A final look before Christmas Shutdown!

I met up with Luke, our Site Supervisor, on Thursday to have one final look through the house and to discuss some "defects" that I have identified over the last couple of weeks - all only minor and easily fixed :)

As luck would have it, there had been a flurry of activity on the morning before I met with Luke, resulting in our wardrobe shelving and doors, bathroom shower screen & mirror, powder room mirror and glass splash back in the kitchen being installed. Overall very happy with how it has all come together - who would've thought that wardrobe doors being installed would make a room look so much more complete too? :) I have put up some photos below.

Luke also gave me the "home stretch" run down for when they get back in the New Year -

Week 1 (week beginning 13 January)

• Roof insulation
• Exterior painting finished
• Staining of doors & cladding completed
• A/C fit off
• Final fit off (door handles, towel rails, toilet paper holders etc)
• Shower screen and mirror in Ensuite
• Vanities and tap ware in Bathroom & Powder Room
• Final electricals (outside lights & power points, power points to kitchen & laundry)
• First house clean

Week 2 (week beginning 20 January)

• Rectification of plastering defects
• Final paint
• Second house clean
• HANDOVER - FRIDAY 24 JANUARY 2014

As a final note on the feature tiles in the Ensuite, we are sticking with what has already been laid - the main reason for this is that Plantation threw back a signed document from us that stated "colour variations when selecting natural products". Although I still dispute that the colour variation experienced is outside "reasonable tolerance", disputing the tiles further would only delay our handover even more than it already has been.

Enjoy the final lot of photos below - next photos posted will be when we have had handover and our flooring and appliances are in :)

Laundry - with linen cupboard all done 

Guest (5th) bedroom with robe

4th bedroom - bedrooms 2, 3 & 4 have mirror doors

Mirror in the Powder Room

Shower screen in the main bathroom

Mirror in the main bathroom

Shelving in our (Karlee's) walk in wardrobe

Kitchen with the glass splash back in

Will all blend in once our pantry doors have been stained

Electrical and plumbing fit-off in progress

After only 2 days, our Electrical and Plumbing fit-off is almost complete. All of our light fittings (except the front pillars) have been installed and all of the plumbing is done (except for Bathroom & Powder Room vanity basins as they are still pending delivery). Still very pleased with our choices so far - it is finally starting to look like a home :)

Our gas hot water system has also been installed - just need to get the gas meter installed now and that side of things will be done too :) We have two wall controllers (to control the heat of the water coming in to the bathroom and kitchen) - not sure where we will put these yet though.

Our air conditioning fit off and exterior painting (with the exception of our front cladding) is also due to be completed this week, however we have a bit of rain forecast so that might get pushed back to early next week. Next week is also scheduled to see the installation of our shower screens, wardrobe doors and bathroom mirrors - though due to the tiling issues in the ensuite, that may also get pushed back until we are satisfied.

On the subject of ensuite tiles, I met with our Site Supervisor, Luke, his manager and a representative from Beaumont Tiles on Tuesday morning (timed it perfectly for when I dropped off our light fittings!). The Beaumont rep stated "the tile you have chosen is a natural product in which colour variations do occur" - in other words, Beaumont were not to blame. I spoke to Luke and his manager afterwards and they agreed that the colour variation compared to the sample they have at Cosham Studios is not acceptable and they were going to discuss further with Beaumont Tiles to "sort it out". Hopefully by the end of this week we will have a suitable resolution - though I am absolutely positive that the tiler hates me!

Latest photos are below - enjoy!

Our baths ready to be fitted

Close up of our "slimline" light switches

Front porch - with light

Living Area - with down lights

Dining & Kitchen - we love our pendant lights!!

Close up of our pendant lights

 

Theatre

 

Our undercount sink & kitchen mixer

Master bedroom - with ceiling fan (which all bedrooms have)

Ensuite - with down lights and exhaust fan

Ensuite - we love our "huge" rain shower heads and our basins :)

Ensuite bath

Down the hall way - smoke detectors installed

Toilet in the Powder Room

Bathroom

Bathroom

TV Area

Under-cabinet lights in the kitchen

Gas hot water system

Internal painting completed....well, almost!

It has been slow going lately as our trades people continue to be pulled off our house to complete the display homes at Yarrabilba.

On a positive front though, the majority of our internal painting has been completed - the only bits "outstanding" is the staining of the Pantry & Front doors. We are very pleased with how the internal wall colour has turned out - Dulux Sandy Day Half. It is not too light (able to see the colour variation between ceiling and walls) and will add some brightness to the house as a whole given our "dark brown" colour scheme throughout. The exterior is a different story - they have only undercoated outside and the remainder is due to be completed by the end of this week.

