Final fit out

With this week coming to a close we have all our painting complete, the wet area tiling of the floors complete with the walls almost done. Our sparkys arrived yesterday and got all of our electricals wired up and all of the power points , light switches and heater/ fan lights installed. Today our plumbers arrived and began fitting out our bathrooms and toilets.

We have some minor issues to correct with some brickwork but otherwise all is progressing at a steady and constant pace. We got a call from Beacon lighting to say the remainder of our lights had arrived so alas another bill to pay!

Damm you Christmas! Now where was I?

As it nears closer to the fat man in the red suit visiting I have yet another reason to dislike Christmas, its going to delay us getting into the house! All things being equal, we think the house will be pretty much complete if only we had signed up a month earlier but such is life. We have just payed the second last progress payment and have begun to pedantically start to look for any minor blemishes and corrections want repaired prior to Practical Completion and so far the list is well......quite small. Overall we are very happy with the quality of the tradesman that have worked on our house, with the great majority being really friendly and more then happy to stop, have a chat and let you know whats happening on site.

We met up on site last week with our tiler William to confirm the floor and feature tiles were correct. A really nice fellow and by the look of his work a really good tiler. Our internal fit out is completed and the walls have been prepped ready for painting. We had another site clean up some time during the week which was good as it will hopefully stop some of the knuckleheads who appear to think our rubbish pile is a communal one!

The exterior of the house has been painted and we are really happy with the colours we selected. When I can convince my Internet to stop dropping out I will upload some pics. We haven't really done any more shopping as yet but will keep our eyes out closer to Christmas or over the Boxing day period for some good deals on the appliances we need to chase up. So as things stand at the moment we look like getting in most likely in early February but we will see how things progress.

Locked Up

It's been a couple of weeks since our last update but progress has been constant. Our extra large kick ass front door is on with its matching gigantic show home confusing to open front door handle. I really wanted this door handle so I could piss myself laughing at everyone's first attempt to open it, it really is quite amusing. The front and rear roller doors and laundry doors are on getting us well and truly past lockup. The kitchen cabinets have been installed with a warning to other trades that "This is not a workbench"!

Our bathroom vanities have arrived, the waterproofing has been completed in the wet areas and we eagerly anticipate the arrival of the floor tilers. Our plasterers have finished but need to return pre painters to correct some small issues where some skirting had to be removed. All the internal skirting, architraves, jambs and doors are also complete.

Were chewing our finger nails down to knuckles about weather we will be in by Christmas but are desperately trying not to get our hopes up. If we don't make it we would be almost 95 percent complete just to make it even more frustrating! On the subject of frustrating, once again our CLO and SS have shone through with a happy resolution in regards to our sliding door reveals as they were all removed and replaced without fuss.

A sneaky kitchen shot through the window!

We finalised our lighting purchase at Beacon lighting at Jamisontown (Penrith) and I must say they were more then helpful so if your in Sydney in the west do yourself a favour and go and see Brian or Jazz for some fantastic customer service and reasonable prices

We also sorted out our flooring and went with the original carpet we had actually seen in colour selections. Although we organised it our self to be installed after handover. We have also finally decided on our main hard flooring which will all be revealed later in the blog.

High's and Low's

Progress with the build is progressing at a rapid rate, much more efficiently then we ever could have hoped. The roof has been completed, the gables finished, the eaves completed, the gyprock delivered, ceilings sheeted and half of the walls complete all within two weeks.

It pains me to post these next few pictures and although I have spoken to our Site Supervisor who assures me they will be fixed "By the Painter" I'm feeling a little despondent about it and feel that the quality and finish that drew us to McDonald Jones is, well lacking.

This first picture is how the majority of the screws holding our stacker doors have ended up. Also to note is the lack of packers between the reveal and the metal studs that stop the reveal flexing when the door is opened or shut.

This next one is how the top reveal of our living room stacker door has been left. With the greatest of respect to MDJ, this is not what I paid for nor is it the quality that I expect from MDJ. To suggest that this will be repaired by "The Painter" is just disappointing. Had the installer just took a bit more care this could have been avoided. To be really blunt, I don't want it bogged up and hidden, I want it replaced.

