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As hoped we got to lockup this week, both Henley's definition and the legal one.
Our admin tried to claim the brick walls don't have to be finished, but I received a call later in the week to say they had invoiced too early. In the end it didn't matter, the brick laying was finished during the great weather we had this week. 7 weeks after the slab was poured we are at lockup.
There are a lot of bricks left over, maybe not enough for the front fence we have in mind, but enough to get started. We told Henley we wanted to keep them.
Inside Henley have gone even further with the kitchen, laundry, ensuite and bathroom cabinets all installed.
More pictures on the
blog.
Henley went so far as to say they think we will be done by October
Chatz, looking fantastic mate..and coming together very nicely..you all must be wrapped.? 7 weeks is incredible..!!!
Remember we started quite a few weeks before you guys, we're still not at lock up but the inside is progressing well.
The brickies are really slow on our build....not that they are lazy,2 of them have been overseas for 6 weeks and the 2 that were left were stuck with a tricky 2 story job.
They are full steam ahead now, so hopefully this week ( weather permitting! )they will be nearly done, we are hoping for Lock up in a couple of weeks time.
Check out the Blog Chatz there are some photos on there.
G
Are those Boral Mocha bricks like us?
Like your shower, they must be close to tiling our house...
(is it a bit weird telling another guy I like his shower?)
Chatz
Ours are Boral Kurrajong, emm from anyone else that would have been weird..?
Just joking Chatz, thanks for the feedback..
We had 14 pallets of Bricks delivered today!! 9 of which are on the nature strip.
Looking forward to the bricks going in.
Your next "bit" should be the Fixer ( architrove and doors ) , followed by Plaster finisher , paint and tiles.
Our plaster finisher was in for about 4 days but i think he puts the undercoat on as well..
The painter was in a whole week + saturday. Tiler was a couple of days, but we only have tiles in the ensuite, bathroom and Laundry..
Good thing for us is that we haven't received our lock up invoice yet..
How your SS by the way? have you had the same person?.. were on our 4th supervisor now!!!, starting to take it personal.
Cheers
G
Fixer has already started with most internal doors now installed.
We are still on our first SS unless someone has not informed us otherwise. Have not had much to do with him so far, things have been going very smoothly and quick.
Chatz
Hi guys!
Omg I haven't been on here for ages! It's great to gear and see the progress on both your houses! Chatz I just cannot believe you guys may be in by oct/nov!!!!!! That's bl00dy awesome
As for us - we've been so busy with the business that everything else has to do with life is zooming by! Our house is looking amazing - bricks nearly done, timber windows on the front, plastering all done, cornices delivered, and kitchen in the process of being delivered! My wish would be that we too could be done this yr! Fingers crossed. Our living arrangement is taking it's toll and it's way too hard to run a business when your home office is in your temporary kitchen, bedroom, your back seat, your car boot and sprawled on the dining table!
Can someone tell me how to upload photos?
Trudy xxxx
Trudy,
We are relieved to hear you are fast approaching lockup with your house
We will have another update tonight with pictures, we met with the site supervisor today for a tour (now that we can't look ourselves). We are still on track for October/November.
I'll also post on how I upload photos, but for now I better get back to work.
Chatz
Trudy,
I upload photos differently than others, but it works every time.
I have a public Picasa web album on google at
https://picasaweb.google.com. I upload our house photos there.
Select the photo you want to link and then select Blogspot link.
If positing on Google's Blogspot you would use the entire string to refer to the image:
However for Homeone you only need the https link within this string:
Copy that string and surround it with
img tags:
When you press preview you should now see your images appear.
Chatz
An update at last. We visited the house today meeting our site supervisor for only the second time.
All the external and internal doors are on, skirtings are done, stone benches installed and the tilers are working on the bathrooms and laundry.
The laundry door is glass so there was enough light for the photo to see the colours. We could not remember what we had selected, so it was a good surprise:
I'm not sure they have the right tiles for our ensuite. The feature tile is correct, but the floor tile looked a lot darker than I remember, so I'm going back to Cosham Interiors tomorrow.
The site supervisor said they will paint next week and do the eaves. The brick cleaning occurs once the eaves are in place. He still thinks October is still likely for handover.
When we arrived home we found Henley have invoiced us early again, this time for fixing, when we could clearly see they are not there yet.
Overall, still very happy with progress.
Chatz
I went to Cosham and confirmed they are installing the right tile in our ensuite, I just remembered them as lighter in colour.
We could see through the Laundry door today that they have grouted the tiles, and some of the eaves are now in place. There is still a moat around the house with all the rain we have had.
