Unveiled

The house now stands proud on our block in all its glory no longer hidden behind the scaffolding beams. How amazing it's like seeing the house for the first time, everything looks so different.

I have spotted a few discoloured areas on the bricks where the appear to have bled and created dark patches which have run into the mortar. I'm not sure if this will clean off or whether these bricks may need replacing? There are also a few broken roof tiles on the outdoor room and garage which will need changing. In a way I'm pleased about that as they will need to order more roof tiles and hopefully there will then be some spare ones left over should we need to fix up any cracked tiles in the future. (Originally we had about 15 left over but some kids had been on site and smashed them up.)
Oh by they way we have no temporary fencing even though in our site fees it states supply and install 130 lineal meters of temporary fencing. I will be seeing if we will be refunded for this as it has never been supplied or installed.

The painters have been busy applying more coats of stain to the front door and bifolds and other than that there is nothing else to report so here's some pictures for you.

Ta Da The House In All Its Glory

Look No Scaffolding - We LOVE It

View From Back Garden

 

View From Where The Pool Will Be

Discoloured Bricks and Mortar

Broken Tiles on Garage Roof

Ensuite Vanity and Shower

My Bath Surround Tiles

Looking In From Master Suite - There Are Cavity Sliders With Translucent Glass On Here

The Advertising Shot - Taken By Our Son Aged 4

Silver Tile Edgers an Upgrade But So Worth It Not To Have White Plastic

Family Bathroom

The Ensuite - Shower and WC

Double Doors We Had Added To Close Off Family Room From Hallway

Sans Scaffolding

Sans = french for without

Today should see the scaffolding come down, it will be the first time we get to really see the house in all its glory. Quite exciting!!!! This weekend will then involve carting 3 pallets of bricks from one side of the block to the other so they are out of the way when excavation works start on the pool. That's 300 bricks per pallet with 2 petite women 1 small boy and 1 wheelbarrow, sounds like one of those maths problems you had to solve e.g if it takes 2 women 1 boy and 1 wheelbarrow 10 minutes to move 50 bricks how long will it take them to move 900 bricks .... answer quite a lot of time!!

Sandy bumped into the SS on site yesterday as he is in charge of a few builds on the estate, the Soho behind us should be finished in 5 weeks as they have the painters in now and 2 more Metricon builds are starting next week. Of 36 blocks I think 10 are now Metricon, 4 Plantation homes, 2 Adenbrooke, 2 McCarthy's and a few different smaller companies. Over half the blocks have had builds started so it all looks very different now, neither of our next door neighbours have started theirs yet though.

The big news from the SS is they will be concreting the driveway and pathways next week.....amazing. Hopefully one of us can be on site to get some happy snaps. I hope it happens Tuesday as our son will be able to watch it all happening otherwise he'll be at kindy and will be upset to miss out. By the way he isn't even 5 yet and his new favorite TV show is the Renovators!!

Promise to post more photos soon.

Ready for Paint

Late afternoon yesterday we had a quick drive by of the house to survey what has been done. For us it's no longer the block as so much has been completed and it's beginning to feel like our home. We were locked out so had to make do with looking through the windows, try it it gives you a whole new perspective of your build...... like isn't our family room/kitchen/dining area enormous! And wow those doors look incredible etc etc.

Anyway.....The cladding is finished and the painter has only the front section on the balcony left to paint. The paint colour is dune to match the garage door and goes beautifully (or so we think) against the bricks and the roof tiles. But when are the bricks getting cleaned and the scaffolding coming down? [We want to get construction on the pool commenced and can't until the scaffolding has been moved].
Inside more doors have been stained and hung and the wet area tiles have been grouted. Which means that is must be time to start painting the interior. My understanding is that painting will take approximately 6 weeks to complete. I  think I may have that totally wrong and it may mean that there or around 6 weeks or so until the house is complete hmm I think the SS said that once painting starts its only 6 or 7 weeks until the finish date. Do I sound confused? Moving along....
So it's painting next and afterwards comes the floor tiles, carpets, lights etc etc. Followed by practical completion inspection (PCI) and then handover. We are psychologically preparing ourselves to be moving house in November.

Will have to delay posting photos as they weren't very good through the dust and dirty glass.

