our saga continues- Insulation is in

Some Things did happen - But we were hoping it would go faster -

What has happened since the last post

• Insulation is In
• Cooling done
• Yippee and thanks to the builder the Cooling Ducts to the ground floor which was posing a problem has been sorted out. In the process we have a small bulk head over the shower in the powder room and we have lost a little space for "DH" side of WIR("DH" can live with less)
• Evaporative Cooling unit mounted
• Sliding Door frames for HT and kitchen in
• Chippy has planed and got frame ready for plastering
• External - frames for the gable done (Now the cladding has to be done)
• Plaster was supposed to be loaded Friday but nothing is arrived so guess there has been a delay

What we have done for the house

• Ordered and paid for the porcelain tiles (Only 110Sqm avail we need another 80 more). The prices at Johnsons were great and as for the service Mmm???? less said the better
  Guess u cannot expect service in a cash and carry
• Thanks to "L" our supervisor - We are planning to use the same tiler as the builder. This way all the tiling would fit seamlessly between the wet areas (builder ) and extra areas (us). We were happy with the prices not the best but still good.
• Finalised timber laminate for the bedrooms upstairs. We finalised in the timber laminate from tarkett - soundlogic. Funny part is Tarkett makes Sound-Logic but only market and sell through Bunnings. Bunnings retail price was high but when we approached them and finally got a quote the price was very attractive and competitive. What we like about sound-logig is it has a acoustic underlay built into the product. We add an extra underlay then the hollow sound of Laminate would not be so bad. The colour is
• 

• We checked out solid Oak and loved the GunStock colour. But the Janka rating was quite low. "DH" was keen on solid wood against Karndean because Karndean is vinyl. After much searching and discussion and analysis we finally decided Karndean DaVinci series. Could not beat that for practicality and looks. The price is a little cheaper than solid wood. So far Solomons Flooring seem to be the cheapest. After tomorrow we would finalise and pay a deposit.
• We have decided on an outdoor tile for alfresco and verandahs which is coarse finish. We initially thought of decking then decided against it because of on going maintenance of the decking. Anything that needs ongoing work we are not doing it. Not with our lifestyle it just won’t work. Also maybe we are getting lazy in our old age.
• We are having the concreter the builder recommended coming over for a quote on Monday. "L" once again was pretty friendly about us concreting before hand over which would help us.

We are getting real fed up of living in the rental place. In spite of being here for 2 years it does not feel like home. We initially thought that it was just adults. Last week 'DS' and yesterday 'DD'
complained and their words -"we are dying to go to our new home - this is not our home". The kids maybe missing because all their stuff is in boxes. Looks like when we FINALLY do go to our home it is going to feel Xmas when we open all out boxes and get our old things back. We just cannot remember what we have and what we don’t.
The sad part of it all - we never ever planned on 2 living out of boxes for 2 years.
Only one who is enjoying our misfortune is the real estate agents and the rental property owners. We are on month by month lease because of the building and cannot move they have been raising the rent every six months.
As for what we are feeling - things are happening but not to the speed we would have liked. We initially were given the impression that the house would be ready in about 8 months. It is 7 months completed as of end of June. We reckon there is at least 3 months more which makes it 10 months build time. Guess there is nothing much we can do and hope it all goes better than we think

Below is the picture of our front door for purpose of lockup - A collage of the chippy’s talent

Love our window in the lounge so much





Family room - Insulation is where the niche would be

Sliding door between the HT and Kitchen

Sliding doors between HT and Study

Bulk head over the kitchen island

Insulation in Kitchen

Hooray - Official Lockup

We reached the next milestone in out saga of building - We are officially in Lockup Hooray and finally
Rec'd the invoice last week and bank released the payment this week - So more in mortgage and more repayments. That part we are not happy about but guess have to thank that interest rates are real low.

Summary of what happened this week.........

• Payed for lockup - Deeper in debt and still paying rent......!!???When is this going to end ????
  

• A building inspection by "Kevin" from "New Home Inspection" - There were a few issues but overall was given a good quality report. We absolutely were impressed with Kevin and we was pretty thorough and fact driven. No waffling. Would recommend him anytime. We would be having him for another inspection just before hand-over.
  
  
• Sent the building report to "Roseleigh" - Got a prompt response with a commitment to address all the issues raised.
  
  
• Shower bases have been installed
  
  
• Spa has been installed
  
  
• Heating ducts has been done
  
  
• Ducted vaccum pipes has been done
  
  
• Cooling Ducts have reached a standstill - As per our original design, we worked with the "BC" and "BW" to ensure that we have 2 outlets downstairs for cooling. One of nicest things of this plan was inner wall cavities which took cooling to 2 points downstairs. However mush to our chagrin we got a call from our supervisor who said that it was not possible to put the cooling points downstairs. Our answer was that we would like it as per the drawing and specs. Will have to wait and see what happens.
  
  
• Thorough clean of the site and inside of the house as well - Cannot believe how people can be so cheap. Strangers have been dumping their garbage in the skip at our building site. We saw carpets bar fridges etc etc. Earlier one of our verandah posts was stolen.
  
  
• Electrician has done his final pre-plaster wall through - He has been a pleasure to deal with. He has helped us to add the last minute extra bits that we had forgotten in our electrical plan. Yippee got stair case lights and down lights to alfresco. YES One up for "DW" . Sure "DH" has his own plans for the "HT" area. Alfresco down lights seem cheap in comparison to HT stuff.
  
  
• Carpenter has been there working levelling and adding noggins
  
  
• Scaffolding is all down except for the one around the verandah
  
  
  

We absolutely love our home - Cannot wait to get in ..
It looks so much nicer after the clean up and scaffolding gone.














White laundry door to indicate lockup












Main Door is a combination of old broken doors and wood pieces hammered together.




Loved the bricks above garage rear door - Did not want cladding