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.

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.

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 :(

Gee... we ROCK!!

The latest update that I receive last week from our SS was gyprock should be done sometime this week and Wednesday the tradies should have started on building the staircase.  Next on the list would be sealing the wet areas with waterproof sealant.

This just means that we need to get our act together and have another look at our tile selections again and finalise the bill for that.

I can't wait for a sneak peek of the staircase.  Maybe we'll to get to see it when we pay a visit this weekend.

Other than that looks like everything is well underway with the progress and we are really hoping that we can move in by Christmas.  (Please Santa can we have our early Christmas present this year)

As promised from my last post here are some photos of the Gyprock progress

Entry hallway - Feels like a train ride...

The niche in front of the sitting room

Kitchen and dining room

Rumpus room - In case I missed it, the Bi-Folds will be stained with Merbau color

Family room - The wall niche decoration

Provision for the fridge - Laundry - Pantry

Main bedroom

Ensuite

Hallway leading to leisure room

Leisure room

Wall opening to the study room

We've all seen this picture numerous time but can you tell the difference? - It's the stacker timber post!! It wasn't there last week :)  This too will be stained with Merbau

Cleaned Bricks + Scafolds + Air Conditioning + Lock Up

Wow it has been a crazy and busy times for us recently that I've neglecting to update this blog.  I'll try to update this as I go in a small chunk but at the time of this post, there may be about three weeks of back log of stuff happening to our house.

 

To summarise the update quickly, here is what has been happening:

 

• Bricks are now cleaned
• Scafolding has come down
• Air conditioning internal unit is installed
• Insulation looks like done
• Electrical wiring done
• Eaves done
• Roof done
• Cladding done
• Gyprocking is well underway
• Bi-Folding door is delivered and installed but no glass yet

About a couple of weeks ago, we finally got our SS to agree for us to come and visit for a walkthrough with him.  We told him about some contract variation that is missing and our SS efficiently fixed that for us the next day.  Wifey also pointed out a strangely shaped looking metal that looks like it's bent in the ceiling of the garage and he fixed that also.

We have also been billed for the lock up.  Metricon's definition of lock up is quite funny in my humble opionion.  Apparently their definition of a lock up is without front and rear entry doors.  (It's true, I've read the contract again and I just couldn't believe my eyes!)  So all the while we are at lock up stage, we can still roam free inside the house...

Anyway one thing that I'd like to comment on, although our SS is quite elusive with us requesting to come and visit (whilst the head office seemed to think we should be able to visit anytime we like as it is our house), he is a man of his word.

We asked him if it is possible for us to come and clean the house from the dust before the gyprock goes up.  Like Thigee, we also like to keep our house cleaned even if we don't see it and all the dust are within the walls.  But our SS assured us that he builds our house like he builds his own home and he will get the carpenter to do an entire house sweep including the insides of where the walls should be.

He kept that promise!  We came back the next week and they actually DID cleaned and sweep the entire place!  The kids also loved the place and run around nails free!  Two thumbs up to our SS.

We also saw that the gyprock has been delivered as well.

So here are some recent photos from our visit.

I haven't had time to process the gyprock photos yet so I promise that I'll do that in the next post.

Previous week after they took down the scafolding

Internal Air conditioning unit installed



Alien come and invaded our place in one night!



What a MESS!!! Kids please clean up your toys...



Feels like I'm inside the tummy of a dinosaur!  I was eaten alive!




Gyprock before it's up on the wall




See what I mean being inside the tummy?!



Bi-Folding door that would cost us around $4k to upgrade!

Cladding done and a look of our Bi-Folding door from the backyard

Geeky stuff.  Where the network switch will go.  Love the color of the bricks. I guess we didn't make the wrong choice then. :)  Don't you think so?



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