Home and Dry

It's been a long journey but we've now got to the end of it and we've finally moved into our new home. We 'settled' (paid the final installment) on it on 23rd April and moved the remainder of our furniture in on Monday 11th May. All in all it's been a roller coaster ride of highs and a few lows.

We've only just had our water tank installed today 14th May because our building Company were having troubles with the handover to a new supplier. We're just waiting for some much needed rain to fill it.

All that's left to do is to landscape the front and back gardens which could be a bit of a challenge as they are on a slope. The children are loving it and have been helping by digging in the garden tonight. As you can see we went for the stencilled concrete driveway and we are pleased with it. Carpets and Laminate were installed with no problems by Harvey Norman. It is so difficult to visualise it and choose the right colour when you buy. The carpet which we bought is supposed to be brown but looks a series of different colours in different lights. The dark laminate really shows up dusty foot prints and marks but it looks good when it's clean.

Dave made the posts for the post box and we saved a bit of cash by staining it with vegetable oil after the man at Mitre 10 advised us to do so.

Still Waiting.....

We're still waiting for repairs to be completed but we've also managed to get some pictures of inside the house for you all to look at.

The first two pictures are of our ensuite. The next three are of the bathroom and the last two are views from our balcony. One of them shows Melbourne city in the distance.

Not Happy!!

Our house was supposed to have been finished on the 23rd Febrary but we didn't have our new house presentation until the 13th March:-( At our new house presentation we went around looking for faults for the builders to fix before handing over to us. We found quite a few faults but the real whopper was that they had used the wrong tiles on the balcony. The one's they had used were for internal and not external and were very slippery from the early morning dew.

Anyway, the new house presentation team said they would have to hand back to the site manager to get the tiles ripped up and replaced. However, after this they got the wrong tiles delivered again and so we have had to wait for the right one's to be delivered. The builders, Hen3ey, are not even keeping us informed of what is happening. The only way we are finding out the truth is by visiting the site for ourselves. It looks as though we won't be in the house until after Easter now for sure. We're really disappointed but at least we're getting paid by Hen3eys for the inconvenience. (by the way if you haven't signed your contract yet make sure you negotiate the amount you will be paid for agreed damages for late completion of building works).

Brief Update

We're now over a week past the contract end date and our building Company have had to start paying us for late completion. However, the house has been handed over to the final Handover team and we are waiting for them to ask us for a walk around session. The session will give us the opportunity of picking up any faults we might find. After this the Building Company have two weeks to fix the fault. Our fence on the right hand side has been erected now as well as you can see on picture on the left. We've got ourselves organised and have got the curtains made and ready to install. We've got the carpet and laminte organised to be fitted and we've got someone to do our driveway. So we're all ready to go and move in.

Getting There.......!!

Now that we are getting closer to the contractual end date of the build, the rate seems to have speeded up a bit. The front render and the door have been painted and we can really see what the house will look like when it's finished. (It was very hard to visualise what it would look like when we chose our colours for the house.... but we think the final product looks okay.)

The tilers have been in the house as well and have started the tiling but there is still about another half to do. The roof lining in the alfresco and porch have been painted. The glass splashback and sink in the kitchen have been installed too. Dave has noticed a few things he isn't happy with so we are going to have to snag them with our site manager to get them rectified and hopefully they won't take too long to fix.

We spent some time in the house about a week ago while we had a man around to measure for curtains and it really felt like home for the first time (even though it's still a building site).The children played out in the back garden with the bits of plasterboard and didn't want to leave when it was time to go. We're now busy getting quotes for fences and a concrete drive. However, we are really undecided about what to do for the driveway. Should we go for stencilling (which looks like fake paving but is quite convincing) or go for exposed stone which has a rough texture and is plain with various colours... answers all on a post card please....?

Undercoat complete

We went to see the house yesterday with our site manager and he seems to be saying that the house will be complete by February as things are going to plan. The kitchen cupboards have now been put in and the cupboards in the bathroom and ensuite as you can see above. We've gone back to the 70's/80's with a black kitchen.......as you can see. We've chosen grey for the cupboards in the bathroom and ensuite. Only problem that has come up so far was that there was a bee's nest in the alfresco so they had to get the pest controllers in. Let's hope they don't return as I'm not keen on that kind of "buzzing".

We're Plastered

Today is the 17th October and they have finished off the plastering in the house. They have also rendered the front balcony which will be painted later on.

Here is a picture of the family room.

....and a picture of the kitchen/meals area showing part of the stairs ready to be fitted.

......and a side picture of the house showing the balcony and the evaporative cooling.

