Friday, December 23, 2011

End of the Year but It's Not Our Handover

So here we are with a couple of more days to go before Christmas.

The house is still under construction and the wheather also hasn't been very supporting for the last couple of weeks.  We didn't hear anything from our SS also.

I decided to ring him yesterday just to find out what has been happening and when can we expect the handover date is.

Well as you might have guessed it, it is not today...  It's more like early January now barring any issue from conditions and inspections from the councils and ourselves.

Driveway should be paved this week and the concrete has been laid as it's foundation.  The nature strip driveway will stay as it is though :). 

I was advised that they were doing some work like caulking inside the house.  I didn't understand the term caulking at first but apparently my smart phone does!!  How very cool is the technology today :).

This would also be my last post for the year and I like to thank you to all who have followed our journey thus far and I hope to see you all again in the new year :).

Wishing a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!



Our selected pavers

Monday, December 12, 2011

Driveway

Construction is moving along towards the end and I believe we only needed the driveway to complete.  There are some other final touch ups and fixes that we'd like to see but at least all the major work is very near. 

We are hoping for the handover to happen before the Christmas.  But then again we still aren't able to move in as we still need to put down the floor boards.  Not to mention that there are still a couple of inspections to go through.

In one of my earlier post, I've alluded to the fact that I still need to do the council strip driveway because this wasn't included in our contract with Metricon...

How very wrong I was....!

Here is the prove.


This mean that I don't need to waste anymore time looking for concreter for our driveway.  Thanks to our SS.

Friday, December 9, 2011

So close yet so far...

The time for completion is just right there.  It is very close but yet so far...  I wish the rain would stop for about a week so that the driveway paving work can be completed.  Today's been very good...

We are also waiting to find out whether the council strip concrete is included in our driveway package.  This reminds me that I have to ring our SS later on today.

We also have rang the guy from Ezy Clip Fencing, who mostly do the fencing work for our area, to get a quote.  I am still new in having a house build so my understanding is that we needed to get three quotes from three different vendors and send them to our neighbours, left and right hand side as well as the back side as they should be paying half of the boundary fence.  If anyone can give me some more insights on this that would be much appreciated.

The next thing to do is also we have rung around to get some quotes in to install solar panel system.  We had a look around at the home show earlier this year but it would be nice if I can get the solar panel system installed with the construction of the house.

We then need to get the flooring guy to come out and do the final measurement.  Possibly we won't be able to do this until the handover time.

Like I said earlier, so close yet so far...

Piccies from last weekend.  We can't go inside the house as it is too muddy for us to step in.

There is a garage door now!  Our neighbour next door has finally started building.

Looks like they installed the wardrobe door as well

Can't wait to move in!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Let there be light

Not exactly but close to it anyway.  Electricity is not working as yet you see... but that will change in the next 5 - 10 days as we've just oragnised

Last week it's the lights fittings, the power point and more painting.

However today I received a breaking news from Metricon.  It would appear that the plumbing fit out has been completed and the next stages, which is the final stages, are to clean up the site and do final touch ups.  Looks like the house maybe ready by Christmas after all...

This would only mean that we need to start organising for the flooring guy to come and do their measurement, blinds and shutters, fencing around the house, landscaping, etc etc.  Still plenty to do but the main thing is to get the house ready for us to move in.  Once we have the key of course...

So moving in is not until after the Christmas - New Year period.

Quite excited with the news but hopefully it's not like some other companies that I've dealt with over the past couple of weeks, N.A.T.O.  (No Action Talk Only).  Some companies nowadays are very good at that...

We'll most likely replace these after we move in and settled.

Downlight package - Part of the promo


Heat pack for all the bathroom.


Monday, November 21, 2011

Fence Down

Nothing much to report this week other than the temporary construction fence is down and the walls have been repainted again.

It would seem like everything is progressing but very slowly.  Still to do are paving the driveway and rendering the front pillar.

Our house in picture:



Thursday, November 10, 2011

And the tiling continues...

This feels like a dejavu post when I was writing about our bricking stage.

Not so much happening in our building journey last week and this week other than tiling and tiling and tiling...  Frustrating when you are only one stage away from completion.

The progress have been pretty slow in our construction and there is a slim chance that we will move in before Christmas as it is only about 5 weeks away.  To get to the completion or hand over stage, the contract variation that we request need to be provided and the house needs to be ready for us to "live in" practically.

