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

p.s. stormy, whats the render colour on your house? its gorgeous!
We picked 2 colours - ceylonese and irish toffee... ceylonese came out delicious - just as i expected, but irish toffee - turned out looking rather yellow. i cant stand it and am thinking i want to paint over it.

The only reason we did ours before flooring was that was going to take 4 days from a Tuesday, and we had the monday spare. We didn't want both the trench digger and the carpet/floor layers there at the same time, so we had the trenching done on the monday. It had to cross the whole front of our property from 1 side to the other, meaning there was no clear access for the flooring guys to get to their trucks. Naturally, it had to be done before driveway/paths as it went underneath, and easier to do it before...pity we still don't have a driveway yet!!! Haha!

You'll be very happy with your plantations! I love mine! That's exactly what we got, just a mix of the ABS and Custom Craft, depending on the location (wet area), or the width of the panels.



Our render colour is 'Earth Kiss'. It was the darkest standard colour they offered at the time, and matched in well with the rest of the exterior colours. I was pretty horrified when I first saw it thinking it was too orange, but I don't think that at all now. It blends well, and will look even better once the fence and landscaping is done.

How did it go gerry?

Hi Guys, NHP went very well and there were only a few minor things to report for fixing.

Laundry door Gap Needs adjusting.
1 x Roof tile Needs replacing
Bit of touch up paint in the Ensuite
Kitchen cupboard door need replacing ( Couple of small chips ).

Even better was the report from the Independant Inspector, he mentioned that the standard was very, very good, he did report on a couple of things that were very minor, but he suggested some re-pointing, a bit of finishing to where the plaster meets the Brickwork in the garage, repairing a chip to the render. He also needed the Building Engineer to Justify Missing AV joints on the inside of the Garage posts, the Engineer is happy to sign of on that one, so no big deal.

So very happy all round, just hope the bank can get a move on with the valuation as i've planned to start the driveway and paths on the weekend of the 3rd Dec.

All the best for Friday Trudy.
Hope you Chatzes get online soon too.

Bye for now
G

How exciting Ger! Handover next week, get a move on bank!!! Trudy, everything crossed for tomorrow!

We Chatzes are still internet-less to the point that we have started again with Telstra. Wasted so much time trying to get the other to work, Chatz came home yesterday and we decided to scrap that plan and start again. We've got a temporary pre-paid service for now so we are back on line.

Our landscaping is coming along fabulously. They work so hard! And clean up every day. Our deck is being built while the pool surrounds are completed - it's a biiiigggg deck. The fence builer is there too, replacing the last fence at the pool end so we have it all at the right height. The landscapers have scheduled the driveway for the end of next week (a day before Ger's!).

Still haven't got very far with unpacking. It's all good though

We are really impressed with the landscapers. They keep the site clean, they have helped organise and work with our other contractors, including the pool company. Communication has been great. Yes they were expensive, but I don't think have to worry at all about their work.

We knew the deck would be big, but this is going to be huge.




Tomorrow they expect to finish most of the deck.

The pool water is looking is much better, but the pool still needs a clean. The blue stone around the pool is is nearly done.



Unfortunately we are not seeing the ducks as much now. Next week they will be doing the driveway and then we are done (and broke!).

How is everyone else going with final inspections and handover?

Chatz

Chatzes,

Glad too see you got home safely.

Handover going well for us , signed completion paperwork, waiting for the bank to value... really need the keys before next weekend though !!!

Wow Chatzes , your back yard ( thats not the right word !! ) is going to be such a great area, well done gonna look great..can't beat a big deck..

Hope Trudy went well today

Cheers
Gerry

Wow, your house is amazing!! Love the deck and can't wait to see the finished pics.

Wow Chatzes - it's looking fantastic already, can only imagine how great it'll be once it's all finished!

Chatzes - your garden is looking superb! you won know yourselves once its all done!

Ger - great to hear your handover walk through went well now you just gotta keep fingers crossed that the banks will work quickly so you can get your keys!

Our handover walk through was supposed to be yesterday - but yes, as usual, nothing went as planned and we dont even have our certificate of occupancy yet.
we have yet another new administrator - who is useless and since she contacted my husband to introduce herself, hasn't contacted us since (despite our 4 emails and 2 phone messages left for her). Clearly our build is not on her priority list. So instead of liaising with her, we just speak directly to our site supervisor who is pretty good.
we are still having issues with our retaining wall. after being extremely persistent with getting it extended along the length of our block, he finally decided to extend it further down (still not up to the fence as shown on the plans though) i dont know why it has to be so hard - JUST FOLLOW THE PLAN.

anyway, so the supervisor thinks he may have certificate of occupancy on monday - lets see how that goes, and then hopefully handover will be soon. he's not happy about us getting our own inspector to attend the handover walk through - he was trying to talk us out of it, saying it will slow down the process and blah blah blah. we just explained that this is the process we would like to take and that was that. did you guys have this issue with your supervisors at all?
i found a group who will do the inspection and report for us for a cool $480 - happy with that!

Trudy

Trudy,

Our admin and SS were fine with having an inspector, they seemed to expect it. They emphasised how important it was to get the report to Henley quickly but did not try to talk us out of it. Our SS was confident nothing serious would be found.

He also made it clear to the inspector to keep it legit, including no torches to examine the paint, but otherwise was fine at the time. He thought some of the things in the report were pedantic but everything was fixed.

We have a moat around the house again, but within 2 weeks we should have the concrete and drainage done...

We visited our former neighbours today, who sold a week before us and have finally moved into their new M home. Similar layout but a bit smaller than the Talise.

Good luck for Monday!

Chatz

Finally, handover inspection on Friday at 2pm

Oh Trudy! Fantastic - can't wait to hear about it!

Hi guys,

Pci went very well. Our inspector was fabulous - stayed for an hour and checked the whole place very carefully. He found there were holes in the roof where birds could get in so advised they were filled. Also, some minor paint work, capping off Stella sections jutting out from retaining wall, clearing rubbish off site, stains on Ceasar stone... Can't remember any more. We were very happy with everything.
Just waiting now until the bank gets their butt over there so we can have our keys already.

Trudy

keys tomorrow!

moving in on friday 16th

Woot! Congratulations Trudy

Keys r in my hands

Congratulations Trudy! Now get them out of your hands and into the front door - get in there woman! Oh my, you guys, Ger and us, all in our new homes for Christmas. Unreal.

we stuck around in the house for ages after the supervisor left - just taking it all in. amazingly, this is what we have lined up to happen over the next 5 days:

- bamboo delivered
- WIR measure
- bamboo installation
- carpet installation
- plantation shutters installation
- fridge and dryer delivered and installation
- appliances connected from henley
- driveway prep
- telstra homeline connected
- alarms installed
- WIR fitout installation


and then... we move on friday the 16th. i didnt think it would be possible to get all of our tradies out to the house all at the same time, but somehow its all worked out.

Trudy, we hope your week finishing off your home is coming together as planned.

At our end the landscaping is nearly done, we are just waiting for the pool fence. The world's biggest deck is done, paving around the pool, side paths and the small patch of grass.







Tomorrow I'll upload some pictures of the front of the house including the driveway.

The pool solar hot water is on the roof; it's a large rubber mat through which the water is pumped. We received our pool cover and the automatic vacuum cleaner and its been busy cleaning the pool all afternoon. The water has gone from green to blue already.

We have started putting pictures on the walls, eeek, no disasters yet!

Chatz