These last two are from the stacker doors in our master bedroom. Again this room suffers the same fate with the fixing screws and missing packers. Now I don't know if my SS has actually seen these issues so here's hoping he only thinks its slightly cracked and not as it actually is. I will give our SS and CLO a call tomorrow to see how we can rectify this now before we get any further into the fitout.

Lids almost on!

Hello Sportsfans!

Well it was a stinker out at the block today and true to form our Tradies battled on. After just three days the roof is nearly complete.

 

We expect that the roofers will be finished mid week and have our sparky due in on Thursday morning for rough in.

Brickwork Complete

Today saw our window sills, door sills and adjustment to the front wall completed.

 

As you may be able to see the small brick wall that runs horizontally between the pillar and the wall has now been set back to allow the gutter to be correctly installed

With our roofing, ridge capping and other associated hardware bit and pieces delivered I guess its safe to suggest the completion of the roof is next. Hopefully we will have some more progress by Friday, stay tuned!

Bricks, Bricks and No More Bricks........ What The!

A snappy visit to the block today found all out bricking complete, well sort of...... We found that our roofing had been delivered and that the fascia and gutter was being installed as we arrived. After a chat with the tradies on site we were told that the brickies had actually run out of bricks! All their gear was gone and the site had had a once over. Apparently a new supply of bricks will be delivered early next week so the window sills and door sills can be completed.

  

Now our only other problem is that it appears a section of brickwork above the front porch had been bricked flush with the outer brick pillar which interferes with the guttering so it need to be removed and re done which we are told should be no problems and will be rectified next Wednesday. Dependent upon the weather, the roofing should be well underway by next week although this is all third hand information from the trades on site each time we visit.

 

We are still chasing up lights and other fittings in the background but this is also no easy task. There are just so many things we need to sort out but until things start to take shape its difficult to visualise the bigger picture. Anywho, fingers crossed next week we will be complete!

Bricks, Bricks and more Bricks........

Due to some incessant whingeing from one of my loyal blog followers who shall remain nameless ***Cough*** GERG ***Cough*** I though I should update the blog!

Our Brickies have been hard at work and I would think they would have about 1-2 days left at the most to complete the brickwork. The majority of the walls are all complete with the only other work to complete being the window sills.

Hopefully this crap house weather will bugger off for a few weeks at least and let us get the brickwork finished. I'm not sure as to what's next but I would expect it to be the roofing then at least we should be weather tight.

One Brick at a Time......

Not that I'm stalking our build or anything but we took another drive by the block today and found no one on site but noticed our brickies had started.

I hope the weather get its poo poo together and gives us a couple of weeks of the good stuff so we can get this well under way.

Plumbing Roughed In, Power On and Bricks Ready to Go!

We got a call today from the electrical contractors to contact our Energy Supplier and arrange for a NMI number, I don't know what it is but I organised it and thought there may be some progress at the block so out we went. We found the plumbing had been roughed in, the meter box installed with our three phase power connected and all the pallets of bricks split open and neatly stacked around the house ready for the brick layers.

Hopefully by the end of the week we should see a good chunk of the brickwork up. There are at least another three MDJ homes going up in our estate so here's hoping that the trades are kept busy locally. Our neighbors are also finally in so it will be good to have a bit of the neighborhood watch thing happening!

Framing Complete and Bricks Arrive

We took a visit out to the block today to see how things were progressing and were closely shadowed all the way out from Windsor by a big Kenworth full of pallets of bricks and funnily enough they were ours!

Our frame is now all complete and its great to see it taking shape. We also saw another two MDJ blocks cut in the release across the road from us which is fantastic as it will being even more trades into the development. Our next door neighbour is also about three days away from moving in so all his fences are down and his site is being cleaned.

Noice Framing!

A flying visit by the Fun Sheriff today found the majority of our frames up and the house really starting to take shape. Some of the door timbers are in, the stacker doors and the windows have all been fixed, so I can only assume we are all on track for the roof by Friday. We also had a call from our Site Supervisor who stated he expects the plumber in early next week to run all the internal plumbing lines and other fittings. In short all is going to plan and we are really happy with the progress so far!