Hello, I have been promising an update and this is mainly for the great friendly people I have met on the internet. There has been plenty going on this week, and I have been just a spectator to it all.

I had a good mate come over and finish off the quad around the timber flooring. Here are some pictures of the installation taking place and the finished job. We are really happy with how it has turned out, and we find it satisfying to say that we did it ourselves.

Note the lovely window treatment :-). We still have garbage bags on most of our windows. Window coverings are the current project on the go, and I will update when these are all finished.

I don’t think I have really explained why we did our own floor coverings. Basically the finance broker said, “you have only got X dollars to spend”. We decided to leave the floor coverings to later after we had moved in to save some money. The weird thing is, we had to borrow the amount of our land rebate, and this came back to us when the loan was drawn-down. We then had enough money to do the flooring ourselves and thought “great no cold dusty concrete!”.

During the week we had a monitored alarm installed. We did not consider this at all when purchased the house, but after I saw some of the crime stats for the area thought it would give some peace of mind.

This week our driveway was poured. We were thinking of going for exposed aggregate, but as we wanted a wider drive and modified cross-over we did not have the budget for that. We then decided that coloured concrete would look fine and would fit in with the design rules of the estate.

The concrete is coloured Bluestone and has been sealed. Next week the concreters return to widen our cross-over. This was just something that we had to do as the angle of the cross-over was all wrong.

In an earlier post, I explained that when the painters put the last coat of paint on the façade it rained afterwards and ran. This has all been touch-up now and I am happy to show the façade as it should look.

Our old house was about 12 square, and this house is 28.7 square. We didn’t think of this really when we were building, but we do not have enough furniture. So during the week we went out and ordered a new TV unit, buffet and lounge suite.

We also made a trip to Ikea for some book shelves for the study and rumpus room. Ikea has a good website where you can work out how many parcels you need, the size and weight. We went there on Tuesday and Supermum has definitely earned her title! She was pushing around 240kg of parcels on the trolley, loaded them into the car and unloaded when we got home – all by herself, with me just standing there watching.

After that, she spent the next two evenings assembling the bookshelves and I think she has done a great job as you can see in the photo below. My contribution to this was to hang the glass doors – with quite a few choice words thrown in I can tell you ;-)

On Wednesday night, the kids were playing in the room with all of the bookshelf pieces when we were getting dinner ready. When we walked back in found that little miss five year old had looked at the instructions, taken all the dowels out of the packets and hammered them all into the correct holes! Well, I was one proud Dad and she was there telling me she wanted to be a Builder when she grows up, …. and a Kindergarten teacher, a Hairdresser and Computer Technician ….

Today I met our neighbours Rellie, Jase and their two boys Lachie and Jacob (other half was at work). Very nice people and great to meet them after plenty of friendly exchanges over the internet :-)

There will be plenty going on over the next few weeks, and I will keep this updated for those whom may be interested in having a look.

Cheers

PS, desperately waiting for Broadband! Argghhh dial-up … tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1999….

A forced break

Hi all

Thanks so much for the well-wishes, I really appreciate your thoughts!

I have been out of hospital for two days after spending a week at the Freemasons in East Melbourne. As explained I had a procedure called a Nephrectomy, which is the removal of a kidney. This was due to complications of a birth defect I had which wasn't discovered until my early thirties (37 now). I did have the problem surgically repaired 4 and a half years ago, but the pain never went away and over the last 18 months I have had 4 opinions on what to do. This seemed like an extreme option to take as the kidney was still working at a reduced function, but having another prerfectly good kidney meant I could take this option. The kidney could not be repaired again due to the scar tissue from the previous surgery - so I agreed to have this done. Basically, most days I felt like dragging myself off to hospital as the pain was a 10 out of 10 and I really wanted some releif.

Anyway, the doctors and nurses treated me very well and on the day of surgery my Anesthetist told me that this is the 2nd most painful surgery that there is. Well, let me tell you that I won't argure with that. I have had 13 other operations in my time and this took the cake for pain!

I have another 6 - 8 weeks of recovery ahead of me and taking some necesarry time off work. Sitting hear in a brand new home with lots to do is quite frustrating but nothing I can do about it.

