First Christmas in our New Home

Happy Christmas from Sydney!

[Swarovski tree in QVB]

It’s now two weeks from handover and a week since we left the rental and boy have we been busy! I’ve seen a fair few sunrises and sunsets before we had the curtains and blinds put in.

[sunrise]

We managed to paint the garage floor with the Rust-oleum epoxy resin plus sprinkles over the first weekend. All ready in time for the removal day.

There was a stream of tradies coming through to install the appliances and also to carry out the fixes identified at handover. Most of the appliances were installed on the Monday after we moved in on the Friday but the air-con wasn’t done until towards the end of the week. There had been a few hot days where it got up to 39 degrees before it was put in. I’m pleased to report that the air-con is great and very quiet. The cat no longer freaks out when it is on as at the rental the unit made a noise that sounded like they were back in the hold of the airplane on their flight here.

The curtains and blinds were fitted the day before the removals in an empty house which made their job easier. We used Design Curtains in Castle Hill and I am delighted with the finished product.

I had an electrician in to put up our feature lights and also to change our bedroom lights. We tried to cut corners and went for the standard oyster lights in our bedroom but they didn’t look right and we have now changed them to down lighters.

As you can see, the cat loves the new carpet and has taken to sleeping on the stairs. Not the best place for a black cat at night.

The move went well and the removal firm had us in by lunchtime. I wore myself to a frazzle cleaning the rental and both friends and family said I was mad as it was already in far better condition than when we first had it. In fact hubby confiscated my cleaning stuff in the end and made me leave the night before we handed it back! It paid off though because we got our full rental bond back.

We are settling in well and have been getting to know our new neighbours and enjoy a glass or two of vino with them at the end of the day. I need to buy a small table and chairs for the balcony and then we can enjoy a sundowner with them too 🙂

Here’s some Christmas Day photos without a packing box in sight!

 

 

 

We made it !

I’m happy to report that handover did take place on Friday 11^th. We have our keys, we’re in!

This is a brief update and I’ll post once we have completed our move as time is a bit short at the moment as we are mid move from the rental.

I was worried that handover would be postponed as they hadn’t managed to complete all the issues raised at PCI but it went ahead.

We were a bit worried when we turned up for the handover to see this:

So the house still has plenty of blue stickers but they are in the process of being taken care of. Our handover took longer than our PCI  🙂 There were tradies zipping in and fixing things as we walked through.

However we are in before Christmas!

After the handover with our Site Supervisor we drove to Wisdom HO in Narellan to pay and collect our guarantees, certificates and more importantly keys! I did forget to hand over the cheque until I was prompted very nicely for it:

“I believe you have something for me?”

“Do I?”

“The cheque!”

Well I forgot to take a photo of the keys but I did take one of our very nice ‘Welcome to your New Home’ gift:

So here are a few photos before we cleaned after the ‘builders clean’ and started moving in:

 

 

NBN is up and running and hubby is happy:

He has already moved his office over before the removal men to make good use of the faster internet.

I’ll post more next week once we hand the rental back and before Christmas.

 

PCI & NBN time

Despite the QA team not finishing the house our Practical Completion Inspection went ahead on December 1^st.

We had an independent inspection by Houspect at 9am and a walk thru for us with our SS at 1pm. Ideally the PCI should be once the QA team has finished so there isn’t as much to pick up on but on the whole it went well. The only area that we were unable to check carefully were the windows as they were still too dirty to see through clearly.

We spent a couple of hours checking through the house and putting strips of blue tape on any defects. We have forwarded our independent inspection report to our SS and he will add it to the items we highlighted and draw up a list of items to be rectified.

At the end of our walk thru we agreed our handover date, normally 7 to 14 days after PCI. Handover will be Friday December 11^th for us which we are very happy with as it gives us the weekend to paint the garage floor and feature walls before the main removals happen. We’ll be staying there from day 1 but leaving the boys at the rental for the crossover period.

