Double Whammy

I received a double whammy from Metricon yesterday - two invoices on the same day - one for Lock Up and one for Fixing. On the good side that means that all the bricks have been finished (yay) and that things have are progressing inside as well. On the downside those two invoices account for 45% of the construction price - the next loan repayment's going to hurt!

We met our SS up at the house last night. I was hoping to get a look around inside but the tilers were still on the job - they'd just finished grouting the tiles and washing away the excess so we couldn't go in.

I was so pleased to see the bricks finished. After all my worrying there wasn't a problem with the colour of the bricks and I really like the way the house looks. We're so glad that we mentioned that the half built portico pillar was too small, because the bigger size looks really good.

Peering through our bedroom window I could get a bit of a look at the tiling in our ensuite. All the floor and wall tiles have been completed and my spa has been installed. Shower screens are due to go in today - not sure when the basins go in.

Our SS has scheduled the rest of the things that need doing to complete the house and it looks like everything will be done by the end of October, so if all goes well handover should be around mid-November (touch wood) which allows time for any defects to be fixed.

Day 126 and we have tiles.

Pretty happy with the way it's all going so far. At the moment the tiles stretch from the garage internal access door all the way through the house, including the entry, kitchen/dining/family room, pantry bathrooms etc.

We've run out of bricks, so at the moment the bricking has come to a halt while we wait for three more pallets of bricks. One of the portico pillars is partially built, but will have to come down as it has been built too small. It's not a major problem and we probably could have left it, but we both felt the house would look better with the pillars the bigger size. Given all the dramas we have had with the bricks, we're very concerned that the new ones wont match the rest of the house!

Our SS has moved to a different area and we are the last house in this area that he is coordinating. In some ways that's good - he knows all the ins and outs of the job so far, on the down side there doesn't seem to be a lot of 'supervising' going on at the moment. Maybe that's normal? Everything seems to have really slowed down.

Just for Mum

Got back to the house yesterday with my camera and went a little bit snap happy. So Mum, here are some extra photos just for you (and me, 'cos I'm pretty excited about this house).

The bricks continue to creep around the house.

A few different views in the kitchen

Last, but definitely not least, my fabulous sewing room. Can't wait to get set up in there.

It's all coming together

Day 118. We're so excited, the house is all coming together and we think it looks beautiful.

Wade called in at the house last night to see how the bricks were progressing and the house had been left unlocked, so I went straight around to check out the inside.

All the internal painting has been completed, there are a couple of areas that will need a touch up but nothing major. The finish is just beautiful. Our gorgeous timber front door and timber bi-part doors have been stained and they looked fantastic. The front door won't go up for a little while yet, but it looks great.

The electricians have been and about half of the house now has lights and all our switches and power points have been fitted. So glad we went with the slim line option, they look fantastic. All our vents for the ducted heating have been installed and the remote is hanging on the wall.

All the stone bench tops have been fitted and the cabinet handles have been installed.

According to My Metricon and the internal communication board, our wall tiling will commence today. Of course my camera went flat after one photo yesterday so I've only got mobile phone pictures. Hopefully I'll be able to get back there later in the week with my camera and there might even be some tiles to check out!

Finally!

Day 111 and I finally have some pictures of our bricks to show.

The bricks started going up last Tuesday and I had a bit of a panic when I saw them last Tuesday evening. It was just before night fall and in the low light the bricks looked nearly as patchy as the first lot. So Wednesday night we were back on site again with the brickie and the SS checking it out. We washed the bricks down and had a good look in better light and we were much happier with them.

I'm impressed with how quickly the bricks are going up, with a little bit of luck the bricks will possibly be finished by the end of next week.

I had a quick look through the house on Friday evening, but forgot to take the camera with me. Not a huge amount of progress on the inside. All the cabinet doors have now been attached and the ceilings, cornice, architraves and skirting boards have all been painted. According to My Metricon (which our SS tells us to take no notice of) our wall tiling is due for completion on the 20th. Hopefully I'll have some interior pictures to show later in the week.

The Brick Saga

So here's the house after the patchwork bricks were pulled down and the site cleaned.

Our SS and the Austral Bricks representative said that we were unlucky and unfortunately it was a bad batch of bricks, some had been in the kiln a lot longer than others resulting in the darker colour. Austral told us that it would be at least three weeks before another batch would be made and our SS suggested that we select a different brick.



The Austral rep dropped in some samples of similar bricks and we went back through all the brochures. There was nothing that we really liked so we called our SS and had a chat with him. The hold up with the bricks wasn't a major problem for Metricon because they couldn't find a bricky to do the job, all their usual guys were on other jobs.



The Austral rep came up with a solution. They would sort the bricks before they put them on the truck so that we had a consistent colour.



Here's what arrived.

You can imagine how frustrated and unimpressed we were. They were even worse than the first lot we had received.

We've now had a third lot of bricks delivered. By this stage we were quite wary of anything said by Austral. We looked over the bricks ourselves and there is still some variation between the pallets. The bricks are suppsed to be so similar that they don't need mixing.

On Wednesday Wade had a meeting on site with our SS and the Austral rep. They built a couple of 'walls' with the bricks to get an idea of how they would look. We gave our SS the go ahead to use them, he had a bricky lined up to start on Thursday.

Our SS rang us late Thursday to say that the bricky had been to check out the job and had decided that it was too big, he wasn't going to do it.

At this point we were beginning to wonder if our house was ever going to be bricked (bearing in mind that the bricking was originally set for early July). The SS rang us on Friday to say that he had a bricky lined up to start on Monday and that he is someone that he has worked with for years and will do a good job.

So cross your fingers for us, hopefully I'll have some progress to show you on Monday.

Cabinets

It's day 99 and it has been a while since my last post. There has been a fair bit going on. Nothing has changed on the outside of the house (update on the brick situation tomorrow), but the inside is moving along nicely.

Last time I posted the cornice was going up. Since then all the skirting and architraves have also been put up. The floors have been levelled, internal doors installed, the first coat of paint has gone on and our cabinets have been installed.

Kitchen

We're really pleased with the cabinets. It's always hard to tell how the final product will look when you select a colour using the tiny swatches but we love the way it has all come together. The 'templates' for the kitchen benchtops are still attached in the photos. Soon they'll be taken away so that the stone can be cut.

Ensuite

Our laundry benchtop will have to be replaced as they installed the wrong trough and the correct one has a smaller cut out, but that's no big drama.

The kitchen window is slightly lower than we expected. On two of the detailed drawings it shows glass splashback behind the sink, then the architrave and then the window. One other drawing has no splashback and the architrave flush with the benchtop and that is how our window has been installed. Not a big deal, just not what we were expecting. We were given the option of having a smaller window installed (at our expense) to match first two drawings, but I really like the big window so that is what we're going with.

Update on the outside coming tomorrow.