Building our dream home.. walls no longer bare!

wow.. work from home!
would love that!
but yes.. if I work from home, I might not be able to accomplish much.. i would be addicted to the forum!



hehehe... more reason to check the forum...
normally when I'm alone, I just leave the TV open so I don't hear strange noises... hehe..

We received the lock-up invoice today........

hmmm...
DH said we shouldn't pay unless they fix all outstanding issues...

can we do that?

I was thinking that if it was a frame invoice and we have outstanding issues with the framing, then we can delay payment (like what we did)...
but for lock-up... really don't know..
would appreciate your inputs..

thanks!

I had my lock-up invoice for a week before I met with DM & SS - told them I would pay it once they agreed to fix the frame issues identified by Kevin. Worked like a charm

We went to the house last weekend... but wasn't able to go upstairs...
we noticed that the front door had "real" locks already... but we were still able to come in as the Mud room door (from garage) wasn't installed yet.
They also installed a temporary door to the laundry.. and all other doors were locked (sliding to dining and bi-folds to family).

Tomorrow is the due date of the lock-up invoice and we are prepared to pay it... even though the mud room door isn't installed yet.

Cladding is all finished (to the back of the house)...

Will post photos next weekend...

Thanks Mish,

Actually those photos were as of 2 weeks ago.. wasn't able to take photos last weekend... as an acquaintance suddenly popped up while we were about to enter the house to inspect.. and we talked... and talked.. and talked.. only to realise that we had been talking for an hour!
We needed to go home as we had an appointment afterwards..

really nice

Looks beautiful VJ! The timber stain on your windows is lovely. Are you getting timber-look garage to match?

Oh OK..

It's looking great VJ, your exterior colours are wonderful, can't wait to see the interior finished!

Another update...

Finally our CSR rang us...
we complained to her manager and the manager initially just copy furnished us with an email to our CSR asking what's going on...

then DH emailed the manager again, more frustrated than ever, asking whether our CSR already resigned, as she wasn't responding at all...

at last, manager emailed DH telling him that our CSR will ring us yesterday. unfortunately though, I wasn't at my table when she rang and so i called her back but it was answering machine again..
anyway, she rang me today, as we discussed all outstanding issues. she really thought there wasn't any outstanding issues with her, because she believes that we were in constant communication with our SS.
good thing i prepared a list of all the issues that she we raised a loooongg time ago that she hasn't responded yet, and when i mentioned 'em one by one, she was a bit shocked to find out that she did forgot to respond to all those queries.

ok.. issue no. 1: building surveyor's report.. she said it hasn't been fully approved yet, thus no report yet. we asked what was the report that our SS and CM were mentioning when we had our frame inspection... she said it was an inspection report too (by their own inspector), but the approval hasn't been released.. ok.. that's fine.

issue no. 2: pre-plaster inspection... when is it going to happen? she said it has to happen ASAP as they've done their own inspection already and might begin plastering soon... oh-oh... i said we've been asking for weeks when it would happen.. and now we have to get hold of our inspector, hoping that he would be available this Thursday, as we need to do it this week! good thing, DH rang Kev and he agreed to meet us there on Thursday 7am... emailed our CSR to book Thursday as our inspection

issue no.3: tiles.. hmm.. remember our request to allow us to swap the tiles that we ordered thru them with our new tile? she said we can do our own tiling to wet areas! i said i thought it's not allowed by law (as they need to put in the tiling to wet areas to get cert. of occupancy).. she said they can do the other tiling but will leave the floor tiles for us to do... don't know if it's really allowed... anyway, that's a GREAT NEWS for us! isn't it that we were hoping we could do that? so now, we have to decide whether to remove the floor tiling from our contract.. need to decide today...

issue no. 4: access to online status checking.. she sent us a letter informing us that we can access the status of our house online.. DH had been contacting her several times, but she never returned his call.. she said she already sent the user ID and pwd but in the wrong email address! so i gave her DH's new email add...

so, on our part, we have to let her know whether:
- we would remove floor tiling from our contract
- we could do the inspection this Thursday.. which, i already confirmed.

about the tiles... can you let us know of the implication of doing our own floor tiling to wet areas? because from what I learned here.. we should have tiling in wet areas before handover... can we really do that? it's ok for us, just asking whether it's really allowed, hehe... it's not that i don't trust her.. just want to know other people's thoughts...

looking forward to your inputs!