Garage floor:

We have gone for a Rust-oleum epoxy coated floor for the garage, aka the man cave. Supplies lined up ready to go:

It comes complete with coloured sprinkles, I’d have liked glitter for that extra bling but sprinkles will do  🙂

NBN

This section is like Marmite, you’ll either love it or hate it  🙂

National Broadband Network, NBN, is available up at Gardener’s Ridge and we can’t wait. The internet speeds are dreadful where we currently are, consistently < 2mbps, so this is a big plus.

Here is a very brief, and probably wildly inaccurate, explanation of NBN and internet provision where we are for those outside Australia.

Actually scrap that, Wickipedia can explain it better than I can:

NBN

Personally I am just interested in the finished product, faster internet speeds, I don’t need to know the intricate details. Hubby however is Mr IT and it is a cause close to his heart.

It was a bit of a painful and expensive process trying to work out what equipment we needed from the builder but we eventually agreed on a Starserve enclosure to keep it all tidy. Otherwise the garage wall would have resembled the command deck of the Starship Enterprise as we would have had the following on it:

• Up to 10 RJ45 wall plates
• Up to 4 TV coax wall plates
• 3 NBN boxes
• 1 phone wall plate

And an unholy mess of cables connecting them all together just waiting for someone to drive in and rip them off the wall with their wing mirror!

So this is when the enclosure was initially put in:

Each port, 1-8, corresponds to a RJ45 in different rooms in the house ( shown without the face plate):

Luckily I made a note of which port went to which room before they put the face plates on 🙂

 

Then on December 3rd the NBN was connected:

 

Exterior NBN connection:

All that is left to do is put in the N300 WiFi Gigabit router and we are good to go.

Let’s hope that when we move in it really does the biz and provides up to 100mbps.

Only five sleeps left until we move , excuse me whilst I go back to my packing station and crack on with the packing.

 

Driveway & Rain Garden

 

Last week in the blistering heat they laid the driveway. The polar opposite from when the slab was laid when it poured with rain.

Tuesday late afternoon they did the formwork:

 

then on the Thursday in 39 degrees they poured the plain concrete.

Friday they saw cut it:

Then after at least 3 weeks curing time they spray on a fancy flecked coloured topcoat. As we are fast approaching the Christmas shutdown it will be the end of January before it is finished in all its glory.

We have chosen to have Wisdom Landscaping do our driveway and front path but will get our own landscaper to finish off the paths around the rest of the house. There will be an apron of paths and pool surround around most of the house to protect against slab heave. This follows recommendations by CSIRO in their sheet ‘Foundation Maintenance and Footing Performance: A Homeowner’s Guide’ which Wisdom handed out to us at some point in the proceedings.

 

However did you spot that we are now fence free? After nearly seven months the house front is finally revealed  🙂

The missing balustrade is up now that the tile they cracked when originally fitting it has been replaced.

They had done a site tidy and scrape but the soil from the driveway excavation is now stockpiled to the left. The sand and gravel that has also appeared is the left over from the rain garden being rectified this week.

North Kellyville Rain Garden

For better or for worse we are required to have a rain garden. Unfortunately what was put in during the early stages of the build was not what was on the signed off Construction Plans. Wisdom agreed to correct it later in the build and it was finally done in the nick of time before PCI.

Original rain garden incorrectly sized and sited but seeing it in situ also highlighted the slope towards the bottom of the plot.:

We’d hoped not to have to have a retaining wall at the bottom of the garden. However if we don’t raise the level of the garden then the drop into the rain garden would be too dangerous. I had visions of children or the unwary disappearing over the edge!

So the retaining wall stays, the garden is raised and we have made the rain garden longer and narrower to try and stop it spreading towards the house so much. Once the walls are in we can use risers to put the rain garden Surge Pit and Outlet Pit at the required levels. The Surge Pit must be 150mm below the surface of the Outlet Pit and level with the finished surface of the rain garden. Then we just fill it up with the final layers, plant it and be done with it. Sorted! 🙂

I now know more about the ins and outs of rain gardens than I did at the beginning or ever wanted to. No doubt once our storm water system is up and running we’ll head towards a drought instead!

Here are a few pics of it being redone on a very hot day:

It looks huge at the moment but when the retaining walls are in, the batters up and the levels sorted it should end up not so in your face … I hope!

