Settlement date!

We have a date!! Sorry for the lack of posting but we've been busy packing! Settlement is booked for Thursday 4th July and the removalist is coming on Friday the 5th. I can't wait to be in our new house! Rhys had to talk me out of sleeping there Thursday night in a sleeping bag haha. The only thing that made me change my mind was the fact that the removalists will be here at 9am and it's a 1 1/2 hour drive.

So tomorrow after work we're staying at our friend's place down there, meeting SS on site at 9:30 to go through the house, and then if all is well we head back to Port Melbourne to pick up the keys. Why we have to go all the way back to Melbourne again I'll never understand, but apparently PD won't do it any other way so that's that! If everything finishes up early enough we wanted to take a ute load of boxes down Thursday just to get a bit of a head start and then we'll head back up to Melbourne for dinner with close friends to celebrate our last night as Melbournians.

End of an era, but the start of so much more!

PCI

So we had PCI on Tuesday 18 June. All went very well. Our independent inspector met us on site and went through the outside and roof while we went through the interior with our SS. Overall Porter Davis have done a really great job! The only things to fix up from PCI were:

• Minor scratches on floorboards - looks like someone has dragged a heavy box across the floor scratching 5-6 of the planks.
• Some grout missing from ensuite feature tiles.
• Render not painted yet (weather has been awful, they haven't had a chance to let it dry out and repaint yet).
• Weather seals on front door.
• Paint touch ups (whole house)
• Leak in alfresco roof - most likely where solar panel is. Need to fix leak, replaster alfresco ceiling, repaint with damp-guard paint.
• Drains in showers haven't been put back in yet.
• Chips in ensuite basins where tiles have been dropped. Being replaced.
• Dirt around house to fill in holes.
• Couple of electrical items missing their covers (one light switch and a TV point).
• Smoke alarm missing battery.

Looks like a decent list but really for a whole house it's not too bad! And most of those things are pretty minor. As far as building standards go our inspector was very impressed. He's going to come back out after handover and do another inspection since most of the things he'd noted on PCI day were already on our SS's list, so he'll come back to make sure those things got done and nothing further needs to be addressed when 3 month inspection rolls around.

We got the Certificate of Occupancy on Friday and I faxed that off to the bank with everything else, so now it's just a matter of the bank getting someone out to do their final valuation and then organising a cheque, and we're good to go! We should be looking at around the 4th July (Independence Day!).

Now to organise fences, curtains, movers, landscaping, furniture deliveries etc etc!!

Sinks being replaced - chipped. Feature tiles and subway tiles looking beautiful though!

Love it!

Living area. Planks to be replaced near door due to scratching. Paint touch ups. Otherwise pretty damn good!

Light at the end of the tunnel

PCI is booked for Tuesday!! Rhys and I went down and had a look around yesterday, lots of blue tape where our SS has been around pointing out defects already!

To be honest I really don't know what to expect, but our independent inspector is meeting us there early to go over things so that should help.

Any advice much appreciated! Anything we should bring, other than our contract/plans?

Fingers crossed all goes smoothly!

The beautiful floors, plus splashback, tiles and carpet.

*Updated 5/6/13 with extra photos*


Ah, the floors I argued so long and hard with Rhys over are in and they look magnificent! Well, they look a bit dirty actually, but once cleaned up they will look magnificent! Again, all pics taken through windows because of lock up so sorry for any reflections/crappy quality. (Update 5/6/13 - Some indoor photos taken and uploaded now)

Photo taken from outside. Looking through the sliding doors down hallway. Confirmed with Construction Manager (looking after us while SS is away) that paint is definitely Flokati. Looks much better with wooden floors in I think, less creamy and more grey!

Photo taken from inside

Looking in from the kitchen window, also a good shot of our undermount sink. 

Night Sky Caesar Stone and splashback. The Splashback paint colour is a white which shows up as light blue with the glass tint.

Beautiful pantry shelving!

Splashback colour in the daytime. Photo taken from inside the pantry!

The usual shot from the front, for the very first time NOT featuring a portaloo, woohoo! Front door has been painted. Garage door, driveway, paint, render still to come. Landscaping shortly after handover. Portico long way away after handover!

And for anyone wondering about the tiles, here's where we're at! The shower screens have been taken down, waterproofing redone, tiler coming back this week to start again. Those feature tiles will be removed as well. Porter Davis offered us a $1,000 credit to leave them the way they were. Not a chance in hell!

UPDATE 5/06/13: Now the tiler has come and fixed what was wrong we got a couple of pictures as he was working away

The feature tiles, checked to make sure they were right this time:

 

and now for a couple carpet pictures
 and one out the garage to see the mud

Further progress

Rhys and I went down to check out the house yesterday. We'd been told the tiles and painting were all finished so I was pretty excited to see the tiles all put together. The house was locked up but we could see a fair bit through the windows. I had a look through the windows of the bathroom and all I could say was "Uh... well that's wrong!" The white wall tiles were supposed to be laid "subway" or "brick bond" style (see our tiles post for reference) but they were just sitting there, all grid like and boring and normal! And then our beautiful feature tiles were not our feature tiles at all, they were a brown stone pattern! BROWN?! How the hell did they get it that far wrong?! I'm thinking they must have just read the wrong item number for the feature tiles, they're not even close! Also some of the power points were mixed up. I'll post some photos below and show you what I mean. Sorry for the crappy quality, all taken through windows I'm afraid!

