

Enjoy the photos below.

VIEW ALL PHOTOS AS A SLIDESHOW

I'll try and provide some more pics and update over the weekend.