Enclosed Stage

The build has officially reached enclosed stage (even though the cladding isn't completed) and now it's time to pay a significant amount of money to Metricon. The enclosed stage works out at around one third of build cost from memory and a quick calculation with my grasp of basic maths. That's 35% of build cost for those of you who don't like fractions.
This is the first time we have to get the bank involved as they need to pay a small contribution to cover this bill. Luckily the guys at St George have been awesome so we feel very confident that all will go to plan. Sadly it means out personal funds are now gone and our bank balance no longer looks very healthy - time to try and start saving again as there will be so much to buy and pay for post build.

The next stage to be completed is fixing stage which will be another 20% of build price and somehow that doesn't seem far off.

Tile-rrific

The tilers are continuing with the floor to ceiling tiles today in the wet areas which includes the showers and sides and edges around the bath. I'm really liking are tile choices, I think the bathrooms look smart and cozy all at the same time and I can't wait to be in there having a long soak in my bath with my essential oils and candles. We only have a shower at our apartment and it really doesn't do it for me. The tilers have also done the floor on the balcony area of the master bedroom, they are a similar colour to the wall tiles in the bathrooms. As I was checking things over I noticed a couple of tiles had slipped so I was teasing them about the joins not been straight in the bathroom so one of them came and pushed them back into line for us. They were only a couple of millimeters out but he agreed they needed to be perfect - nice guys, very professional and good fun.

The plasterer was in Saturday morning (and boy was he grumpy!!) finishing under the stairs and taking the cornices in the bathrooms off. Unfortunately he did the ones in the toilets too and the tiles are only a skirting in those so he'll have to come back and put up some new ones! I couldn't see any sign of a door for under the stairs will have to check that with the SS again.

The timber doors and bi folds are being stained mahogany and the painter will start painting for real tomorrow. The timber looks quite striking now it is more of a contrast against the white walls.

We asked the SS if we could have another row or two of tiles for the butler's pantry and he said if there are enough  tiles on site he will get the boys to do it. There was an extra pack of tiles in the garage and a few more had been stacked on the bench in the pantry so I think they will have enough to do that for us. Excellent.

So what is left to do?
Exterior cladding to complete
Downpipes
Water tank
Hot water system
Air con
Painting
Electrics
Baths and showers plus screens and taps
Toilets
Tiling and carpets
Appliances
Concrete for drive and paths 
and I think that is it...... oh my goodness it's going to be finished before we know it.!!!

Doors Stained

Under Stairs Boarded - Where's The Door?

Tiles in Bathroom Shower - Recess Will Be In The Dark Tile Too

Smart Tile Drain In Shower

Bath Surround Tiled

Balcony Tiles

In Close Up

Ensuite Tiles - Are You Sure They Are Straight? Teasing!

Its Starting To Look Like Home

So the cladding isn't finished, they are waiting for some more brick capping to come before they can do more but what cladding there is has been painted along with the sofits. There was a solitary painter on site who was kind enough to let us in so we could check on progress.

When Sandy when for the site meeting yesterday the tilers weren't actually given a lot of information as to what goes where and which tile is which (that's worrying!) so she gave them our tile samples showed them which tile was which and also gave them our plans from the Tile Studio which were much more detailed. That way they have no excuses for any potential stuff ups.
The wet areas floors have been tiled (we are having floor to ceiling tiles so there is a lot for them to do)  and thankfully we are happy with the colour choices as the tiles used for the powder room will be the same as we are having for the entry, hallway and family kitchen dining spaces so they are going to taking up a lot of square meterage. They have laid the shower areas in a diamond layout which I'm not that keen on but its really hard for them to get the fall right if they lay the tiles square and you can end up with water pooling in all the wrong places. I'm sure once the shower screens are on and the other tiles are done it'll look fine. The splash backs in the laundry and butler's pantry have also been done, hopefully the butler's pantry gets more tiles than are currently there as two rows looks quite stingey. We went for white in the laundry and a greyish tone in the pantry which looks very smart. In the kitchen the island bench is completed and the upgrade sink is in (nice). In fact I think all the sinks in the bathrooms have also been fitted. ( I had a super fast whiz through the house as the painter was getting ready to go home and I didn't want to hold him up).

The study doors have been hung, they are the same style as the front door but with translucent glass and of course they look fantastic, I should think so too the cost enough!! Initially we are planning to use the study as a playroom for our son so all his mess can stay in there and be hidden away with one swift slide of the door.
Under the stairs the framework has been started for the space to be boarded, the SS told us a few weeks back that they will put a door on here so we can use it as a storage cupboard will have to keep an eye on that to make sure it happens.