Fences removed, first coat of render on, looking very house-like!

You may not be able to see, but that's a four point entertainment power point in the garage. The theatre room has a two point power point. *sigh* Come on PD!

Paint - Flokati by Watyl. Looks pretty good to me! All our lights are in too, with the chinaman hat fittings.

Caesar stone benchtops! Mostly covered by the protective wood but you get the idea.

Undermount sink looking lovely! And all our handles are on.

The floor tiles are right, thank God.

Houston, we have a problem! Wall tiles in shower, above sink, and on the wall above the bath are going to have to be taken down and redone!

To make matters worse, our Site Supervisor is away on leave for the next 3 weeks, so we've emailed our Building Coordinator with these concerns and asked her to pass them on to whoever is looking after our site while SS is away. Hopefully they can sort it out soon! I'm thinking that since the wet areas are otherwise almost finished, if they're smart about managing their trades it shouldn't hold us back too much. We'll see though!

Fixing stage complete - 26/03/2013

We went down to have a look at the house last weekend and met with our SS to go over the progress so far and where to from here. When we arrived the painters were prepping and he told us they should be finished by this weekend.

Fixing stage is officially complete, all cabinets are in, the benchtop in the laundry is in. Our sinks for the bathrooms and kitchen got taken by the stone cutters for our benchtops. Can't wait to see the benchtops in, should be another week apparently.

The progress will seem like it's slowing down now because from here on out all of the jobs will seem very behind the scenes, but the SS assures us we're moving along at a great pace and once tiles are done he can give us a move in date. At this stage we're still looking at June but no idea whether that will be early, mid or late June. Can't wait to find out!

Some photos from last weekend:

Ensuite double vanity. We changed the standard design to add a set of drawers in the middle. Had to fight for them (as you always do when changing PD's standard designs!) but I couldn't handle not having the convenience of drawers!

Master bedroom doors and entry to the walk in robe

Main bathroom vanity

Kitchen missing sink, dishwasher, stove, benchtops and paint (among other things!). Otherwise looking pretty damn good I think!

Looking at overhead cabinets and walk in pantry on the left

Laundry trough, nice and big!

Alfresco with the supporting beam removed

Lock up stage complete

The house is moving along much faster than we had expected! So far no significant complaints, no hold ups, excellent communication from both our Building Coordinator and Site Supervisor. Could not be happier! At this rate we're hoping handover might be some time in June, but it's hard to say, anything could happen between now and then so we're not counting our chickens before they've hatched!

We got the email this week to let us know that fixing stage is complete so we arranged a meeting with our SS for Friday afternoon so we can have a walk through and point out any issues we have at this stage. Can't wait to see how it's all going! Last time we went through was two weeks ago when lock up had just been completed. Here are some photos from that day. Hopefully I can report back this weekend with some exciting new progress photos from fixing!

 

The usual photo from out the front.Wonder if SS would mind moving that portaloo off to the side? ;)

Our MAAAASSSSSIVE hallway! Not sure how I didn't realise it before, but God, it's a lot of hallway!

From the corner of the living area, looking at the dining area, laundry behind that, kitchen and alfresco. Hopefully this weekend there will be some cabinets in that kitchen!

From the corner of the backyard.

Frame stage complete - Our house has bones!

We got a call from our building coordinator and our site supervisor on Friday to let us know that the frame stage was officially complete! I can't believe how quickly it's all going now. We drove down on Saturday morning to have a look and walk through our house for the first time.

I really wish they'd put the portaloo off to the side, kind of ruining the picture! ;)

Garage and master bedroom

Looking down the hallway

Inside the master bedroom

Looking into the living area and out onto the alfresco

Kitchen

Our alfresco area

I'm so glad we upgraded the sliding door and got that extra window put in, it's going to bring so much natural light into the living area.

Roof starting Monday. Hooray!

Base Stage Complete

Since the last post we've had some pretty exciting progress! Our site scrape day was 15th February and we had the slab go down on Friday 1st March. Base stage is now officially complete! We've booked in Neale Todd from Jim's Building Inspections to do three inspections - base stage, lock up and handover - No issues to report at base stage. Rhys has met with the Site Supervisor, Cam, and we're looking forward to having him supervise the build. Cam did our friend's house in the Estuary which has just finished and they couldn't speak highly enough of him, so we requested him for our build thinking it couldn't hurt and the timing actually worked perfectly!

We've also just made our first mortgage repayment. Even at interest only that bloody hurt, considering that we're still paying rent as well. I can only pray that the build runs pretty much to time so we're not forking out for both rent and the build for too long (please be good to us Cam)! Speaking of renting, we had planned to move down to a house in Geelong a week or so ago but at the last minute those plans fell through. Basically the landlord decided they want to keep the property vacant after all. So we're still in Melbourne and now will be until the house is built. It kind of sucks because it means we have to travel down to check out the build whenever something exciting happens, but at least we've saved money on moving costs I guess. Trying to look at the bright side!!

Next step: Frame! Frame stage scheduled to commence on 7 March. Can't wait!

Here are some photos of the progress so far:



Above: After site scrape - Not much to see except a portaloo and an electricity box!

Front of the house and the grand alfresco area. Can't wait to have a few wines on that!