The QA team made a flying visit to the house this week apparently but did not manage to complete before our PCI on December 1st. More about that in my next post 🙂

 

 

 

 

Light at the End of the Tunnel

 

Now that the end of our build is drawing near I am starting to think a bit more about the decor and finishing touches.

We’ve decided not to buy any new furniture until we move in and get a feel for the place. Doesn’t stop me drawing up wish lists though 🙂

Soft furnishings are another matter! The window coverings are all done and dusted: chosen, measured, made and just waiting to be fitted. Lighting sorted too.

We chose to have Clipsal, through Wisdom, do most of it with a mix of LED downlights and oyster lights. The two exceptions to be done are the stair light and dining area light. Stair light sorted, pretty simple, a cluster of three pendant lights. We just need a sparkie with a tall ladder.

 

The dining light has taken longer. We went to Living Edge in Alexandria to look at a Herman Miller Aeron Office chair. We looked at both it and the Mirra 2, I think the Mirra 2 made it on to hubby’s wish list.

 

 

I felt a little like a fish out of water there as it is all original designer and very $$. However I came across a light that I fell in love with. Well I think really it should be called a work of art, it is a feature glass installation not a light. It is from Lasvit in Czech Bohemian glass by the designer Nendo. Behold the beauty that is ‘Growing Vases’:

It is huge at 1000 x 1400mm and I loved it. I read about it being the blowing of glass vases and growth etc but to me I look and see …. Christmas decorations!!! Sorry Nendo. Now for a few weeks I kept hankering after it and eventually summoned up the courage to ask Living Edge how much it cost. Really the clues were already there , Czech glass, designer glossy catalogue, no prices … Well we won’t be having it as at $27K it’s a little too rich for me.

I was on a roll that day so when we passed Coco Republic I made hubby slam on the brakes and went for a nosey. Still a fish out of water  🙂

I saw some ‘interesting’ ideas;

I could easily replicate these book pillars as I have a lot of books but I won’t!

I can’t look at this without grinning and yelling “Yeehaw! Ride ‘em Cowboy!!”, in my head.

So back in the real world, today we went and bought a rather more budget friendly light for the dining area where the feature is wood shavings rather than hand blown glass.

Now no soft furnishings are complete without cushions! I am amazed at the Aussie makeover shows penchant for dressing rooms with copious amounts of cushions. So not to be left out I decided to dig out my craft box, fire up my mother’s trusty old Bernina sewing machine and produced these Aran cushions:

           

The Aran’s were works in progress of my Nanna B from back in the 70’s.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch…

Next week two big items, the rain garden and the QA team visit.

Wish me luck, I’m meeting with the plumber on Monday to rectify the rain garden. All I want is what was on the signed off Construction plans so hopefully that will all go OK. Second time lucky! I shall keep you posted.

The QA team come in after the cleaners, inspect and finish up all the little jobs after everyone else. They were supposed to come last week but were held up.

Here are a few sneak peaks whilst cleaning was in progress:

Dining area looking out to where we would like a lap pool:

Dining area looking out to the Alfresco:

Windows cleaned and site scraped:

Scaffolding can come down when they erect the rest of the balustrade. Unfortunately they broke a balcony tile whilst tying to install it but that’s been replaced so they can finish up now. Site fencing to come down next week, portaloo has disappeared since this photo.

 

 

Final Stretch

It’s been all go this week at the block:

• Painters – interior and exterior
• Air Con
• Balcony balustrade (partial)
• Carpenters:
  • Door Furniture
  • Towel rails & toilet roll holders
  • Step down skirting
• Cooker Hood
• Site Clean

Cooker hood in, complete with finger prints. You can just see the top of my head reflected below the glass canopy so I’ll be needing a stool to reach anything other than the bottom shelf! Surely I’m not that short!!  🙂

Installing cooker hoods with glass splashbacks is a bit of a palaver. First the electricians fit the cooker hood then they remove it, then the splashback people come to measure up where all the holes etc are. The splashback is then made and once installed the electricians return to fit the cooker hood over the splashback. They did an excellent job of measuring it all up, the splashback join is hidden along the glass canopy edge.

