Knockdown and building Henley's Talise Q2 - We have keys!

that's a really nice IKEA desk set up chatz! the happy owner must be pleased

Congratulations on your new home. The desk looks fantastic, I would like something like this for the study. Can you tell me what components did you use?

It is a Besta Burs desk combined with Besta shelf units. The combination is on display at the new Springvale store and we liked it immediately.

Chatz

Hi,

Congrats on moving in! You must just be pinching yourselves.
The desk looks awesome, you guys have done a great job.

We had our first walk through yesterday to list the things to be fixed up. Supevusor thinks we'll have keys at the end of the month.

Trudy! End of the month - you'll be in for Christmas! Are you pleased with the house? Is there much to be done?

I am marooned at home (love it!) today. Waiting for the heating/cooling crowd, the Internet provider and the garage door service people. The door hits the frame and can't be used. The Internet and phone have been connected but nothing works so a technician is coming to see what the problem is. And the heat/cool work was set for yesterday between 8 and 12. Chatz stayed home, no one turned up. Seems the guy was here at 8, there was no answer so he left. There was a car at the front door, Chatz was probably in the shower and theguy didn't even call either of us. Very poor. So we will see what happens today!

Ger, any update?

Hi Guys,
Thats Great news Trudy, we've got our fingers crossed for you keep onto them.

Everything seems to have hit a brick wall with us and we have no idea what is happening ??
I returned home from New Zealand yesterday to find that nothing has been done to rid the measles inside our house
Thats more than 4 weeks since Handover got our file.. remember how we had the same date for our new home inspection ? and then they cancelled ?

Anyway, i send them a letter today explaining our frustrations and i'm sure they will respond in a positive matter.

I'll certainly let you guys know.
Keep up the good work Chatzes and Don't let Mr. Chatz slack off

Oh Ger, its frustrating isn't it? When you go there after so long and literally nothing has been done? I hope they respond to your letter soon.

Chatzes ... Yes they will give us the keys at end if the month... I'm quietly confident they will in time, there's not much to fix up... A few minor things here and there.
Hope your tradies get their acts together soon!

Things haven't slowed down around here. Today we had landscapers, pool and outside blind people all working around the house.

The landscapers, Gardenridge, aren't cheap but they are doing an awesome job of organising various trades including our pool people who we have struggled with for months. Despite the weather they are making progress everyday, concreting should start next week.

I came home today to find we have something look far more like a pool with the pump running...



The pump and filter has been installed...



The landscapers have moved a lot of dirt around the house despite the moat due to all the rain. The trench for the retaining wall/step up to the pool has been dug...



Looking forward to the decking from the alfresco...

.

How are you guys doing getting to handover?

Chatz

Hey guys. Gosh your place looks great! Glad to hear everything is moving well for you. You'll be swimming in there in no time!

Ours is traveling well, i went down there yesterday and there are red dots in a few places, kitchen sink and rangehood are in, all toilets in, front door massive door handle and lock are on ( I absolutely love it... Big upgrade, but so worth it) and apart from that, they r now doing final touch ups. Our supervisor says we'll have they keys at month end.. I really hope so.
We r having issues with one retaining wall.... They have only built it 3/4 of the way and don't want to extend it due to the tree near it on the neighbours block of land. The plan shows the wall going all the way to the back fence. We r not accepting the house until its done according to plans, otherwise we will have to pay a landscaper to do it after handover and there's no point in doing that when we have already paid Henley to do it.
Let's see how it goes.

We've changed supervisors once and changed administrators twice... People drop like flies at hh.

Trudy

Hello Henley friends!

We still dont have internet or phone at home, very cross about that. Everything is in place and should be working, but no request was ever made to connect the phone line from pit to power pole. Seriously, if I wanted to deal with Telstra I would have just signed with them. Two weeks and still waiting. As we are not Telstra customers there's no priority or urgency. I've been taking my wrath out on iinet - pointless, but vaguely satisfying. So here I am at work

We are completely in love with the house and very very happy with everything. Henley's post-handover followup has been great. We've gone back with a couple of issues and received a call from the relevant company within 24 hours to have work done. So far, we've had a leaking sink in the ensuite (plumber came today, couldnt find the leak.....), got the gas fireplace commissioned and had the garage door re-aligned. Not that we can use the garage at the moment as there are landscaping tradies in and out of it all day. We knew that it was going to be a big job, this is week 2 of 4 and theyve worked non-stop. There's always at least two guys there all day. Looking good, we can see it coming together.

Our pool pump and filter are running in 4 hour bursts twice each day and the water is nearly clear. The solar heating will be installed next week, then it will be cleaned and handed over. The ducks have now abandoned us.

All our indoor blinds were installed yesterday. Very happy with our choices. The white wide slat timber venetians in the kids retreat and bedroom 3 look particularly amazing. The external Viewscreen sunblinds on the dining and living room were installed last week along with a super-big blind along the alfresco. We have viewscreen rollers on the inside windows in those rooms, and we can always add blockouts if we feel the need later.

The kids wardrobes and hall store are being fitted out today. We didnt think ahead about that and so we had to remove all the shelving installed by the builder. Well, I removed it as Chatz is in India for work right now. The combination of nails and glue was rather hard to deal with and I've made some big holes in the plaster. New house with plaster holes - the shame. I filled and sanded as well as I could. I can just picture the installer standing there with a "WTF" look......Chatz will have a fit. Just hope it's not too visible under all the new shelving and drawers.

I would love to hear where everyone is at. We ared a long way from unpacked, but I have put three pictures up and it feels like home!

Kate

PS Ultimate irony - just moved house, now my office is being moved. I am surrounded by boxes that need to be packed.......

Hello Guys,

Got our Final inspection Monday afternoon... yippeee !!!
So nearly there, The big plan of being in before Christmas should happen.