Glad to be Clad

We didn't think anything was going to happen this week but at the last moment the cladding was put on and painted within two days. The house is really now starting to take shape and is weather proofed. This means that most of the work from now on will be on the inside. For those of you in any doubt that little white shed in the front of the house is a Portaloo not a Tardis as my sister suggested.

Here's the floorplan of our house - Double click to make larger

We've got a roof!!

Finally, we've got a roof on the house and a solar panel as well. We had a slight hitch because the builders had to take out all the windows upstairs because they were the wrong size so things have been going a little bit slower than anticipated. However, we should be having the upstairs cladding put on next week with any luck. Our builders asked us to get the house pre-wired for telephones but they didn't give us a lot of notice and it took some time to get the quotes for it but fortunately this is now complete. This means we can have the plastering done when they're ready to do it.

All in all it's just another brick in the wall

Well, wonders will never cease..... this week the brick layers began laying bricks on the 4th August. The weather has been kind to us which has meant that they've got to the top windows at the front. We are pleased with the colour of bricks we have chosen and hope it will look even better when it's all put together (well we hope it will...).

Here is another shot.. of my behind (which some would say is a great improvement... for those of you who've seen it). As you can see the brick piers on the alfresco are half up.

"It's a Wrap"

The house has now been wrapped up with a special insulation cloth which reflects the sun. This is the second go at doing this as the first lot blew off in the wind (consequences of living on top of a hill I guess..!). Still no sign of a brikkie though he was remoured to start this week. A mound of sand has mysteriously arrived on the front drive. Guys it's probably best not to check on this blog for another month or so as I don't think there'll be much happening till then......

Anyone know a good brikkie?

Well, it's been over a month since anything has happened on our block. Apparently, there is a shortage of brickies in the area and especially ones who will do a double storey house. Although everything is on site, bricks and roofing slates there's no one to do it. Looks like the house won't be finished till February next year at this rate which is the end date of our contract.......

Strewth it's got a Roof!!

On Thursday 5th June our roof was put on and the house has started to take shape. The roof tiles have been delivered and are waiting to be added. Next week some kind of plumbing work is being done.

We have a 2nd storey!!

Well, we've been a bit disappointed because nothing has happened over the last week. However, things change quickly in this game and on Tuesday 3rd June the second storey framing has gone up and we have a few windows. For our friends/family over in the UK, you may have noticed that the houses here are not as well built as they are in the UK..... but then they don't need them to be because the weather isn't as harsh here.

Could these be our new Neighbours??

Rachael and Zeke Kinsky.......neighbours everybody needs good neighbours.......

We've been Framed!!

It is now the 22nd May and over the past few days framing has begun and we can really see what the house looks like on the block. There's no one working on the block today and that seems to be the same for all the blocks around the area. Maybe it's a builders day off.

However, we are pleased at the rate at which things have progressed so far. There is a lovely smell of cut wood in the air up there, lets hope there no hungry termites about. More packs of oz pine have been delivered ready for the next installment. Bit disappointed with the driveway as it is a lot steeper than we thought it would be but I expect we'll get used to it.

Thank you neighbours!

Our builders have managed to use electricity from our neighbours so our build is back on track thankfully. There were two huge trucks by the block yesterday and a bobcat was doing some digging, hopefully they're going to tidy up the block (plot) a bit as it looks a bit messy at the moment.Framing should start this week with fingers crossed.

Here are some pictures showing the view down our street..........And here is a picture looking up our road from the park at the bottom of the road.....and a picture of our slab which was put down on Friday 16th May...

Our Doreen House Build

Welcome to David and Fionas House Building Web Blog. We bought our block in Doreen in December 2007 and chose our house and builder at this time as well. It is being built by Hen3ley homes and it is called the Sutton.

We went for our first appointment with the builders on January 7th 2008 to decide on the colours we wanted to put in the house. We had to choose tiles and cupboards and doors and sinks. Lets hope it doesn’t look a mess when it’s all put together. Best to ask how much more the tiles are because they may be cheaper than you think.

On 29th January we had our tender meeting and they told us how much our site costs were. They were around $14000 because we are building on a slope and the builders don’t like this.
On the 29th February we signed all the contracts. Boy, what a palava that was. We had to inital every single page and sign quite a few others.

The site supervisor went up there and said that we didn’t have all our pegs in which would cost us more money for a resurvey. However my husband went to check and they were there so good thing we checked.

On the 5th May 2008 the house build finally started.

It is now the 15th May and the plumbers have been to lay the pipe and the foundation hole has been dug.

However, it is the 15th May and we have hit a problem. Our builders failed to inform us that we would need to get power connected to our block and are now saying the project could be delayed or they will charge extra for a generator to be used. They should have told us before that the electric needed to be connected but didn't and now all they're saying is it's in your contract. Boo, Hiss, we're not happy. Lets hope this is not the start of problems for the future.