Fully Padded

What a turn around in a week. My hat goes off to our supervisor this week. Very informative, on top of most things (with some constant reminding from me) and making the tradies get some serious work done. We've gone from having half our roof removed, half the wiring ripped out and the plumbing cut into pieces to the house back to normal and now insulated within 3 days! Amazing what can be done with a little pressure. We had council approve whats been done so far so it is definately full steam ahead!

I have been told that the gyprock will be completed before the weekend, kitchen fitted and doors on next week and fitout the week after. Our visions of being in for christmas have been brightened again!

0 steps forward, 3 steps backward....

Well, this has been the hardest 3 weeks of our build and the worst friday ever! As mentioned in a previous post, we've had some council issues and then builder issues on top of that. After 2 and a half weeks of nothing happening, being told that insulation keeps getting pushed back with no real explaination of why and whats happening in regards to the processes being taken to get back on track, I took things into my own hands, rang council to find out what the issues were. They were more than happy to fill me in as well as send a PDF copy of the report for my own information. Armed with this and their professional opinion that these fixes should take half a day and they can be out the next day from request of reinspection, I then had a very stern word with the general manager of Beechwood.

His first mistake taking my call was that he was very much mis-informed. He started giving me incorrect information that I knew for a fact wasn't true and hit him with them. Things like the insulation was already installed. As you know, this whole thing stopped the insulation going in in the first place. So I shut him down, basically told him that this is just not acceptable, that if there are issues with a build that the council find that the builder should be taking that as a priority job and getting it fixed up yesterday. By the end of the phone call he was making promises and telling me that he'd be on the phone to the supervisor and everything. Big case of I'll believe it when I see it.

Following day and nothing had happened as per the GM's promises so back on the phone I get and leave a few messages since he didn't return my calls. By the end of the day, I had a very moody (because I reckon he just got a grilling from the GM about the lack of progress in getting the build passed by council and that he was made to look like a fool with the mis-information) superviser on the phone giving me all the excuses under the sun for why its taken this long. Basicilly he wanted to tell me the next weeks plans which was all fine, provided it was actually going to happen. Not only did he ring to inform me of all of this, but to also give me his contact number and email for use throughout the remainder of the build (Beechwood refuse to give out supervisers numbers because clients are constaintly ringing them and they get no work done bacause the client is complaining about the lack of work, go figure).

So, I let him cool down for a day then the next day, as promised by the supervisor, we had all sorts of action. Action that gave us that really bad feeling in the pit of your stomach, like you just lost a loved one, or was just told something really really bad, or in this case, you see half of your roof tiles taken back off, some smashed on the ground and some of your roof trusses taken of and lying on the ground. They were dismantling our house! Going backwards in a build is not cool. First thought that crossed my mind was, "Wow, I really pissed off the GM didn't I!?" but then it occured to me that one of the items on the council inspection was that there were missing supports in the roof. I later found out that the trusses were installed around the wrong way and that the easiest way to fix it was to remove the front half of the house and start again.

To their credit, they had removed half the houses roof tiles, dismantled the roof framing, installed it the correct way and placed 'most' of the roof tiles back on all in one day. Good effort, could have been avoided if it was done correctly in the first place. This was all done yesterday, there were workers there today doing some more minor items on the councils list.

Monday has the council reinspection booked in that the supervisor is confident that it will pass (again, i'll believe it when I see it) as well as the roof tiler to finish the tiling (again), the electriction back to re-wire the entire front end of the house.... plus install a light and light switch that was forgotten in the first place, tuesday has the insulation going in (finally) and by the end of the week we'll be gyprocked. I hope he's right!

The below photos are of the house today, the electriction wont be happy on monday when he sees the mess he's been left with. Hmm, is anyone else getting the impression that someone has it in for us, or that we're just not ment to be building this house? Will be glad to be getting the keys, I think we've deserved it after all this mess! We'll keep you posted on this weeks action. I do hope that it pans out exactly as mentioned above... or guess whos getting a call!?

Interior colour selections

Admittadly these selections were chosen quite some time ago now, however we noticed they weren't on the blog, so better late then never right?

• Front Door - Hume Newington (Jasper colour, but thinking of stripping that and staining it)
  
• Internal Doors - Moulded Panel HAG9 (Stainless steel terrace door handles)
  
• Kitchen Cupboards / Bathroon Vanities - Mocha Velour
  
• Kitchen cupboard handles
  
• Kitchen / Laundry bench top - Cocoa Sand
  
• Laundry cupboards - warm white
• Tap range - Caroma Irwell Metro
• Shower Heads - Caroma Dorf Nutra On-rail
  
• Internal Paint colour - Taubmans swirling mist
• Carpet - Racecourse Sandown (brown tones)

Slow and steady wins the race

We've had a very slow couple of weeks with council hold ups (if only the builder did it right in the first place). In the mean time, we were told by the tile supplier that our bathroom floor tile and mosaic was discontinued, so we had to go back and re-select some of our tiles for the house. Along with the 2 sets of tiles, we also changed our patio/alfresco tile from white to grey, mainly because we have decided to go with a dark colour driveway to match our dark roof, so we figure we'll match the patio to it all, plus the fact that the white will get absolutely filthy very quickly.

Throughout the process so far, we've been trying to stay on top of things by getting certain items along the way for when we're ready to move in. For example:

• We've decided to go with a mirrored splash back in the kitchen to make the space feel larger. Getting quotes for this at the moment.
• We've purchased our kitchen tap:
  
• Our front up/down lights: (Went with a square light as our front door handle is of the same shape, the omni trilock)
  
  
• Our front hallway light:
  
• Our Theatre Light:
  

How shocking

Twas an interesting week on the Durham homestead site. Had the roof tiles and the ridge capping completed at the beginning of the week which was exciting to see. Got told that the electrical rough in was booked in for the end of the week which stirred the pot a bit (in a good way). Had to meet the electrician on site to go through some last minute changes of placement and at the same time ran into the site supervisor. I love running into the site supervisor. The man always gives me good and uplifting news!

The Brick cleaners were booked in for friday, the roof rail was coming down, and the insulation is to be done next week with the gyprock to be fitted the week after. Come saturday morning, the roof rails were indeed removed, the bricks inside the garage were sparkling clean and there is now webs of electrical wire everywhere.
Can't wait for next weekend when our house turns yellow with insulation installed!