Does anyone know if they spray or roller the paint inside?
Chatz
Ah yes the moat - we have one of those too.
Were your tiles correct? Or are they going to have to redo them?
Now that you guys have been told you'll be dine by oct, I have seriously been hoping and wishing for handover this yr for us too. God knows we desperately need it!
I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much though.
We had a debacle with our butlers pantry - we were told that it came with a bench, so we went ahead and put in extra power points. Turns out there isn't a bench. They were nice enough to allow us to change the power points with no extra charge.
Am also a but concerned about placing our tv in between 2 windows. This is the only option we have. Do you think it will be ok if there are shutters on the windows blocking out the glare?
Trudy
Trudy
Trudy,
They are installing the right tiles. Yes MrsChatz, you were right and I was wrong.
We thought (assumed) the butlers pantry had a bench too and discovered that it is just shelves too late as well. We have kept the power point in there and may still use it.
We replaced the two windows with two highlight windows, but you can see from this photo they are still quite low due to the eaves:
We will sit this TV on a TV unit rather than mounting on a wall, so it will be OK. We though that having two large windows behind the obvious place for a TV did not make sense.
There are a few other things now we would have done differently, changing the window in the rear bedroom to the rear wall is the main one.
Chatz
Does anyone know if they spray or roller the paint inside?
Chatz[/quote]
Hi guys, from what i could see at our place the Undercoating and the ceiling were sprayed.. all the walls were finished with Roller.
Great to see your moving ahead in good form Trudy.. been a long time coming eh?
As of today the brickies at our place have the window sills to do, finish around the front door and finish of the 2 support posts in the rear alfresco and they are done..
Were hoping for Handover end of September..
All the best
G
Hi,
Chatz,
I felt a little unsure myself about the windows on either side of the TV so consulted an interior designer friend about it. She said heaps of people do it and there would be nothing awkward about it, especially once the window coverings go on the windows. we will be having plantation shutters.
I also went into bed4 and thought "why on earth didnt we move the window to face the backyard?" at the moment it faces an ugly fence. But if it makes you feel any better, at least this way you can fit the bed and bedside tables quite nicely against the back wall.
G, it is awesome to hear you will be done by end of sep!!!! im am so jealous. our house sounds like it is tracking along very nicely.
Trudy
Lock up baby!!!!!
got an invoice for lock up today so I zoomed over to the house in a flash to find - all internal doors and double front doors put in, all cabinetry installed and all cornices and architraves put in.
i can see handover this year for sure
Trudy! That's fantastic, and they got the timing right if all your lock up stuff is done. We got the fixing invoice last week - erm, not quite there yet. I am so pleased that you are now believing it will happen this year - I can really identify with that feeling of " it's never going to happen, it will always be a piece of dirt...." So exciting! Are you pleased with all your cabinets and bits and pieces?
Kate
Meant to say - double front doors, Mmmmmmmmm
Kate! Thanks for sharing in our excitement
Yes I'm quite happy with everything. How bout you?
I just wanna be in before Christmas. For so long, our talise was just a floorplan and pretty pictures ripped out of a magazine.
So what does the fixing carpenter do?
Trudy.
Trudy,
From lockup to fixing they put the architraves around the doors, wardrobes and windows, all the tiles and the stone bench tops.
Now the eaves should be done (we haven't looked as often since lockup) so they can clean the bricks. Inside they should be ready to start painting.
Something is happening every day do I wonder if there isn't as much work right now.
Congrats on getting to lockup, Christmas in our new homes is looking really good!
Chatz
The eaves were installed during the week so they have now started cleaning the bricks. They are about half way around. On one of the south walls they have only cleaned half the wall so far, so you can clearly see the difference it makes.
We are really happy with colour, the colour variations in the bricks and how well it works with the tiles and guttering.
They have put goop over the tiles (the same stuff they put on the external windows) so that the painter does not have to worry about splatter as much. They will be starting next week and it is expected to take about 2 weeks.
Some friends were driving past, stopped and called us to say how good it was all looking. A local was walking past and asked them if it was their home, to which they replied they were only friends. The local then commented on how good it was looking and how much better than the awful two story a few doors down. It has really light red bricks and we had expected them to be rendered, but apparently not, that's it. Happy to be getting local approval too!
Something that is a little depressing is the fall in house prices in the area. Watching the auction results we definitely bought at the top of the market. We did sell then too, but for the same money knock downs in Ashburton are now selling for what we paid in Mount Waverley. Some auction results are coming in at the same price that was paid for the property 3 years ago. On the bright side, we are maybe 2 months away from having our new home.
More pictures on the
blog.
Chatz