Delayed AGAIN!

The surveyor's inspection for the Certificate of Occupancy was cancelled today as there are MORE things to be done before we can be issued with the certificate. Pissed off does not begin to describe how we are feeling right now. 

I am hoping that things can be fixed and the surveyor can come out again in the next day or two. I have curtains and blinds being installed tomorrow as well as furniture booked for delivery on Wednesday and I WILL NOT reschedule these things again. 

On the plus side the painter finished today. There are a few things we want him to do but are happy for him to return later to do these. He works for the new builder that has partially taken over the build so we know he will be back. 

The electrician is coming tomorrow to install a sub floor ventilation kit under the house. When the electrician is finished there shouldn't be any more trades through the inside of the house. So when the electrician is finished I plan to go through and clean the place as there has been a bit of dirt dragged through after the builder's clean was done last week. 

On the topic of cleaners they left a little shampoo, conditioner and body wash in the bathroom shower. Kinda cute...

Render finished

The renderer finished applying the top coat of colour today to the front of the house and to the retaining wall. The colour is Dulux Champignon. The renderer left the leftover colour for us which is great in case we need to do any touch ups in the future. We were extremely happy with this renderer and will be getting him back to render some retaining walls we are planning for the front yard. You can see in these photos that we have also had our fencing started. This week also saw the removal of the temporary fencing and portaloo. 

The painter was kind enough to paint our feature wall in the family room. We chose Dulux Teahouse, which is the same grey colour as the theatre room. I'm quite happy with how it suits the Dulux Beige Royal walls.

A shot of my kitchen without all the rubbish everywhere.

We had our final inspection by the building surveyor on Wednesday for the Certificate of Occupancy - we failed :( 

A few of the items have already been rectified and a few more things will be finished Monday morning. The inspector is booked to re attend Monday afternoon so fingers crossed it all goes well and we can have the certificate issued on Tuesday. Once we have the certificate we can organise insurance and start the ball rolling with the bank to perform their valuation inspection and arrange final payment. 

The painter has taken longer than originally planned but he is working tomorrow (Sunday) to finish off for us. 

I have rescheduled the install of the curtains and blinds to this Tuesday so I'm looking forward to seeing those go in in a couple of days :)

Render part one

The concrete uncoloured first layers of render have been done to the front of house, retaining wall and garage lintel. It looks so bright at the moment but will hopefully look much better once it's coloured. The renderer mentioned that he has to let the uncoloured render dry for a couple of days before applying the coloured coat. Hopefully he will be back tomorrow or Tuesday to finish. The guttering on one side of the house still has to be replaced as the new gutter delivered last week was scratched as it was taken off the truck.

We have a new painter (this is painter number 3!) starting tomorrow. Hubby and the builder are meeting him on site tomorrow morning to run through what needs to be done. We have our window furnishings booked to be installed this Friday so all the painting of the woodwork must be finished by then.

Paint returned!

The other exciting news is that the arsehole who stole our paint has returned it tonight - an hour ago to be exact. Gosh these cameras are great  This is the best 'walk of shame' video ever. I've asked hubby to save the footage so we can show it at the housewarming party  

In house building related news we had the first layer of render applied today. No photos unfortunately as it was too dark when I went past after work. I'm looking forward to seeing the final coloured coat of render applied. 

The painter was also there today and worked right through to around 6:30pm! He seems very particular which is great. 

We are confident that the house will be completed shortly so we have booked our window coverings in for installation on the 8th August. I can't wait for these to be installed; the house will feel more homely. 

Appliances are in and caught a thief!

Today we have seen more action on site than we have seen in months. We had the electricians, plumbers, carpenters and labourers on site. Plus the builder and site supervisor were also on site today.

Some pictures from today.

Gas point on the upper balcony

Hot water unit

Lower deck steps. These still have to be dressed and finished off with more merbau.

Yesterday we also busted someone stealing some items from our site. Here is a snap of him just before he moved our security camera ;)

At this stage it appears the house will reach completion early next week. I'm hoping the weather holds out as we need the render done to the front of the house.

Progress report

It has been one week since I posted the timeline provided to us by the builder, let's look at how we're going...

"18th July - shower screen replaced" - this was done 

"24th July - caulkers" - the caulking to the shower was fixed 

"24th & 25th July - painters" - they turned up at 7am this morning and left after 30mins. Not sure why! Apparently they are now coming tomorrow and Saturday. Can't see how this will work given that the floors are being sanded and polished in some areas which means they can't be walked on for 24 hours...

"25th July - all outside work will be finished by this date" - the only outside work performed this week was the pouring of the infill slab to the storeroom. They have a long way to go here so there is no way known this will be done by tomorrow. 

This is the slab that was poured in the storeroom. Looks like they did a great job. The builder used the same concreters that we used for our driveway (1300 Driveways - Chris).

We also paid the concreters to pour a concrete path out the front of the storeroom and around the side of the storeroom that leads to the external 'man cave lounge' door. We will build some stairs there. 

The concreters were scheduled to also pour the slab for the spa but with the cold weather there was a lot of moisture on the ground which meant the only way the boys could get the sand down the hill was by wheelbarrow. As you could imagine the shovelling of the sand downhill for the storeroom and paths took all day so they ran out of time. The concreters will have to schedule the spa slab for another day.

One more thing was achieved this week, the builder ground down the ridges on the mancave slab. They also took some rubbish off site. 

So, back to the builder's timeline.... 

The upcoming work scheduled (assuming nothing has changed):

*new painting dates* 25th & 26th July - painters (no way the painters will be able to finish by the 26th July as there is a lot of timber work still not completed ie. quad not fixed to the eaves, timber balustrades not completed, skirting boards not nailed down etc)

26th July - timber floors fixed on some areas

28th July - kitchen kick panels replaced and pantry shelving installed 

28th & 29th July - cleaning 

29th July - appliances installed by plumber and electrician

Hopefully I will have some exciting updates soon... 

The final countdown...

We have a timeline from the builder of the internal works to be completed. This timeline is realistic and achievable so let's hope they stick to it.

This is the timeline:

18th July - shower screen replaced

24th July - caulkers

24th & 25th July - painters

25th July - all outside work will be finished by this date

26th July - timber floors fixed on some areas

28th July - kitchen kick panels replaced and pantry shelving installed 

28th & 29th July - cleaning 

29th July - appliances installed by plumber and electrician

Of course, if they stick to this timeline that means that they will not achieve handover on 31st July as stated last week. It does mean they may achieve practical completion by the 31st July. 

Once all works are completed we have to schedule our practical completion inspection with the builder and inspector and then they have to rectify any defects that are detected at that inspection, if any. I'm  hoping there wont be any! 

The builder still has to pay damages until all defects are fixed. If they still think they can achieve handover on the 31st July then that means the practical completion inspection, bank inspection (as the bank need to do an inspection) and any rectification of defects detected at the inspection have to occur on the 30th July. Impossible for it all to happen in one day. 

Stay tuned ladies and gentlemen...