I think that's pretty much it for progress thus far, I can't believe how much they have done..... the bill for lock up will come shortly and as they have done so much inside they next stage will be completed almost as soon as we pay for lock up so it's going to be bills, bills for us.
Are we pleased with our build? Yes. Have we been happy with Metricon? Yes. We have no complaints and everything has been handled swiftly and professionally so far. Let's hope we can say the same once the build is complete.
Warning Lots of photos again:

Powder Room - These Tiles Will Continue Throughout Most Of Downstairs

Stud Work Prior To Boarding Under Stairs

The Island Bench

Kitchen Sink

Laundry - Plain White Tiles

Butler's Pantry Splashback - Will It Only Be 2 Tiles High?

Study Door - Fixed and Sliding Panels

Caution!

Ensuite Vanity With Sinks and Extra Holes for Electrical Socket

Ensuite Floor Tiled Note Diamond Pattern In Shower and Cut Outs for Smart Tile Wastes

Looks Like the Cornice Has to Go

Dark Tile (left) For Shower Wall and Brown Tile (Right) for the Rest

Bench Tops, Tiles and Photos

The cladding work has been at a stand still, don't know where they are or why they aren't on our job they packed up and left lunch time Friday and haven't been seen since. Positive - not at lock up stage until the cladding is done so the money gets to stay in the bank longer. Negative - the scaffolding stays up longer and excavation work for the pool gets delayed again. I know it will get done eventually but I find it difficult to comprehend why they start something and don't finish it when it only looks like there is a days work left to get it completed. I know they get scheduled to do other jobs and can't be in two places at once but still....hang on oh let me do a double take what's that up on the scaffolding......could it be...yes it is it's the cladding team.

And well pardon me for thinking nothing had been happening on site. Inside is a very different story... the chippie has finished all the skirting and architraves and put shelves in the wardrobes, linen cupboard and butler's pantry. The floors have been cleaned (to a degree anyway), the floor and wall tiles have been delivered and are now taking up most of the garage and the team from a marble and granite company were there installing the Cesarstone bench tops. They were in the middle of doing the island bench for the kitchen when we arrived but had already finished the bench tops for the bathroom vanities and the rest of the kitchen.

Yummy they look beautiful and very luxurious. We went for a colour called ice snow which as the name suggests is mainly white, but it has small off white to grey flecks in it which goes really well with the cupboard colours and hopefully the tiles we picked from the standard range. As the bench tops were part of the promo package we only had 5 colours to choose from but luckily we really liked this one.


The tilers have started the wet areas today, the rest of the flooring will not be done until after painting which will be starting in a bout a week. The doors for the study have been delivered and installed, we went for a fixed glass panel and a big slider with translucent glass, really smiko (no photos yet sorry). And our SS said we can keep the bricks, we just need to put a note on them saying "leave for owner" and move them out the way. Hmm that's going to be fun just the two of us and a wheel barrow through the mud.

Update:- yes you wont believe your eyes but our house should be finished in about 9 yes 9 that's nine count them 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 weeks!!!!!! No way 9 weeks plus 13 weeks (already gone) makes 24 weeks wow that is one speedy build. Better start repacking our things... We were given that information straight from the horses mouth the construction manager (CM) was on site and that was what he told us.

By the way we asked him if he knew why the builds in Vic and NSW take so long and he told us that the CMs from up here had gone down to find out why and to try and rectify the situation so that things can be sorted out. I know that doesn't help you guys who have had 40+ week builds but it looks like Metricon realise that there is a huge problem down south and have sent the Queensland boys to show them how its done. Might make a difference to those of you just starting out, it will be interesting to see if things improve.

Photo time:

Cladding In Progress

Gas Lift Cabinet

Miles of Tiles

Butler's Pantry Bench Top and Sink

Shelving in Butler's Pantry

Yummy Kitchen Bench Top

Vanity With Caeserstone

Sinks

Manhole and Architraves

Cladding and Flashing Over Garage

Hollywood Robe Master Bedroom (we don't have this many clothes!!!)

Capping on Balcony

Linen Cupboard Shelves

Island Bench Awaiting Waterfall Edges