With Wisdom you do not get the splashback behind the cooker hood as standard, that is an upgrade option during your Colours appointment at HO. If you wish it to have no joins you need to specify that and inform both Wisdom and the kitchen company so your plans document it.

The carpenters were busy:

Merbau front door now with weather seal so hopefully no more puddles

Gainsborough Lianna door handles in satin chrome

Home Theatre back to back bar door handle which I think must be gold plated for the price 🙂

Powder room towel rail

Toilet roll holder

Balcony balustrade fitted:

Hopefully the rest of it will be fitted this week and then the scaffolding can come down.

We also received our PCI letter confirming the date, December 1^st , with handover 1 – 2 weeks later. The letter also told us they were claiming 24 rain days. Our Contract finish date was October 27th which I thought would mean we should have handover on December 1st not PCI.

What’s left to do:

• Driveway (booked for the week starting the 16^th November)
• Carpet
• Clean
• Remove protective wax coating on porcelain tiles
• Fit electrical plate covers
• NBN

Plus fix their errors:

• Fix the rain garden!!!! (Fed up waiting for this to be corrected)
• En-suite WC tiling & coving
• Fit correct En-suite ladder towel rail
• Powder Room mirror

I have updated the ‘Our Construction Journey’ timeline in the Header bar. Well, truth be told, Mr IT worked his magic and updated the flowchart for me 🙂

Calm after the Storm.

Sydney has certainly been having some wild weather recently so we went up to the block to see how it fared after yesterday’s deluge. I should have been brave and gone up during it to see how our storm water system of the rain tank and rain garden were coping.

Amazingly things didn’t look too bad today.

I hope no-one was in situ when the wind caught this on 313 !

The swales at the front were clear of water but full of rubbish. Hubby thinks I’m mad but I keep disposable gloves and rubbish bags in the car and clean up the swales after the tradies every so often. I don’t think our new neighbours across the way, who have already moved in, want to look out at empty tuna cans, Red Bull cans, carry out containers and builder’s rubbish strewn around. Six bags later it looked a lot better!

However, that was at the end of our visit, when we rocked up we were pleased to see:

Glass splashback time! 🙂

The tilers finished the main floors and Laundry on Wednesday and we have been well and truly locked out with no sneaking in to peek. With Decoglaze there we were able to pop in for a quick look around to see what’s been happening:

• Main floor tiling completed
• Laundry tiles completed
• Master robe, WIP & Cloak cupboard fit out
• Wire shelving corrected to walk-in-robes in beds 3 & 4
• Main bath display niche glass shelf fitted
• Glass splashback to Kitchen & Butler’s Pantry being fitted

There was a bit of storm water inside which is surprising as both the front door and balcony door have step downs to their porches. However they are to be fitted with draft excluders as part of our BAL 12.5 requirements for embers. I better check what form they take and if they’ll exclude water.

Here’s some photos of what’s been done this week:

Main tiling:

Hallway:

Step down:

Leisure:

 

Laundry: Not quite how the tile layout was specified

Master robes fit out:

His:

Hers 🙂

Cloak:

Wire shelving in Beds 3 & 4 sorted:

 

Latte glass splashback in progress:

Bath display niche glass shelf:

 

The painters were busy next door at 310 and said they would be back to us on Wednesday November 11^th which is great. Our SS’s text update this week said the gyprock would be patched up next week followed by the painters. Therefore I take it the gyprockers will be there on Monday. I’ve also had a call from Wisdom Landscaping this week to say the driveway will be done the week commencing November 18^th. It’s all go 🙂 !

What’s left to do?

• Internal Painting
• Exterior lower paintwork
• Driveway
• Balcony balustrading
• Air con grills
• Final electrical fit off
• Door furniture
• Fly screens & doors
• Carpet
• NBN

What’s done but needs fixed?

• Rain garden
• En-suite WC tiling
• Powder Room mirror
• Balcony door double glazed

 

 

PCI Date

After a frustrating couple of weeks where the tilers were AWOL I’m pleased to say that they arrived early this morning and are busy laying the main floor tiles and finishing the en-suite.