However, upon completion or handing over and getting the keys, I still need to arrange for the flooring guys to come in and do their bit.  There is also fencing and landscaping added to that to do list.

So we may not be able to move in to our new house until the new year...



Ensuite

Shower in ensuite

President bath tub (that's a big tub)

Upstairs bathroom


Laundry


Friday, October 28, 2011

Tiles Tiles Tiles...

Delivered but not installed...  At least that was from last weekend.  Hopefully this will be a different story when we visit tomorrow.

On another update, our wheather board wall has apparently been painted with the color we wanted. 

Tiles delivered

Tiling preparation

Kitchen sink

Wheather board painted

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Show Goes On...

We are now officially at "Fixing" stage, in Metricon's term of stage progression.  This would only mean that this is the last stage before the D-Day, which is the "Completion" stage or some might call it the "Handover" stage.

Although from our recent visit, it doesn't feel like it was at fixing stage as our horizontal kitchen window was pulled out from the wall!  I suspect that they needed the extra space to put the caesarstone benchtop on!  I am being biased here but I'm really loving our selection of the color :)

Other "fixing" they have installed are the sinks for kitchen, laundry and all the bathrooms.  I must say they are looking good and we can't wait to move in!  Hopefully we are not far from it... :)  I have also been told that tiling has commenced on 18 Oct.

Despite having the kitchen window pulled out,  I guess The Show Goes On...  (This video below does play the song "The Show Goes On" by Lupe Fiasco, it just that I like this version better :)).


Alright enough talking from me, here are some illustrations of what has been happening.


Where is the window?!?!?!?!?

There it is... but why is it there??

Kitchen sink and benchtop installed... checked

Laundry sink and benchtop installed... checked

Powder room sink and benchtop installed... checked

Bathroom sink and benchtop installed... checked

Ensuite sinks and benchtop installed... checked

Until the next update :)

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Stained

We are still waiting for the tile order to be delivered by Di Lorenzo.  I guess this delay is unavoidable as the bill wasn't settled on time.  Nevertheless, it would be nice if tiling can start sometime this week.

In the mean time, from what we can see from our last visit, there were some more work done to the house.  Like Phil and Bel said there were some painters working in our house on the weekend.  We've noticed that the entry doors, front and back, and stairs have been stained with the merbau color as we selected during the internal color selection.

Hopefully when we visit this weekend a little bit more progress on the tiles would have been lovely.

Bi Folding door in the outdoor room

Stair railing


Front entry door

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Breaking and Entering

Well there is not much to report or update from our last visit as we've just settled our bills with Di Lorenzo earlier this week.

I have let our SS know about this and he said he will organise the tiler to start working on them as soon as the order comes through.

We did, however, from our recent visit found that the back door was unlocked!  It appears to be inviting and beckoning to be broken into... (of course you wouldn't want this happen when the house is finished and ready to be lived in :)).

So this is a golden opportunity for me to take pictures of the interior of the house, including the kitchen!!

Kitchen reloaded!

Same kitchen with different angle :)
Above the fridge wine rack
I have had few people asking us about the location of this wine rack.  Refrigerator being the electrical nature as it is produces heat from the mechanical motor installed at the back of the fridge.  Some wine apparently can't be exposed to this sort of heat and will damage the content of the wine.

Obviously we didn't know about this as we rarely drink alcohol and all of our collection of wines are either gifts from friends or we actually bought them from the duty free shop at the airport because they are so cheap!  So despite the fact that we rarely drink alcohol, we still buy them just for the sheer decoration value out of it.

Moving on with the rest of the pictures...

Laundry up close and personal

President bathtub - Ensuite

Shower - Ensuite

Main Bathroom

Staircases

Entry to the main bedroom with the translucent glass door
I've also taken some picture of other things that happens around our place.

The wind has been quite strong this week that it blew the porta-loo outside out of it's place.


The bridge behind our place is also nearing it's completion.


Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Staircases and Kitchen

We're up to the stage where we have the kitchen build minus the caesar stone benchtop, the laundry cupboard fitted to the way we wanted them to look and the wine rack above the fridge have also been fitted.  Additionally the staircase looks like pretty much done.

We're still locked out of our house when we come for a visit. (I hate it when they're being meticulous but I equally hate it when they're not! lol)  Thus we can only peek from the window of our house, hence the picture quality that I am about to show you.

