Final Countdown

We are counting down the weeks now and they couldn't be going any slower.

In the last 2 weeks we have had the following completed:

Shelving in walk in pantry
Glass splashback in kitchen
Whirlybird Installation
Move the upstairs rails
Garage Door Motor
Ducted vacuum motor
1st House Clean
1st round of fix ups
Most of the flyscreens
Removal of safety fencing

We were supposed to have had the excavation done for our storm water pit but the plumber didn't have enough space to get his machinery in because our left over bricks were in the way. We kept the bricks so we could build a front fence later on. I suggested we move them weeks ago but my husband thought they would be OK where they were at the front of the property. He says he called the SS weeks ago and was told they could be left where they were. Then on Friday evening after a long day at work  I get told by my husband that I will be spending my Saturday moving 6 pallets of bricks in mud and rain because the SS has told him they now must be moved for the plumber. I suggested we borrow or buy a wheelbarrow to make it a bit easier but once again my suggestions were ignored. By the 3rd pallet after many trips back and forth trudging though vast amounts of mud my husband decided that the plumber could just work around them because he was fed up and didn't want to move any more bricks. I said that if we were told to move them then move them we must and that I didn't think the plumber would be taking my husband's discomfort into consideration. Our bickering got louder and louder until our neighbour felt it necessary to intervene and lend us a wheelbarrow to speed things up a bit. However after a few more bricks my husband was still convinced that his need not to move the bricks was greater than the plumber's need to have them moved. So our bickering started again and then our other neighbour intervened, at which point I went home to get the Hydraulics plans, and by the time I returned my neighbour had convinced my husband to move all of them. A big thank you to my neighbour because a later phone call from our SS confirmed that all the bricks did in fact need to be moved. And do you think there was a vilified "I told you so" expressed sometime later in the day. You bet there was!

Fence gone and leftover bricks out of sight

Before Stair rail support post moved

After stair rail support post moved 

(Looks so much better. Can't believe it wasn't done like this to start with and that we had to pay to make it look normal.)

Shelving complete in Walk in pantry. There are 4 shelves but top one is out of shot.

Space for our standalone freezer.

Glass splashback 

PCI and Handover Date

This might be a very long post as it has been a while since my last one so turn away now if you get bored easily or just scroll down to the pictures.

We've received our official letter and our PCI date is booked in for the 8th September with a tentative handover date of 22nd September. Wisdom have asked us to get our own compliance inspector to look over the house on the 3rd September. This gives them a week to fix anything he finds before we have our inspection with our Site Supervisor on the 8th, and then they have 2 weeks to fix anything found at the latter inspection.

They still need to complete:

Shelving in robes, linen cupboards and pantry
Stormwater pits and connection of water tanks
Carpets
Glass splashback in kitchen
Driveway
Whirlybird Installation
Move the upstairs rails
Painting Stair Posts and rails
Garage Door Motor
House Clean
Kitchen Appliance Installation (post handover)
Aircon unit (post handover)

Since my last post the following have all been completed:

Tiling
Light fittings
Power points and light switches
Data patch panels
Alarm System Panel
Toilets and bath
Shower screens
Taps and shower heads
Door handles
Most of the painting

We are really happy with the tiling. Choi, the tiler, was methodical and it was a pleasure to see a tradie who took pride in his work and took his time to get it right. We are also really happy with the kitchen installation. Timpelle are also another company I can recommend highly.

I wish we could say the same about the painters. Talk about a crappy job. My 9 year old would have taken more care. Doesn't look too bad in the daylight but of a night it looks terrible. You can also see lots of raised areas where there are plaster joins in the gyprock, scratches where the metal edge of the roller they used hit the ceiling. Where they painted the door frames in gloss they got lots of gloss on the wall  next to the door frame and then painted over it with the matt wall paint. So at night when the lights are on you can see the difference in surface texture. They got the timber stain from the front door on the white gloss timber door frame and then painted over it with more gloss so you couldn't see it. I wonder how long  before the stain seeps through the gloss and we find ourselves sanding back the door frame and repainting it. They also got paint on our polyurethane kitchen cupboards. My husband tried to explain to them that you can't have gloss paint under matt paint but unfortunately they didn't speak any English so couldn't understand a word he was saying. They also appear to be chain smoking in our house based on the number of cigarette butts we have found stubbed out on our floor. I thought WorkCover rules state no smoking on a work site.

It was a very exciting moment when we discovered the light fitting and switches were installed. You would have thought we had never seen seen a light turn on before if you had witnessed us all running around the house turning lights on a off and playing with the dimmer switches.

Now to our stairs dilemma. We are getting the upstairs railings moved across so they don't overhang the stairwell and that ugly thick support post will be recessed into the floor/ceiling space. The staircase company were adamant that they had provided us enough info for us to have had a clear idea of what we were getting and so we should accept the stairs. We on the other hand have enough drawings to show that the size of the post was never detailed anywhere and on some drawings was not there at all. The staircase company wanted to charge us $2000 to move the railings. Wisdom have agreed to pay half the cost. So the credit we had been given for the feature bottom step that we couldn't have, will now be used towards getting the rails moved.

We thought that was the end of that saga but oh no. Wisdom then came back to us and said they would not be painting the stair posts or timber rails as the credit variation we signed for the feature step that we couldn't have, included a line for painting the posts. So they said we had received a credit for that job and they wouldn't do it. We said then why did you install the stairs at all because the credit variation included every component of the staircase. We tried to explain to them that despite the fact they decided to include every part of the staircase in the variation, the amount being credited only related to the feature step, and that the painting of the stairs is part of the base price of the house. Once again the stupidity and pettiness of the admin team comes back to haunt us.  We have left this little gem with our site supervisor to sort out.

And our last little issue this week is that some careless tradie has put a nice big dent in our garage door. So another issue for SS to sort out. Poor man. That is one job I could never do.

 Alarm in upstairs linen

Alarm Panel 

Door handles

Ensuite Shower Screen 

Ensuite Vanity and Mirror

Front Balcony Tiled 

Love my kitchen bins concealed in a drawer 

Kitchen Rangehood installed 

Laundry tap installed

We have lights! 

Garage Storage area fluoro light

Bathroom 3-in-one light 

Main bathroom 

Powder Room