PS - where has the builder gone?

BTW, the builder is just as difficult to get a hold of! We had the 90 day check about a month ago and nothing has happened since. They have only just sent the kitchen appliance people back to fix up the rangehood piping. Its the builders who are slack in contacting their subcontractors. We are still also waiting on our kitchen window to be replaced to glazed window instead of clear to satisfy the occupation certificate. This issue was first raised in Feb! A couple of other fairly minor issues that we can live with or fix ourselves but its like they have disappeared off into the sunset since handover!

Photos!

Ok. a lot has happened to the house since now and these photos are prob 6 weeks back so not entirely up to date.
Here is the kitchen, you can see we have roller blinds now and white porcelain tiles. The downlights haven't been put in yet, you can just see the battens still.

Here is the area in front of the kitchen, the living area, we painted that feature wall ourselves and this gives a better view of the tiles. I was worried about white tiles showing up all sorts of dirt but its actually not too bad and gives me motivation to sweep and mop. I love these white tiles!

The area in front of the kitchen... oh, no blinds yet here...

The entry/hallway, you can see the living area to the left has been carpeted now a charcoal colour... we were thinking of tiling the entire bottom floor but now i'm glad we carpeted that area as it makes the hallway more like a path and provides a bit of comfort away from the tiles...

The stairwell... this photo was taken just as the carpet was laid so we hadn't vacuumed yet and carpet had bits of cuttings, the layers didn't really clean up the bits of cuttings they left!

The upstairs living area showing carpet... and feature wall to the right...

Master bedroom showing feature wall again, carpet and roller blinds. We changed our minds several times about what parts we would paint on the feature wall, ie just that framed area or just inside the framed area. In the end i think we made the best choice and painted the entire wall.

Backyard, decking still to be done (even now) but turf laid. In future if we ever build again, I think we will request access to the backyard to maintain it as it had been left for over a year and the grass had grown so thick and unmanageable and all sorts of rubbish from the builders had been left for the grass to grow over it...

We have since finished downlights now and just got the driveway and side path color concreted. The colour is bluestone with cobble type stencil and we also got the front fence bricked to match the rest of the house. Next steps is setting up the garden, deck and automatic gate for the front fence but not necessarily in that order!

its now ours! yay!

We just the got keys delivered finally with a folder of all the stuff we need and a gift basket of some bath and hand towels!

now time to start packing and organising the flooring to be done! photos to be up shortly.

Finally the final!

Final payment was made on Monday yay! now trying to organise the handover meeting with the builder. Yesterday we went to look at the state of the backyard which is now a jungle after almost a year of no maintenance. We struggled with some yardwork but I've since come to the conclusion it will be worth paying someone else to do it hehehehe. The kikuyo grass is almost waist high in some areas and the ground is not level and there are bits of rocks and pipes and mesh buried here and there. Since we want to turf, and it looks like the only want to clear it is to do it manually with a matic, then i think its worth paying someone to do the backbreaking work.

getting quotes now...

signing off...

Well, we have finally signed off that all items are complete two weeks ago. Finally! Although at the time there were outstanding items (the painter came back 3 times!), these were completed the following day. We have also received the interim occupation certificate last week, 1 month after we sent all the paperwork to the certifier so that took two weeks longer than expected. Currently the bank is now doing its valuation to check that all work has been completed before the final payment can be release. We're expecting this to be done this week provided all is satisfactory. Then we should be able to get the keys!!!

We've visited the house again, there is a lot of cleaning up work in the garden as the grass is knee high and we will have to landscape every inch of the place but I'll be happy when we can finally say it is completely ours to landscape!

another change in mgmt??

Well finally got someone to give me an update and lo and behold, we've had another change in our construction coordinator. So far we have had two construction coordinators who keep shifting their 'roles' in the office. We have swapped between the two ladies 4 times now... why??? it is mind boggling.

Anyway, our 'new' (make that previous but now current once again) coordinator has said we are waiting on two windows to be glazed as per our DA??? Where did that come from? and why wasn't it done correctly to begin with? I have also asked about what our completion date for the house is in the last 5 emails to our builder and it has been repeatedly ignored which leads me to believe they either don't know, can't tell us or don't want to tell us, either of which reason is ridiculous. Our 'new' coordinator also said she'd get back to me that day to tell me when this glazing of the windows would be done but of course, she didn't do so.

I also left another message to our site supervisor but that was just for routine as he never returns my calls. I never expected him to despite his voicemail saying he would. LIAR!

I shall be ringing them again on Monday.

once again...

here I am again, blogging after almost a month of very little activity on the house... i still can't believe i thought we'd be in before xmas.. the amount of work that has been done could have been done in two weeks max since xmas, but no... its almost 4 months after. It is true what they say, after they get the majority of the house (and their payment), the builder just drags it out. I have rang, emailed and left messages to the site supervisor and also contacted the construction coordinator who says she is and the site supervisor is aware of my efforts to contact. Well????

When last I posted there was some painting to be done, the rain water tank to be delivered and the interim occupation certificate. Well the rain water tank was delivered and we have sent in some signed documents to obtain the interim occupation certificate but the paint has yet to be done. Its almost been a month, certainly long enough for these things to have been completed.

its disappointing to say the least...