Can't believe the fellas overseas swanning around while your doing all the Yakka
Looking great Chatzes.. step at a times the way.

Good luck with your handover as well Trudy..fingers crossed for you.

Ill let you know how things go with ours on monday.

Bye for now
G

Hi guys,

Ger - that sounds awesome! good luck with your inspection on monday ours is on friday... we are getting so excited about it now.

Kate - wow you must be feeling just so settled in your new place im so glad you're enjoying it.


we are now planning for things to be done before moving in e.g. alarm system, driveway, flooring and fencing. So after handover we should be able to move in about a weeks time, as long as we can get the tradies lined up in time.

Getting our wardrobe fitouts done by "kan do caminets" (AMAZING PRICES) can wait to see the fitouts all done. the guy running the show is a lovely old aussie guy - reminds me of an australian version of my dad

Kate, would i be able to have details of your inspector that you used for handover? I just seriouslt dont have time to organise one before then.

Trudy

Trudy, we use New Home Inspections ph:~ 9708 2500 , we used them for Frame stage as well.

All the best
Gerry

Thanks gerry! I'll give them a call

You must be excited bout Monday! Apparently after handover inspection, we can't get keys for a week coz of the bl00dy banks needing a whole week to do a valuation!?!?
We r having to call and reschedule flooring and fencing guys now have u spoken to your bank? What did they say to u bout it?

Hey guys - Ger, all the best for Monday, hope it won't be too long after that you'll have keys! Trudy, our bank did the valuation after our final inspection, there was a bit of carrying on about not doing it till all the issues were completed which would have delayed handover, but our broker got stuck into them and we even had the final payment transferred two days early. I can't remember who our inspector was, but the guy we had was filling in and frankly not worth it do I'd go with Ger's suggestion. Still no Internet, now I'm raging at Chatz via text about it. Not getting anywhere..... Looking forward to hearing about handovers!!!
Kate

I can confirm Mrs Chatz has been raging at me at 3am in the morning (in India) about the lack of Internet.

Can I just say we can never ever complain again about building standards, ifs rare to see buildings here that have been finished to what we would expect at the final inspection. But that is the norm here.

Chatz

Hey guys
Kate thx for the heads up re: valuation and inspector. I'll call gerrys guy tomorrow.

Having no internet is so inconvenient! Do u have it on your phone at least? Argh. We are house sitting for some friends at the moment... Until we move in I guess. Thank god they offered us heir house... We were going insane without any privacy or peace and quiet where we were. This house we are staying at is actually a Henley home the wiltshire mk3. MASSIVE. Glad we didn't build a double story... Stairs r so annoying. We love the feeling of staying in a brand new Henley home though

Chatz - how's India? R u wishing u were at home? I'm Sri lankan so I know exactly what u mean about building standards over there - I grew up in a house that had a home made skylight in place of having light switches and bulbs! We used to hand wash clothes outside and had an outdoor dunny! Makes me think how far we've come - from a 3rd world country all the way to aus, built our own home and have amazing jobs!

Trudy

Trudy,

I am enjoying India, there is just so much to see, taste and smell! Poverty and insanely rich living next to each other, with so many things done with cheap labour rather that machines that we would use. Like a vacuum clearer or a lawn mower or a dish washer.

The weather has been nice, best time of year I suspect to be here.

It's a shame that they don't seem to try to maintain things in good order, they claim that houses just don't last long due to the climate, when I think if they built it well and maintained it, the house might last quite some time. We went to a market with lots of good shops, including a Gloria Jeans, but the paving around the shops is a mess. It was probably nice when first installed, but if has not been maintained. But it's not as if there is a shortage of labour...

The traffic is amazing. Utter chaos but it works, you just have to be very brave when crossing the road. I've seen motorbikes with the whole family on them, husband, wife and 2 kids weaving in and out of trucks and buses.

But looking forward to coming home and seeing the blinds, shelving and much of the landscaping that has been done while I've been gone.

Good luck with your final inspection!

Chatz

Nice choice, Trudy!

Hi Chatz and Mrs Chatz,

So sorry to hear you still have no internet. I had to wait over 4 weeks for mine, and I was absolutely furious. I had everything planned so the trenching would go in the day after we got our keys, before the flooring, and we'd be all ready to go. We had lined up TPG for internet, but the phone connection didn't work and Telstra then had to uninstall it and TPG weren't too happy and wanted to fine us?? We were furious, and had to wait for Telstra to sort out the line, then reconnect with TPG again. Thankfully, we didn't have to pay the fine, nor redirection costs to my mobile. Thankfully that was all sorted by an ombudsman, but having planned and organised everything pretty much down to the hour we were far from impressed. In the end I saw 3 Telstra vans parked under the pole and they guy's were all scratching their heads....

Best wishes, though! I wave everytime I drive past!!

hiya

stormy! yes, its actually your exact house we are at its rather beautiful.
hey did you say we should line up our phone and internet before flooring and concreting? maybe i should get onto that!
Oh and guess what stormy? i decided to go with timbershades after seeing your beautiful plantation shutters - all booked in and they are being installed around dec 20th we got silk white, the wide blades and center tilt too ... I think ours will look pretty similar.

Chatz, so good to hear you are enjoying India - everything you describe reminds me of being back in Sri Lanka... its all the same really.

Kate - cant imagine not having internet.... I'd be rather bored. I'm gonna get all of that organised TOMORROW.

We are also going to a paving liquidation centre over the next weekend to buy our bluestone pavers for a fraction of the cost - apparently the have left overs from bigger jobs and sell them for dirt cheap. WE are going to be paving the landing in front of the front door and steps down as a pathway to the footpath. driveway will be aggregate concrete.