We've Moved... for quite a while...

Have not been updating for some time... :P

After two rounds of PCI, we've moved in on mid June 2009 and have been busy putting bits and pieces in the house.

So here is our "not-so-new" house... :)




[Lounge]



[Family]



[Dining/Kitchen] The kitchen has been cleared for photo taking, it is nowhere near the everyday condition...



[Rumpus] Kids playroom aka Messy Room



[Bed1]



[Bed2] Triston chose this dark blue becoz of Geelong Cats



[Bed4] Trudy as usual... chose a girly purple colour



Might put a basketball hoop on the wall... if the rangehood vent is not too obstructing



Need to get plants for the planter boxes



VegePatch and cricket pitch at the end



Cafe blinds on Alfresco should be ready by next month

Pre - Completion Inspection (PCI)

Had our 1st PCI done today.

We had prepared a LONG list of defects, 7 pages, portrait format to be exact!

After we had a walk through to check the external of the house, SS gave us a "New Home Care Folder", which includes a page that describe inspection of defects.

"Including for fixtures and appliances, the inspection of a surface, material or item is to be viewed or observe from a normal viewing position: being defined as a distance of 1500mm or greater from the observed surface, material or item. Such normal viewing position is to be subject to illumination from a non critical light source. For glazing assessment, this should be done in normal daylight conditions and viewed from the interior of the building"



SS highlighted/hinted/told us directly that he'll not entertain defects that are too minor like bits of scratches or minor paint crack, so our defect list was cut short by half at least! :( To be fair, SS did found a few defects that we've missed out too.


[Stairs] Dots and tags to indicate touch ups need to be done



[Pantry]



We had arranged BigK to do our private inspection today as well.
We are aware that the roof insulation is not done yet, but it will be done via the manhole on the upper floor. However, we've totally forgotten that the Rumpus, which has it's own roof but no manhole, need to be insulated at the roof too. So thanks to BigK who took a peek through the Rumpus roof tiles, reminded us there need insulation too!

PCI Postponed

Due to the break-in incident over the weekend, our PCI has been postponed from this Friday to next Monday. The cleaners were in today and had quite a decent clean (can be better :P) all over the house. The dirty carpet were vacuumed and SS will arrange for steam clean. It's nice to walk around the house now without seeing dirt all over the place :)

The fixing carpenter was in today too to install the door handles and privacy locks, as well as re-do the decking for the balcony (he had already re-do the bottom layer for the portico). Didn't really have a good look at the end job of the decking coz it was dark, but was pleased he did pre-drill the holes before nailing the timber down.

Front of privacy lock



Back of privacy lock



[Ensuite] Shower screens were installed yesterday



[Bath]



We had requested PD to put 4 downlights in each of the living area (Lounge, Family, Rumpus and Games). When we had the light turned on at night, the lights were not bright enough to cover the room, and hence there was a dark spot in the middle of each of the living area, with the Games room has the worst effect.

Not sure how are we going to add more downlights, especially for the ones downstairs, it suddenly strikes us to take down one of the lights to have a look. Apparently PD is using only 35 watts light. So a trip to Bunnings today and got 4 x 50 watts downlights with 60 degrees angle, problem solved!!! :D

Pre - PCI

We'll be doing our 1st PCI (Pre-Completion Inspection) this Friday. To prepare ourselves, we did a Pre-PCI today to find things to be fixed... and we had compiled a LONG list on this, here are some examples!


[Facade] Window outside Study and Master Bedroom had large gaps between window and bricks. On this photo, you can see staples on the right of window, and a piece of timber on the left



[Facade] There are holes under the weather seal for some of the windows



[Facade] There are chips on the portico pillars



[Facade] Gutters retains water



[Games] The joints for the carpets are quite obvious, is this acceptable?



[Powder] From plan, there should be a border of 20mm on top, left and right of mirror.



[Bed1] Electrician cut the wrong hole for downlight and did not patch it up properly



[Games] Downlight not fitted properly



[Kitchen] More than a hairline crack on the cornice



[Kitchen] Sink with spots of rust

Errrmmm....

We arrived on site around 10am, and found part of the internal access door frame had been ripped. Quite glad thinking SS must have saw the uneven door frame and decided to change it.


[Garage] Part of internal access door frame ripped



Was in shocked when we saw the carpets that was laid YESTERDAY were full of muddy footprints from stairs to ensuite and bathroom.






Quite disappointed thinking how can the tradies be so unthoughtful!

When we're about to leave the place, a police car was parked across the street outside of another newly built house.... hmmm...

Could it be our place had been broken into???
Probably nothing can be stolen so they broke into the house across the street???

Carpets

The cleaners were in yesterday, probably cleaning upstairs getting ready for the carpets to be laid today.

We had requested not to have carpets on the stairs, because a friend told us it was a pain to vacuum the stairs.

But when we drop by this morning, the installer had already prep the stairs ready for the carpets. After a "impromptu phone conference", we decided to keep the way it is, that is to have carpets on the stairs. Now just hope our vacuum cleaner's wire is long enough to cover from the nearest power point to the end of the stairs!


[Games] Carpets installation in progress



The carpet we had chosen was Hammond - Sequoia Brown 8585. Can't remember the actual shade, but thought it should be chocolaty brownish. But looking at the carpet laid today, the colour is kind of lighter shade...



[Portico] The holes on the bricks were exposed on the top left of entrance door frame



[Portico] The bricks on right of door frame looks fine



[Portico] The bottom layer of decking had been replaced. But there are few pieces of timber seems kind of shorter than the rest...

Niche Saga Continues...

The niche in the bathroom was nicely done and grouted yesterday.

Today when SS had a check at the niche, he realised there's sharp edges on one of the corners and phoned the tiler to come back and fix it.

When the tiler arrives at 5ish in the evening, he realised the back of the niche where the mosaics are had been taken down. Not surprising he had left a "friendly" phone message to SS.

Apparently, the plasterer was in this afternoon to fix the wall at the back of the niche, so he took down the temporary fixed plaster and put up a new one.

So now will need to re-order the mosaics and the tilers have to come back AGAIN to waterproof the niche box and fix the niche, poor guys.


[Bath] Mosaics in niche gone



[Bath] Mosaics that had been taken down



[Bed4] Wall behind niche had been plastered again



[Ensuite] Edges of shower base had been grouted yesterday



[Ensuite] A piece of skirting board was taken out when tiling the shower base edges



[Ensuite] The cut in the tiles (top right) were not aligned. Should we request it to be changed?