90 Day Maintenance Period

Hi fellow bloggers!

It's been great seeing how everyones houses have progressed since we finished. I hope you haven't had a hard time of it like us.

I know I've been *really* slack at posting, but I haven't had too much to report...or anything of interest seeing as the build is over!

We did have our maintenance inspection this Tuesday. We put in a list of issues we had, and had them inspected and accepted by Wisdom. The guy that came around was fair. We haven't had any huge issues - our main problems have been the absolutely dodgy paint job! And they will only accept it under natural light. The other minor issues we had were

• laundry door not closing anymore - hit's the frame
• alfresco screen door doesn't open properly - will need to have the track replaced
• pantry door needs to be repaired or replaced - was scratched by the guy replacing our splash back in the kitchen when we first moved in!
• creaking floor in front of the ensuite doorway
• some windows sticking and not opening properly
• settlement cracking along skirting, cornices and flooring
• ensuite glass shower door not closing properly anymore - hits the glass panel
• gyprock crack in kitchen underneath glass of rangehood
• brick discolouration 

That's about it for us. We've been fortunate not to have anything too sever such as leaks.

The guy from Wisdom said it will probably be late Jan - early Feb that we'll get the work done.

Anyway, enjoy some pictures I've collated along the way. We finally have our bed and moved into the main bedroom a few weeks ago - and loving it. Had no idea a King bed was so huge though!!!

If you have any questions about anything, I'm always around to answer them, just no necessarily posting!

Cx

New leather Eames replica office chair

Natural gas BBQ

Footy grand final

The new bed

Mr Milburn putting up the Christmas Tree

Post Settlement - Week 2-3

Hey guys,

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted - things have started to slow down now. Week 1 is definitely the most hectic week you'll experience after handover!

In the past week and a half, we've gotten our Internet connected (yesterday is was completed) that took about 4 days. We ended up going with Telstra because we are so far from the exchange (4.5km) that we can't get ADSL2 and we are no longer getting the NBN in our area (GRR) so we have crappy ADSL and seeing as we are already with Telstra and anybody we went with would be renting the line off them anyway...we just stuck with them.

We bought a fancy router to put in the garage next to our ports for the wired areas in the house (TV/Leisure, Office and Theatre) and it should be strong enough for the whole house. It also does DLNA so I can plug our hard drive with our totally legal audio visual content that will play wirelessly (or over Ethernet) on our TV. It also has the new wireless spec 802.11ac which works with my mac pro so even faster yay! It's the Netgear AC1600. That's my geek-out quota for the day I think

The most exciting thing is that we have gotten our beautiful white basswood shutters installed! Oh how I love them so! They really shut out a lot of the light, it's been great to remove those ugly temp shutters too! Although it shuts out a lot of the light, the blades are quite wide and let a lot of light through when open. Also the 'whiteness' of them really brighten up the place.

So our shutters were done by BetterView blinds, whom were recommended by Wisdom Homes. I was weary at first, but the director, Dave, comes out himself with all the samples and goes through each window (we have 30 windows!) and makes sure we know what we are getting and how they'll look. There were a million whites to choose from it was ridiculous! Anyway, Michael came out to install the shutters over two days. A lot of work for one guy! He still has the pelmet of our bi-fold doors to the alfresco to go, and he needs to secure the top of the staircase panel (which he says is the largest one he's ever had to install haha) but they are useable until we can find a time to be home.

We highly recommend BetterView, their prices are competitive and they even beat a better price for me so they could get our business. Customer service is great too. I also had them tint (translucent) our bedroom balcony door and install the flyscreen door for our laundry which they did in our first week while we were still waiting for the shutters, they didn't wait to do them all together which I though was good customer service.

It was really easy with them because obviously they do a lot of Wisdom Homes - they also have the combination and a key to the house so you can get in to do the check-measure during construction. I also was able to get my initial quote by just sending my window schedule. The check-measure did not end up changing the amount other than the things we added on.

Hope you enjoy this weeks pics. I have a couple of things hung up on walls now which is nice.

Oh one thing we are finding annoying - the door! There's no lever, so the door always has to be locked or wide open. We want to get a levered/keyed handle for it now that we can unlock from the inside without a key, etc. Maybe something for anybody building with Wisdom to think about. Another alternative is obviously to install a flyscreen door in the front...

Cx

Leisure

Dining

Theatre

Powder Room

Bedroom 3/4

Bedroom 2 (front)

Main Bedroom

Ensuite

Ensuite W/C

Main Bedroom

Samantha Wills/Kelly Smith prints

My commissioned Vencent Ko artwork in entrance niche

Office

Better view of the Leisure shutters...no pun intended

Dining with bi-folds open

Front with shutters

Post Settlement Week One

The past week since handover has been crazy and amazing all at the same time!