Main floors:

En-suite:

The step down for the split level:

The SS called from the site to go over a few details and as I couldn’t visualise what he was trying to explain I shot up to see him as we rent just around the corner. Bonus being I got a quick look around the house as it has been a couple of weeks since we’ve been inside as we are now locked out.

The showers screens and mirrors are now in, another item off the ‘To Do’ list:

En-suite:

Main Bath:

Main Bath Vanity:

Powder Room:

He also gave us our Practical Completion Inspection (PCI) date – 1^st December – with handover on December 14^th if there are no major problems or hold ups. So YAY! that we have actually got a date but BOO! that it is in December. We really hoped that we would be in during November especially as the official Contract End Date was October 27^th. We want to celebrate Christmas in our new house and we have our first visitor arriving NYE. Williewombat has booked his flight from Edinburgh and wants to be the first to stay in the guest room.

Meanwhile we’ve been busy, whilst waiting for the tilers, with meetings with the landscaper, the pool company and the removal company. By a process of elimination we’ve designed the garden, entertainment area and pool and are very pleased with what we have come up with. Now we are waiting for the quotes to come back. I think I’ll need a very stiff drink before I read those. We may well have to change our ideas or do it in phases depending on the final figures. I plan to write about what we have designed in a future blog post.

Right now my life now revolves around lists:

• Build ‘To Do’ List
• PCI List
• Rental Bond Cleaning List
• Packing List
• Moving List

And let’s not forget the Christmas List. I have tried to be organised and have just about finished my Christmas shopping with most of it done in July! I just need to wrap it now before I pack it away 🙂

Splish Splash

I’ll be having a bath 🙂

This week saw the bathrooms being kitted out with tubs, loos and taps. Unfortunately you will have to take my word for it as we are well and truly locked out now.

How do I know it has been done? Well I’m a regular Miss Marple. The garage door was open and the main floor tiles had been delivered:

The boxes for all the sanitary ware that were in the garage are now in the rubbish pile along with a discarded shower frame.

NEWS UPDATE

We were able to get in as the front door was wide open when we went to look at the landscaping.

So hot off the press:

Powder room with loo, shower rails and tap:

Hmm looks like someone has already christened it 😦

Kitchen with Caroma Quatro tap:

Main bathroom with loo and Caroma Stylus Newbury bath:

Standard Prestige bath spout:

En-suite with free standing Caroma Aura 1600 bath & same spout:

From a different angle:

En-suite toilet:

I love these Caroma loos! Quality toilets with a china cistern and soft close lid. Can’t wait to say goodbye to the cheap plastic cisterns and even worse seats in the rental (see below):

Bathroom switches complete with labels!:

I am so looking forward to having a bath once more, I really miss it. We do have a bath in the current rental but it is a huuuge spa bath. It is so big it is ridiculous, there are actually two seats inside it, it takes ages to fill and I dread to think how much water it actually consumes.

[I won’t miss cleaning those stapled on sheer swags or wooden venetian blinds either ]

I have used the spa bath once and it just felt weird, I felt like Billy No Mates, it is definitely a bath made for two. At least there is a ledge all the way round to rest a glass of bubbles on it if you do share 🙂

So I may have gone the other way. The en-suite came with a spa size bath (no bubbles that would be an upgrade) and initially I swapped it for a standard sized bath the same as the one in the bathroom. Then I thought ‘What the heck!’ and upgraded it to a stand alone bath, the Caroma Aura 1600.

Now after mentioning it last week on my blog different friends have inquired as to whether it is – ahem – a suitable size for each of us. Did I try it out in the shop etc?

Well I have to admit to just looking at it on the web and thinking that’ll do! We did try a stand alone bath in a holiday rental and I thought this one looked like that so job done!

I also have to admit that just as hubby has his coffee machine I have annexed that bath as mine 🙂

It will be my treat, my little haven of peace and tranquillity … hopefully!

Not a lot else has happened on site this week apart from the gyprockers doing the Butler’s bulkhead and other bits and pieces . Electrical looks complete with the stair footlights in:

Split level ground floor:

Hopefully stop anyone coming home late from falling down the step in the dark.