I will get the camera out and take some shots of the finished flooring, and driveway once completed. There will be some homemade curtain work starting soon, so this will be up on the blog when done.

I guess that's enough about me, this supposed to be about our house. I have been feeling quite guilty about the lack of updates and photo's and will do my best to get this blog up to speed.

Cheers, Tony

Ant's Health Update

Supermum here; Just to give you bloggers a quick update & thank you for the well-wishes.
I don't promise to be as funny as John when he broke into "Geekgirl's" account, You will be lucky if it makes any sense as typing skills are lacking quite a bit!!

Ant had his Kidney removed on Tuesday, all went reasonably well. He had a small pneumothorax (when lining comes away lung, because a small hole was made in the lung when removing the old scar tissue.) he was in CCU for 24 hours, but is in the ward now. He's doing pretty well considering, just a shame I cann't really call him "Man Sick"!!! ;) LOL Ant should be out of hospital early next week.
Thanks again for the messages, I will pass them on to Ant.
Cheers,
Supermum - I wish!

PS. All that whinging about ending up on the concrete every night he could have had a mattress like me but chosse not to get it from old house - but why ruin a good story with facts!!!

Just an update

We have been in the new house for about three weeks now and the schedule has been quite tight. The first week was just me in the house on a blowup matress, concrete floor and no heater (better than camping). The second week we got the carpets put down and then moved our proper bedding in from the old house. Before the carpet was down, the entire family spend the nights in the dining room on blowup mattresses, but I seemed to end up on the concrete floor each night.

Over the last two weekends, we have laid the entire timber floor (about 110sqm) and moved 90% of our belongings out from the old house. This weekend the task is to complete the move and put the beading in over the expansion gaps around the floating floor.

If you are thinking of laying a floor yourself I would recommend it if you consider yourself reasonably handy. The tools used, dropsaw, jigsaw, rubber mallet, sawbench for ripping lengthways (not totally necessary but easier if you have one), hammer, chisel set, profile guage, sliding bevel, square, goggles and a really good dust mask. A simple square room can be laid easily in one hour. The job slows down when you have to undercut at doorways and have angles to work to. For example, the lounge room of about 4 * 4 metres took one hour. The hallway of about 6 * 1.2 metres took 5 hours as this had five doorways to undercut, a linen press and angles to work to.

One day was pretty much spent on just checking all the levels of the concrete slab and putting down some self-leveling compound over the low spots. There was one high spot that technically should have been ground back. I looked at this for a while and thought about the huge mess it would make and then realised it would be directly under a table. So I thought bugger it and just left it. When the flooring went over this you actually couldn't tell.

The driveway is in the process of being concreted and we have changed our mind to just coloured concrete rather than exposed aggregate.

The pics below show the muddy driveway and the makeshift path I constructed from some discarded builders foil. The other photo's show the carpet going down and some of the flooring.

Again, I don't have lots of photo's as they are on someone else's camera, I will get these and some updates on soon.

We have been working quite a lot on the move and I have a deadline of this Sunday, even though the old house doesn't settle for another two weeks. I am going off to hospital next week and won't be doing anything physical for a couple of months afterwards. So the focus has been on getting the flooring done and the move - way too busy to even stop and take some decent photo's.

I will do my best to get some photos up by the end of this weekend....

A preview of the flooring

This is a preview of the flooring that is going down over the weekend and Monday. The carpet is Carisse by Godfrey Hirst Carpets. It is a solution dyed nylon with a 15 year guarantee against stain resistance, soil resistance and appearance retention. The colour is called Nickel, which a jersey caramel look (Supermum's description not mine) - I would say it is the colour of a cardboard box (but that doesn't sound very exciting). The flash has added a bit of pink to it.

It is a sisal carpet that is rated as extra heavy use residential. We are quite happy with our selection, and the carpet layer is coming on Monday to install.

The timber is a Armstrong Armalock 8mm laminate. The colour is Cherry Spice, which sounds very American but I would describe the look as Tasmanian Oak. This flooring has a 20 year warranty. The flooring installation is going to be a DIY job - and hopefully this does not mean Destroy It Yourself.

More to follow next week ...