Final inspection...Part 1

We just had final inspection this morning and there were a few bits still missing that hadn't been completed due to problems with their subcontracted tradies etc but another step closer hopefully. Supposedly the inspector for the occupancy certificate did his bit last week so we should hear something by the end of this week about it. We will meet again at the end of the week (or so we plan to) to see if those last bits were completed.

Presumably we will be given an interim occupancy certificate which should be enough to finalise payments and do the whole handover shebang.

Hank is looking awesome though Nora could do with a bit of a clean up, cannot wait to start decorating and landscaping!

oh the house next door which was sold about two months ago appears to be finally occupied, we saw the new owner mowing the lawns yesterday.

and then...

so 10 days ago the drainage for the rainwater was completed... also the security system was put in as well as the phone and tv ports and our doorbell. Last week I emailed the construction coordinator on Monday to see what was happening for the week since the drainage was done. Heard nothing until Friday when she said the site supervisor was away and would tell me this week what was happening.

So i will see today if I can get more information about when final inspection will happen. The last time we checked, the paintwork still hadn't been fixed up yet inside the house from our first inspection visit. It has been 5 weeks since first inspection when we were given the expectation that final inspection would happen two weeks after first inspection.

I wouldn't mind so much if our expectations weren't being set by the builder themselves!

still waiting...

So, the mains were connected last Friday hooray! do you think i could get in touch with the site supervisor to tell him he could now go ahead with installing the security? NOOOOOO... left voicemails for the last 3 working days. No callback.

I emailed the construction coordinator who managed to get in touch with him and she said they are waiting to get the rain water tank and drainage done. Once this is done, we should be ready for final inspection. But she gave no estimate as to when this would be done. So i sent a follow up emailing asking when exactly this might be happening. End of this week apparently.

Stay tuned.

I also rang around for a particular type of tree that we need to plant in the front of the house prior to occupancy. Don't know how strict they are but council reqs say it must be at least 2 mtrs high. Flower Power say they can order me one so I will have to follow up on that.

Searching for carpet last weekend. There are very little choices for a cool white interior. We like a charcoal color carpet so now are hunting for the best price for a middle range carpet.

ok now in limbo...

So we had the first inspection a couple weeks ago as noted in my last post. It was pretty ok, just a few painting spots here and there and couple of scratches on the poly kitchen which will be replaced. So now what you say? when do you get to move in? well here's the deal, supposedly it should have taken 7-10 days to fix up the stuff from the inspection. In the mean time we were to get the mains hooked up to Energy Australia. Easier said than done? Right on! After contacting Energy Australia and trying to chase down the right construction coordinator (there have been several changes in structure at the builder's company), we finally figured out what needed to be done and raised it with the appropriate people. If we had left it with the builder to inform us (as we had assumed would happen), we probably would not have been contacted about it til much later despite several emails and phone messages. Haven't heard about the final inspection time either even though i've tried contacting the site supervisor.

So here's what we're waiting for in order to move in (at least this is my current understanding although our understanding always seems to change as we move along in the piece). We first need to get the mains connected, then its best to get the security in place so at least the house will have some security while there is noone in there, then the final inspection where hopefully all the faults have been fixed, then we need to satisfy certain criteria to obtain the certificate of occupancy. We checked out our DA and as far as we can see, we need to put a house number up, plant a particular type of tree out the front and put a privacy screen on the side of the alfresco. Hopefully this is it and then we will be able to move in!

But before we move in, we need to get the flooring done (tiles on the bottom floor, carpet up top). But we can't do this until we get handover.

So how long do you think this will all take? I had hoped to be in by end of Jan? now I'm hoping to be in by end of March. Remember when I had posted that we would be in by Xmas? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

oh on a positive note, have found a nice porcelain floor tile that goes with our colour scheme, we had picked a white tile previously because no other tiles seemed to go with our cool white walls but the last place we looked had this lovely light grey tile with a little bit of pattern which goes lovely with the kitchen and wall and will be easier to keep clean as white tiles show all manner of sins! Would like to plug Ritz ceramics on Woodville Rd for the lovely lady who helped us out.

breath running out!

ok the final inspection did not happen today, yesterday our site supervisor rang and said the cleaners were not able to do a final clean prior to the inspection but he was still happy to do the inspection or we could postpone til monday...

i was happy to postpone til monday....

and then....

he rang to say his manager scheduled a meeting first thing monday morning so while he would like to attend, he would still see us on Monday but if its alright to make it tuesday instead.

we knew there was still the final coat of painting to be done as well as a few other things so I said I was fine with tuesday...

here's hoping ...

holding our breath!

ok, this Friday will be the final inspection! can't believe we're finally here although i'm sensing there may be a few weeks after final inspection until we get the occupation certificate and handover but still! Admittedly we've been able to get in there and have a look since the last lot of photos i posted and things have been looking pretty good and we've heard our site supervisor is a strict guy so the workmanship seems to have been ok to us.

stay tuned!