The tiling should also been done this week but for some apparent reason we can't get them to progress as we need to settle the invoice with Di Lorenzo before anything can happen.  I was wondering why they haven't send us any quote with our upgrade yet and apparently they're emails are being blocked by our mail server!  They must have been blacklisted by someone in the past if this is the case...

Moving on, I quickly ask them to change the initial setup in the powder room.  I requested that the feature wall tile to be moved to the shower portion as oppose behind the vanity wall.  I've just received the amended quote as I am typing this paragrah!  That's quick...

So all I have to do now is to sign the acceptance form and pay our deposit money so the work can get started already.

Here are some pics to share from our last visit.  I apologise for the quality of the shots but given the circumstances of being locked out and taking them from the window, I hope you can all appreciate them.

Enjoy.

Another retake on our front entry door in the daylight!  Cloudy to be exact.

Staircases ticked! Balustrade ticked! Zig zag capping ticked!  Timber flooring no tick...

Kitchen! Kitchen! Kitchen!  I get excited with kitchen :)

Wine rack above fridge done, Laundry looks pretty much done, kitchen is almost there...

Just need the stone benchtop and the equipment that goes with it.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

We're in the news!

Well, not us personally anyway, but The Ponds as one of the newest suburb is.  Here is an article from SMH that compares Sydney: Old vs. New.  There is another mention also in this article.

It's great to see that The Ponds as a new suburb has been getting a lot of mention in the public news and even more so when comparing The Ponds and all the newest suburb around the city with the oldest suburb in the history of Sydney, The Rocks.  The article mention that The Ponds has a lot of places and lots of green grass out and about but The Rocks is just kilometers of paved and concrete all the way with not much grass on it's footpath.  Maybe trees but even comparing The Rocks to a residential suburb, there is not much competition in that department also.

The Ponds is a new suburb with a new living concept.  We were handed a guideline by the developer at the time of purchase and we have to adhere guideline in order to have our house build.  It's a great concept and I don't mind it at all.  I think it's great to have a uniformed design with the other houses in the area. I guess one of the reason is to keep the value of the area at a certain level, which is not a bad thing really.

It will be a massive change of lifestyle for us as a family having to move from where we were living before in the inner west, all the way to the north west.  I can already imagine some of the sentence that I will say when we move in: "It used to take us around 15 - 20 minutes plus 5 minutes walking distance from home to the station.  Now it takes us around an hour to get to work!"  or something to that effect.

I've already mentioned this very same reasoning in one of my early post.  Reading that article made me think and asked myself "Why are we moving to The Ponds?" and at this point I forgot that I've posted the answer before.  I'm glad that the very same reason was still my answer if we were asked that question again.

I guess in addition to that reasoning is the appeal of the community that draws people to the suburb and to the lifestyle that we are longing for.  It's true that I've already met and know our neighbors even before we move in!

My office is situated within 5 steps to The Rocks literally and some of my photography work has also include The Rock as one of my favorite location.   I don't think it's necessary to compare The Rocks and The Ponds or the other new suburb.

The Rocks has it's own historical value also that I quite like it the way it is.  It's true that some of the redevelopment maybe has destroy some of the lifestyle value there.  Something that exist in 1973 (even before I was born!) may not be there anymore.  Having said that some are still there, like the convenience store around the corner near the Australian Hotel.  Or the connecting alley along George St at The Rocks.  I hope the local council can still maintain and keep it's historic value for time to come.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Help!! We're locked out!!

We are now officially locked out from our own home.  At least the lock up stage can now be verified with having the locked door at the front and back...

It was quite a late visit on Saturday night as we waited for the kids to be fresh before we can do any activities during the day. When we get to our house it was already quite dark making taking pictures very difficult. I had my big flash with me but not sure if it's going to be enough. But I took some pictures anyway just to see how it turns out.

We noticed that we now have front entry door!! Well let's just say that we now have doors all around the entrance to the house. The doors were locked and obviously, it's not possible for us to go inside now unless we find a way to sneak in! But we didn't. We checked all around the house and all doors are locked securely including the bi-folds door is now covered with some panels.

So I guess it's going to be difficult from here on to gain entry to the house unless the tradies leave one of the door open...

Still, I've noticed that the walls have been painted and the cornices are up also. Not sure if they are finished as it was too dark to see inside the house. My guess is from the last update, they should now have started on the staircase.

Some picture for illustration entertainment:

Laundry door

Is that our translucent internal door??  Why is it doing outside??

Yay!! Our front entry Windsor 6G has been delivered and installed... We can't get in now :(

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