Best money I've ever spent was on a sample pot of the main exterior colour. When I applied it to some fibre board I hated it straight away. Two sample pots later we settled on a Taubmans colour called Manhattan. It is slightly darker than our roof colour which is Dune as seen in the above photo. A quick call to our SS about the colour change and I was givern the painters contact number. Gave the painter a call and was told no problem to change the colour even though he was nearly ready to start. Nice work guys!
Hmmm...Day 2 off to a bad start. Went onsite first thing to discuss waterproofing and how the frameless glass shower screens are going to work out and the tilers boss asked me to leave the site and not come back unless I'm with our SS.While he had every right to the way it was approached wasn't good.Still got to ask some questions about what I needed to know but it created an uncomfortable atmosphere.
Tiling started today after 2 hrs of running around trying correct a mix-up in the tile order. Tile supplier and builder pointing the finger at one another as usual. Tiler seems pretty switched on and easy to get along with and the work so far looks good to me.Big problem we discovered this afternoon is the water stop position and the way it is exposed is not going to work at all with our plan to install frameless shower screens after hand over. Going to have to try and meet the tiler onsite first thing to discuss what we can do.
Very happy with the aspect of the block with relation to the morning sun. This shot was taken at around 8.15AM this morning with lovely autumn/winter sunlight streaming through the outdoor area and lounge.
What happens when you order wide architraves and steel frame (Maybe timber frame as well)...some power switches and power points get partly covered up or just too close to the architrave to look visually right to my eye. I blame Metricon for this one, when client orders wide architraves it should flag the job to the electrician to maintain minimum distances from windows and door way edges. Problem sorted!! So my advise to anyone further behind talk direct to your sparky (I didn't see this coming until it was too late)
Carpenter was back in today and working through until the light failed. Picture shows partly completed shelving in one of the linen cupboards. Really loving the amount of storage this design will offer. We are both of the opinion you can't have too much storage space.
Looking at changing all the visible power switch's and points to these after handover, the Clipsal 250V range. The range is a little limited but they have something to cover most requirements.
No pictures yet but carpenter has been hard at work the last 2 days and completed all the skirting boards. Last time I looked in they had also nearly completed hanging all the internal doors.Meeting with the tiler Saturday morning hopefully I'll get some updated pictures to post then.
Liking these a lot! Did find a small fault in both white over bench lift up cupboards and mentioned it to SS who agreed it was a bit ordinary so I'll guess we will see what gets done about it.
SS hasn't mentioned an exact date for the the Caesar stone benchtops yet but can't be too far away.
As you may have noticed in some of the bathroom pictures the water proofing has been done. I ran into the tiler today as I was cleaning up the garage late this afternoon. He informed me they'll be making a start on preparation work for the tiling this Saturday. Starting to get a little excited and nervous as well seeing the whole project starting to come together.
Bathroom vanity
Ensuite vanity
Tried to take some pictures of the laundry but the light wasn't right and I couldn't get the camera to lock a suitable exposure. Also missed out on seeing the kitchen cabinets completed as the house is at lock-up stage and I was locked out...doh!
Walked in this morning to meet with electrician and found all the cabinets have been delivered earlier in the morning. While I was looking over them the plasterers turned up to do some more sanding and then the electricians turned up to retrieve the wiring out of the walls so a busy morning was had.
Our other neighbour has made a start, also building with Metricon. Metricon is totally dominating this part of the estate perhaps due to their aggressive push with promotion packages here in Queensland.
First of the internal doors installed today and by the end of the day the bi-folds, front door and this one have had door locks fitted. So we have achieved lock-up status YAY!!! Probably means another invoice on the way too...not so good...lol
Kitchen sink, laundry tub and bathroom vanity basins.
Front door lock and grab handle installed today. I'm really glad we picked this door as it allowed the door handle to extend down below the level of the lock. Too many times we have seen these type of handles mounted high on the door and it just looks stupid.
Just a quick shot of the main bathroom. Not much to tell with only 3 modifications from standard here. We changed to the next size shorter window and moved it upwards to accommodate the wall mounted spout and mixer which seem to freak out the girls at Studio M. I put my foot down and made it clear there would be a battle if it wasn't approved and nothing more was said. Also the mirror will be shorter in height and much wider than standard, extending across towards the outside corner past the bath and finally we will be installing a frame less shower screen after hand-over.
A pile of internal doors and dressed timber for cupboard shelves. More work for the carpenter, if we could confine him to our house I'm sure we would be a week closer to hand over...lol Speaking of which un-official hand over date I think is going to be around 6 weeks away maybe a little less.
Cabinets throughout house are finished in Licorice Linea vinyl wrap which actually looks darker and greyer in the gloss wrap over normal Laminex.
Kitchen, laundry and bathroom bench tops are all Caesarstone which was a free upgrade from Metricon in the Momentum package.
When I posted the roof flashing was complete the other day I was mistaken. It wasn't finished and has been added to since. The result was a mess, nothing is in alignment the render has been chipped, there are dents in some parts of the flashing, silicon slopped over everything. I'll post more pictures over the weekend if I get a chance.I rang our SS just before lunch yesterday and told him I wouldn't except the quality of workmanship that had been applied. As always Lincoln was onto it and called the supplier who inspected it that afternoon and agreed that the job was well below standard and they would do the job again. I'm assuming and hoping they will start from scratch and replace all the metal flashing and use a different installer this time.
The IC1300 Robinhood Ironing Centre and the modifications to the laundry wall to accommodate it. Very lucky that wall is a double wall and is perfect for the job. Love it when things work out without intervention.
These things can be expensive at around $430 at Bunnings or similar money at some of the major retailers. I talked to my contacts at Clive Peeters who I used to work for and got it down to $350.
If you want a good deal on anything electrical go to Clive Peeters at Mermaid Waters and ask for Tom or George and say Charlie sent you...hopefully you won't get abused...lol
Finally all the roof is waterproof but not without some problems. The colourbond steel that makes up the flat part of the roof above that large front awning window I discovered is very scratched and has a crease in it. Scratched as in down to bare metal in one part. Also the old outside light versus down pipe issue appeared...lol down pipe always wins. With no time left I was able to move the outside light wiring myself to another suitable location.
Went a little crazy here but we hope the end result will be worth it. What you see pictured is a shower rail by Methven...expensive...yes when done as a special order through Metricon though not as bad as I would have thought. Total cost $700 installed. Only thing is everything about the shower rail is square and the standard Metricon supplied Irwell mixer is very much round. That caused a last minute race around to source a mixer to suit. I'll save that story for another post.
Getting a little bored waiting for the internal walls to be done so I thought I'd try my hand at adding some sound insulation into some of the internal walls. Works out more expensive than I would have thought, what you see is $90 worth of R2.5 Acoustic insulation.
One thing we we really liked about this block when we purchased it was the different viewpoints. From the lounge/dining area you can see the sea and from the master bedroom you see the bush as in the photo above. Actually there is a dam in there as well which seems pretty popular with the local ducks.
Another picture of the front facade showing the drying render. Carpenter still MIA and front door still out of alignment but now rendered in.
A quick shot of the covered outdoor area. Increasing the width of the master bedroom by 1M directly increased the size of this area which I think was a great move. In standard form the outside area in the Grandview design is a little small in my opinion.