Staircase footlights:

For those of you interested in the internet provisions and NBN here is the NBN enclosure with an 8-Port Cat 6 Patch Panel. Not that I know what it is that was copied straight from the End Panel, I just need it to work!  It is sealed at the moment so we can’t see how neat it is inside (hopefully) or whether it is a mess of spaghetti wires.

 

Unfortunately the tilers didn’t make it this week but are booked in for next week instead. Next week also sees the Master wardrobes, the WIP and the cloak cupboard being fitted out with fancy shelving and the painters finishing.

Two months today is Christmas Eve and roughly seven weeks to go until Wisdom shut down for the Christmas holidays and we hope to be in before then. Our SS has said we will be in ‘Well before then’ so now I am keen to get a provisional date for our Practical Completion Inspection (PCI). Once you’ve had a successful PCI it is normally two weeks until you get handover and your keys. Therefore we need our PCI pdq 🙂

What’s left to do?

• Main floor tiling
• Internal Painting 2nd & 3rd coats
• Exterior lower paintwork
• Shower screens & mirrors
• Towel rails and toilet roll holders
• Master, WIP, cloak fit outs
• Kitchen & Butler’s splashback
• Driveway
• Balcony balustrading
• Air con grills
• Door furniture
• Fly screens & doors
• Carpet

What’s done but needs fixed?

• Rain garden
• Bed 3 & 4 wire robes
• En-suite WC tiling
• Balcony door double glazed

p.s in case I came across a bit harsh about the rental here’s something I will definitely miss until I can replicate it. A great drying area complete with Hills Hoist Drymaster 42 🙂

 

Tiling and Electrical fit off

Lots of action this week.

The tilers were back this week and laid the accent tiles in the bathrooms:

Powder room:

en-suite:

main bath:

The wet rooms look finished apart from the Laundry where the single row of wall tiles are still to be laid. The en-suite WC needs to be sorted as the plans show it with full height tiling and no cornice. The gyprockers put cornice up then the tilers removed it.

en-suite WC:

Unfortunately when then finished it off they cut the tiles to allow for cornices. Hopefully there are enough tiles left to rectify this. They should be back next week to lay the main flooring downstairs. Apart from that hiccup I’m really pleased with the quality of their work and hope they do it to the same standard when they lay the 600 x 600mm porcelain main floor tiles.

Wednesday saw the robe fit outs:

Standard wire shelving in the store cupboard and linen:

Store:

Standard wire hanging in Bed 2:

Mix of single and double wire hanging in the walk-in-robes (WIR) in beds 3 & 4 for the boys:

Spot the mistake in bed 3 & 4….

The Master bedroom robes are fitted by a different company using Polytec Gesso Lini as part of the Wisdom Prestige inclusions.

Ooops…that’s interesting when I googled for a sample of Gesso Lini it’s not the colour I thought it was. I thought we chose the dark colour for the robe interiors. The choice was white, truffle lini or gesso lini.

Nevermind, it was so long ago, August 2014, and so fast paced a colour consultation down at Wisdom HO I probably remembered incorrectly. It’ll look good whatever the colour. Paperwork says Gesso Lini so Gesso Lini it is. The wardrobe people called me to double check the layouts as I am including double hanging and wanted to tweak the cloak layout. All sorted 🙂

Friday saw the electricians return for the electrical fit off. I needed to drop off the range hood for them to fit which gave me an excellent opportunity to check out the house. We changed to us supplying all the appliances a few months ago when the Blanco double oven was discontinued hence me having to deliver the range hood on site today.

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

The electricians are powering through with the fit off. Fans are in and look like they could trim a few centimetres of anyone not paying attention!

Master bedroom:

Bed 3:

Vanity power points seem very high up but it was set to the standard height.

Bumped into our SS on site and got my weekly update in person and a walk through 🙂

Delivery time:

Free standing bath, Caroma Aura 1600, looks either rather low or not very wide, that’s one way to save water! Hope I fit in it!!

Next week:

• Baths and toilets have been delivered ready for the plumbing fit off:
• Main floor tiling & ensuite WC correction
• Gyprockers back to make good and to line the rest of the understairs cupboard