The tiling in our ensuite was also finished today, after our feature tile was on backorder for over 6 weeks. So it was a surprise to walk in this afternoon and see it finally completed, to immediately realising that they have installed the wrong tile! Yes! You read that correctly - they have installed the WRONG TILE!! A quick check back over our Colour Selection document and a photo I took of the tile during our Colour Appointment confirms this. I have now fired off a rather terse email to our Construction Administrator, her Manager as well as our Colour Consultant so that they can figure out how to fix this for us. Needless to say that we will not be happy with anything less than the correct tile (or a suitable alternative that we choose) as the colours of the tiles they have installed are all wrong compared to the rest of the bathroom and house as a whole! Will keep everyone posted once I get some reaction from Plantation.

We also found out on Saturday when we met with our painter that the cedar cladding around our front facade has to come down as they have installed the wrong type of flashing around it - not that I noticed until he actually showed me but he tells me I would have know after the first heavy downpour too!!

And finally, our vanity basins in the main bathroom and powder room were discontinued last week so we have had to select new ones of those too - at least this hasn't really held anything up as they arrived on site today, as did the toilets, in preparation for the plumbing final fit-off this week.

Luke also advised that he has booked in the following to be completed prior to the Christmas shutdown:

• Plumbing fit off (taps, baths, vanity units, toilets, gas water system etc)
• Electrical fit off (power points, light switches, light fittings, A/C etc)
• Installation of shelves to wardrobes, sliding wardrobe doors, shower screens, mirrors, glass splash back to kitchen

And we have been given a handover date of Friday 24 January - though I am not sure how firm that is going to be after tomorrow given they now need to fix the tiles.

Some updated photos below.

Main Bathroom

Kids TV Area (a.k.a Bird Sanctuary)

Master Bedroom

Living Room

Theatre

Looking through from the front door

Kitchen

Laundry - still with the powerpoint in the wrong spot!

Finished (but incorrect!) ensuite tiling

In come the painters

It has been over a week since my last update and things have continued to progress (although frustratingly slowly).

First things first, last Saturday I got a call from our painter to advise they were starting that day and should be finished by Friday. No surprises then when I say that they haven't even started to undercoat yet.......Unfortunately it seems our Site Supervisor is also looking after 3 display homes that are being built at Yarrabilba and, as such, our tradespeople are getting pulled off our house to finish the display homes quite frequently - something which both the tilers and painters have told me face to face. Nevertheless, the underside of our eaves have been painted as well as the ceiling of our front porch and alfresco area. Our timber stacker doors have also been stained as well as the frame of our front door (although not the door itself, the pantry doors or our facade as yet). The whole house has had a pre-undercoat spray - the painter said this was to bring up any blemishes in the plastering, of which I counted over 80 that had been circled by the painter and then I circled approximately another 20 myself. The plasterer was back in on Friday however looks like he still has some more touching up to do before the painters can come back and get stuck into it. Our skirting/archivtraves and doors have also all been painted in their gloss coating - we chose Dulux Whisper White for these as it is a little bit "softer" than plain white. The only room that hasn't been touched yet is the Garage.

An update on the tiling front......I met with the tiler on Friday morning. He was more than happy to replace all the chipped and damaged tiles (he told me he already saw them - but to me it doesn't make sense to continue to lay them and grout them if they were already damaged!!). As for the lining up of the tiles on the back wall of our shower in the Ensuite - his response was simply that "it is not Plantation's specification to require them to line up unless specifically stated in the Colour Selection document". A visit to the Display Centre at Rochedale confirmed this however it is disappointing to note that when we were in our Colour Selection meeting, we actually said to our Colour Consultant, Madelyn, that the reason we chose the size tiles we did was so that they would line up along the back wall of the showers. She even acknowledged this was a great idea - however she didn't note it in the document and we weren't aware that it had to be noted. Honestly, having done my own tiling before and assisted my Dad on more than one occasion, it is simply common sense to have tiles line up wherever possible - unfortunately a view that is not shared by "professional" tilers. Once our shower frame goes in, the "lining up" issue will become less noticeable. Finally, as for the location of the feature tile in our Ensuite, the tiler & myself reached a compromise that they would take off the top row of tiles around the whole room (approx 27 tiles), and take approximately 15cm off them, making our feature tile sit "at eye level" which is where I asked for it to be. A full tile (or very close to it) should then fit on top. Our features tiles for the Ensuite (that have been on backorder for 5 weeks) are due to arrive on Monday and the tiler told me they are booked in to come back Wednesday and finish everything off and fix things up.

There is now only 2 weeks left before the Christmas shutdown period - it will be interesting to see just how much Plantation gets done in this time given their lack of motivation over the past 4 weeks. Latest photos are below.

Close up of Front Door - frame has been stained, but not the door

Laundry

Looking through to the Living Area

Theatre

The view through the house from the Entry - I LOVE our square-set ceilings!!

A close up of our niche in the Theatre wall

Kids TV Area - leftover tiles and you can make out the house next door being built

Main bathroom all masked up from the painters

Master Bedroom & 4 of the internal doors all finished

Ensuite all masked up too - still more tiles to go on yet

Close up of the finished skirtings - they look even better in the flesh!

Close up of our stacker doors to the Alfresco area all stained :)

Looking back towards the Kitchen & Dining

Alfresco area from the outside

Full view of our stacker doors