We have had so much happen this week, it's been exciting and just completely surreal. The house has really come together now and it's been a great experience seeing all our furniture and bits come together for the first time. 

Timeline for the past week (I have omitted the thousand trips we've made to bunnings!):

Saturday: French bookcase, Bed (old), Dining Table and chairs delivered. Appliances from the awesome Ray from Bing Lee Fairfield arrived and were installed. Electrical quotation completed by Bill from Better Electrical. 

Sunday: Cleaning cleaning and more cleaning - does the white powder ever come off these tiles?!

Monday: Couches, rug, office desk, appliances from Wisdom delivered; air conditioning unit installed

Tuesday: Entertainment unit delivered; wisdom appliances installed; whirly bird installed and cracked/broken roof tiles replaced

Wednesday: Ottoman coffee table delivered; Driveway gerni and sealed

Thursday: Electrical fittings started; door weather seals delivered

Friday: Antenna installed by Mr Antenna, Electrical fittings completed; Kitchen splashback window replaced; Weather seals installed; Telstra phone line commissioned

I feel pretty lucky with the appliances from Wisdom - I noticed that we've gotten the newer versions of the appliances! That includes a grill/convection microwave and an updated model of the oven - I'm very happy. All the Wisdom subcontractors that have come out to do odd bits and pieces have been great and were happy to do extra bits around the place when we asked. 

For example - I was horrified to find that the waterfall spout was replaced with a tube looking spout in the main bathroom bath! We went searching for a better one, picked it up and had it replaced when they came to do the appliances. 

I could not be happier with the job that Better Electrical did for us. They really took the time to go through what we wanted, and was always able to give good advice. Additional to installing all our downlights and pendants, we ended up getting an outdoor powerpoint installed in the backyard, plus our one bayonet alfresco turned into four downlights and a remote controlled fan which look amazing. They also mounted our TV for us which looks fantastic. I've taken daytime and nighttime pics for you to see. But amazing amazing job!

Other than our grandeliers, all our lights were from Beacon. LED downlights, LED bulbs and compact fluorescent oyster lights. The downlights are amazing and so much more powerful than I expected, they also have a five year warranty to boot!

There's a lot of stuff we're finding like more scratched windows, really badly painted spots. We even found openings at the back of our kitchen cupboards - I could see light coming through. Had them fixed up now though when wisdom came to do our weather seals. 

Our new bed frame, mattress and shutters from Betterview have been delayed but I hope to have these by the end of the month. 

Anyway I hope you enjoy the pics. We are loving the house. It's been a long road to get here but I'm feeling on another planet being in here! Not looking forward to go back to work on Monday!!

Cx

Old tap and the new one. Apparently the waterfall spout was too short because of the gap between the wall and bath. Don't know why they made the gap so big in the first place. 

Photos at night time with the new lighting...

Settled!

We settled at head office today and have been handed our keys and some moet!

It's going to be a busy week moving in! Can't wait to post some pics. 

Happy days

Cx

Lead up to Handover

Looks like most things are on schedule post-PCI and pre-settlement, fingers crossed!

Post-PCI fixes completed last week include:

• Porch tiling completed (underneath the door)
• Problematic bricks and mortar have been rectified
• Maintenance have fixed door jams and cleaned them; fixed silicon in main bathroom
• Letterbox has been rebuilt

Schedule for the week include:

• Monday/Tuesday: plumber to realign toilet seats and install missing main bath faucet
• Tuesday/Wednesday: bricks recleaned; painting to commence
• Thursday: house to be recleaned
• Friday morning: second PCI/QA inspection
• Friday afternoon: settlement at head office

A couple of things that have not been mentioned are when the scratched windows are going to be replaced, and also when the storm water pipe is going to be connected properly. Until the pipe is connected, we will not be able to get a drainage certificate and this will delay us receiving our interim occupancy certificate!

This afternoon I rang the bank to ask how our final progress payment application is going, and it's been done and our final cheque has already been authorised so we're ready to go!

I hope this week at least can go smoothly for us! Next week we'll be off from work to take our time to settle in to our first home together.

I've posted some pics from the weekend - smurf madness!

Cx

Kitchen window to be replaced

Fixed mortar

Dodgy external painting

More window scratches

Mortar needs to be properly cleaned under window sills

More dodgy down pipe painting

Both window panes to be replaced

Letterbox - they got the height wrong the second time, but oh well

Looks like the brickies broke one of our storm water drains

More mortar fixed