A few photo's

Here are a few snaps taken today in the rain. Supermum is a hero, running through the mud and rain to bring you these photo's. And then the batteries went flat, which is the reason for the dates being out (either that or she slipped into some weird space-time continuum!).

You can see that the facade has run and the painters are just waiting for a break in the weather to repaint this. We can't begrudge the rain, we need it .... ok the mud is a pain in the backside.

The light grey you can see through the run marks is the wrong colour originally painted. This colour just looked a shade ligher than cement after it was painted and was just awful. We think it was Shale Grey instead of Woodland Grey (appologies if you have that colour).

Stayed tuned, there is more to come :-)

PS don't use rechargeable batteries in your digital camera or you won't have enough photo's for your blog.

We have a house, now its time to make it a home

It has been a big long weekend for us. Friday 13th was handover, which was a fairly smooth process with a few promises to fix some items up. I trust it will be done, or I will hold the porta loo to ransom that is still in the front yard ;-) .... Actually I won't it has been 'leaking' in the front yard and we just want it gone!

We found out that the facade had been painted in the wrong colour, and the painters had been back during the week to repaint it. The painters are having a bit of a hard time at the moment with the weather and got caught out on our job. Just after they had finished, it rained and the paint on the facade had run. They will be back to fix, along with a couple of other minor touch-ups.

After the hand over on Friday, we spent some time at Western Distributors looking at carpet and flooring. We did not put any money on their stock, as I had another supplier to check out.

Saturday the whole family went to Fowles Auctions and Sales in South Melbourne. The kids were really good while we spent a good couple of hours there making some decisions. I had this place recommended to me by a fellow blogger Grime http://bridgeport35extended.blogspot.com/ - a big thank you! This place is great, and the lady Michelle who assisted us was very friendly and helpful. I also got some honest information on the flooring I had been considering. I was going to go for the flooring that has a 4mm wear layer with the idea that it could be maintained later on with re-sanding when needed. My reason for wanting this is I have seen some flooring that when scratched you can see down to the board underneath and it looks terrible. It turns out that floors I have seen like this are probably just really cheap imports. Fowles had both the type I was first looking at and the laminates. I put them side-by-side and got out a stanley knife. You could scratch the dearer flooring really easily, but the laminate could not be scratched. So, I have changed my mind on flooring and ordered through them. It is now going look very much like Tassie Oak (it was going to be Kempas).

We also ordered a sisal solution dyed carpet that looks like...can't describe it.. just have to wait for the photo's.

Saturday afternoon, we spent another couple of hours at Bekaert Factory Outlet in Dandenong South http://www.bekaert.com.au/ This outlet sells clearance drapery material and if you are handy with the sewing machine is quite a money saver. The materials by no means look 'cheap' either and there are professional curtain makers who shop there. We picked up some material for all of the living rooms, and Supermum and Oma (my mum - Oma is Dutch for Grandmother) will be getting busy on their sewing machines.

Today I was just playing in the mud with a machine called a Dingo. I had hired this with a bucket and a trenching attachment. The plan was, remove the excess dirt from the driveway, dig a phone trench and lay down some crushed rock before the concreting gets done. It was fun for the first couple of hours, but the novelty soon wore off. I spent from 10.00AM to 6.00PM ripping the driveway back and removing the dirt. The dirt ranged from really wet soft sticky clay to hard sticky clay with rocks. By the end of the day, I estimated that it was four cubic metres I had removed. The crushed rock will have to wait until one night this week.

I have already been told off for not taking any photo's, these will come soon I promise :-)

We had our practical completion inspection on Thursday. All went well over the 2 + hours we spent going through everything.

As the painters had not come back to complete the touch-ups, we made sure that we highlighted with post-it notes where the work needed to be done. This had already been done, but we found more.

The facade is still in the mystery colour, but this will be sorted out. So I am going to wait until the end of the week before I will put any new photo's up. I would prefer to put the completed photo's up than any I have now.

We got some positive comments on the kitchen last time, could you spot the minor issue? I did as soon as I saw the photo's; most of the handles are not straight. Easy fix, and the supervisor was going to do it himself.

We are really happy with how everything has turned out, and how well we have been treated by Porter Davis.

PS, settings not working properly and I could not put a title to this. Hand over is Friday the 13th! (lucky we are not superstitious )

Week 17, tada - the promised photo's!!!

