chandler alfresco in the barossa

honestly no i am not happy with the quality as they were manufactured wrong(which they told me when i emailed to say they are falling apart) they are sending their roman blind man out to me to fix them, was spose to be this week but i havent had a call back yet.
friends have got roman blinds from them with no problems so maybe we just lucked out.


had the electrician come out yesterday to install our pendant lights to kitchen and bedrooms.
we are disappointed with the ones we chose for the 3 other bedrooms as they are not bright and dont really light anything up, they do look pretty but just not very functional and only take a max of 40w globe. oh well lesson learnt there.
next time we will have to go light shopping at night to get the true effect of the light but even then when surrounded by other lights i dont think you would get the true effect.
happy with our bedroom light and the pendants over kitchen, i have photos but photobucket isnt working for me at the moment so cant upload them. the photos dont really do them justice either, they look better in person.

What a shame about the quality of the blinds. Glad they admitted the mistake in manufacturing.

What sort of globe do the fittings take? You might be able to get a cold white globe in the same range that brightens the room. We moved into a place that had warm white globes and changing them to cold white enabled us to actually see what we were doing. Looking forward to seeing the photos.

Hi Hachy,

Just catching up on everyones threads now we are back.

I would love to see the photos too!!

Also a question if I may,

When you did your final handover was anything said about waterproofing/sealing the sides of the slab before you pave, as you didn't get them to do your paving?? Scott was told that the slab wouldn't be covered by warranty as they didn't get Hickies to do the paving and unless they get it done they aren't covered.
If you did get the sealing done what was involved??

we did get paving done through hickies, it was just the alfresco area and a small patch at the front we had done after.

Was anything said about waterproofing and slab warranty being affected for those parts, hachy? I'm worried about this now too. We are having the front done by Hickies; the rest wasn't an option, or so we thought.

no, the only thing they mentioned was that when we got paving etc done they have to sit a certain amount lower than the slab so you can see if water is entering the house.(it is in the book you get after handover).
as they did our driveway and perimetre paving that probably means that the slab is covered under warranty.

Okay, thanks.

just a bit of an update from moi.

blinds were fixed today hope we wont have any dramas from now on except we have them screwed into the window architraves and they are not coping with the weight of the blinds
need to look at the option of fixing to the wall.

had the electrician back to fix the height of one of the kitchen pendants as it was sitting lower than the other 2.
hopefully we will be going to virginia nursery on the weekend to look at plants for the front gardens but we are thinking along the lines of small hedges(english/japanese box etc) and cordylines and maybe a statue and a couple of trees to go in pots by the house.
ran into the guy who removed our soil mound at the front of the house before we moved in and he is going to come around to quote how much it will be to dig up and remove the soil from the back and he doesnt think it will cost as much as i think it will.

if i am completely honest we are really over the whole house at the moment, just seems like we need an endless pit of money.
hubby is put off building again but i found a floor plan i like although that is only from looking at hickies designs not other builders.

Whats with Hickies, our neighbour has built with them and said they have had everything you can think of go wrong during the build happen. I'm not seeing a lot of happy builders with them

But the house looks awesome and I love the pool waking up in your new house must be an amazing feeling, cant wait to do it myself.
Thanks for the links for blinds, i'm going to start looking at them soon.

Hachy, I can so understand what you mean about being over the house and needing an endless pit of money. We always want things to look lovely and to be the very best, but we have to work within our means. I'm sure you'll find innovative ways to spruce up the garden without having to spend a fortune--it might not be exactly what you want to start, but you'll get there. As for building again ...

Good to hear the blinds have been fixed. I wouldn't have thought your blinds were so heavy the window architraves couldn't support them--we've had blinds that were affixed to the wall fall off because there wasn't enough support behind where the nails or whatever went into the wall, and the advice we had was to move them to the architraves. Hope you can find a solution soon.


They build a lot of houses so perhaps more things are likely to go wrong--I wonder if proportionately the number of things works out to be the same regardless of the builder. What does matter is that the problems are rectified and that the "house looks awesome".

Yeah true.

Hachy just a question about the blinds, I went on the site and had a look at the roll up blinds and put in the measurements to just one window, our master room window. That in my opinion isn't that big and it come back with a starting price of $300 for just that one. Is that a normal price as I have never bought blinds before

If so maybe I might have to get some Ikea ones to start of with lol

I tried the following:

For a mix of Timber Venetians & Blockout Roller Blinds (other bedrooms)

halfpriceblinds.com.au - great prices on Timber venetians
blindsonline.com.au - great for Rollerblinds
superblindsmart.com.au - also good for timber venetians and custom curtains
blindsonthenet.com.au - expensive for the timber ones, but ok for everything else and have good options

For a 1090w x 1800d Bed 2 window in a blockout roller - was anywhere between $85 - $120

That sounds like a better price, thanks for that

Thanks so much for that, Hachy, most helpful indeed.

look what finally got put in this morning

kitchen pendants

kitchen pendants turned on (during the day)

bedroom pendant

bedroom pendant turned on(during day)

3x other bedroom pendants

3x other bedroom pendants turned on(during day) they look worse at night

front garden almost done except one row of english box still to be put in as to make a rectangle with the other 3 rows.

close up of garden as the pics dont really do it justice

Thanks for the update hachy, it is looking great, especially the garden. How are you settling into the house and area?

Wow, everything is just gorgeous. I would have been screaming to get the dishwasher installed! Love your kitchen. The front looks beautiful, and the garden--you've been working hard, and it has all paid off because your house looks stunning. Well done, and thank you so much for coming back to update us. I've missed you.

The garden looks very nice, you have been very busy
Dishwasher looks awesome as well, we just ordered ours last weekend ready for when we move in.

so my Christmas present was having the towel ladders and shower shelves installed

here they are

ensuite shower shelf

ensuite towel ladder

main/kids bathroom towel ladder

main/kids shower shelf

here is the large wall clock we purchased which is yet to be put on the wall.
of all places to buy a clock we got it from our local garden centre(they do a few inside things).

we have put in our last row of english box except we thought we needed 10 more plants but it was actually 12 so we are 2 plants short atm.
the english box and red cordlyines are going well but some of the green ones have died off

back yards still need to be dug out/leveled and then we need to do the yard but money is gone so probably wont be getting done til hubby gets his bonus in september, fingers crossed it is a good one.

there are things that we would definately do differently if we were to build again.

OMG i forgot to say also, we have a new pet that likes to run around our roof and walls..........a mouse.
it is not inside the house as such but inside the walls and roof, grrrrr.