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



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

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 :)

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.

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.

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

Tile Selection

We had our tile selection appointment at Di Lorenzo in the morning.  So off we went there to spend more money away.

Long story cut short, and as most of us would have done, we ended up upgrading the standard tile selection to something "more".  Thigee and Ben have warned us on what to expect at our appointment and it is pretty much happened exactly what Thigee had said.

Although we feel that we are getting to the point where we are about to blow our budget for the construction, we also didn't feel that we wanted to re-tile the house again in the future.  So taking all that into our consideration this is what we came up with:

Kitchen splashback

Ensuite - Bathroom - Powder room floor tiles
Size 3x6

Feature wall tiles - Mosaic - Dark Mocha

Putting it all together
There is a white wall tiles here but it's so white it is almost invisible

Tiles for balcony

After spending nearly two hours at Di Lorenzo and some more money of course, we made our way to our soon to be house to check out what has been happening.

It was quite muddy with all the rain that has been happening during the week, but I say where there's a will, there is a way!  The site like always it's locked from the front however the side fence is always left open from some reason (makes us wonder why do they even put a lock on the front fence anyway?  Beats the purpose doesn't it?), so my wife got some left over or unused block for us as a stepping stone.

When we were inside, this is what we see and finally I got some time to go upstairs too...

Wifey wanted to post in front of the house before going in

Never got this properly until this day

Sliding door to outdoor room

Sitting room

Wall opening to study room

Entry to the main bedroom

Soon to be ensuite

Hall way in the main bedroom

Leisure room

After we were satisfied with what we see, we met with our next door neighbor just as we were about to leave.  We had a good chat with them about their block of land and apparently they can only visit their land once a month as they are working in Western Australia at the moment.  They are also getting some custom design house for the build due to the shape and some restrictions on their block.  Apparently they have a lot of set backs and additional requirement due to the fact they have a corner block.

Not long after, we were joined by Phil and Bel from the Reedman home!  It was quite a busy and beautiful day really.  It is not surprising that everyone is out and about to visit to their soon to be home.  Phil and Bel are also building a custom design house.

We are really looking forward to move in to our new house now.

PS:  The time of this writing is actually two weeks late.  I started writing the post at the 18 June but never got around to complete nor publish it until today.  I feel so very slack but hopefully I can pick up once my bank drama is over!  Next post I will tell all about it...