Wohoo!!! Check it all out! In ten days it will be all ours :-)
Our supervisor let 'supermum' in today so we could get some measurements and quotes done. My instructions were "Please get some photo's, people want to 'see' what is going on :-)
We have got more, these are just a sample.

This photo is a great shot of our bench top and glass splashback selection. The bench top is Quantum Quartz Everest colour and the splashback is in metalic black. Why the powerpoint is like that is a mystery.



Here is a shot of the kitchen.

And another.

And from a different angle.

The finished ensuite complete with shower screen.

Quality Inspection 3 had been done, and there were a few stickers inside showing problems. We are going in for an inspection on Thursday so these can all be discussed. From what was described to me and in other photo's I have it is fairly minor stuff.

Completed bathroom.

The revised laundry layout, with the bench changed over. We now have a space where our 7.5kg machine will fit. The sparkies forgot the powerpoint and will come back to put this in.

When you have the final quality inspection, they leave post-it notes around where there are problems. Here there are some chips in the paint work.

A couple of posts ago I was pretty angry about the vandals that struck. Here is one shot of the repair work in progress.

I also asked for some outside shots, but being overcast and late in the afternoon it was too dark for these. Actually there is not much new other than the garage door. I will try and unravel the 'mystery' of the facade colour on Thursday with the supervisor as I am sure it must be undercoat. But, this is from someone who can wear one blue sock and the other black and have absolutely no idea! Who knows, it may be different by then as the painters are coming back over the next couple of days anyway.

Next time, I will arrange the blog with a bit of a completed tour. Bye for now :-)

1st Home Sold!

A releif today as our current home sold unconditionally. This means it is a done deal, and we just have to wait for settlement.

We will be owners of two homes for about one month, which is not really a problem for us.

Thank you Ray White Werribee, they worked for six hours with the purchaser making the deal happen today. Well done, we are grateful!

Week 16, no photo's to show you

Just a quick update as another week has passed.

I called past on Sunday and found that the repairs to the vandalism had commenced. I could see that the garage door had been installed, the glass splashback in the kitchen was there and the shower screen in the ensuite also.

PD say that when painting is finished it is only 90%. They come back towards the end and complete any touch-ups as necessary after the other trades have finished. I have not had a chance to get inside to check this out, but can see on the outside a few areas that need more paint.

I think I have admitted here a couple of time how bad I am with colours. The facade is bagged and painted in solarguard woodland grey. There are some mouldings on the facade that remain unpainted and I 'think' that the bagging is only in undercoat at the moment. It just doesn't look dark enough to be the grey we selected and putting the paint card next to it seems to prove this. I will just ask the question to the supervisor about the painting on the outside.

Started to arrange quotes for the driveway. We will be going for exposed aggregate concrete as this meets the design rules of the estate.

I will try and get some photo's soon. Until next time :-)

Week 15, someones idea of 'fun'?!

I received a call from our supervisor today saying that the Electricians had let him know there had been a break-in last night.

He thought it was probably just kids having some 'fun' as nothing was stolen other than a shower head. What the little p****s had done was try and kick in the internal garage door and when that didn't work break a window to get in. They then decided to kick in some plaster walls in the back half of the house.

What does this mean for us? Probably means a delay in the hand over while Porter Davis arrange for the damage to be repaired. I trust them completely to fix it all up as good as it was before, and it really must be a pain in the backside for them. And another insurance claim on our job.

Somehow we all pay for this type of crap anyway, these costs must be passed on somewhere I would think.

I could have really gone on with this one and done lots and lots of swearing - but did all of that offline! It just leaves a sour taste when this sort of thing happens, and if anybody decides to try something like that when we are living there they had better watch out!

Still there a plenty of people in the world with far more significant problems than this anyway....

Next time should be a happier house is now complete update :(

Week 15, plumbers and electricians come back

Went to the house today to meet the electricians to make sure of the placement for the light fittings. Basically when we purchased we designed the layout with the idea of adding more later on, so the positions would have seemed strange to them.
They weren't there, but our supervisor was waiting so I discussed the placement with him.
He also went over what was going to happen from now until hand-over.

The electricians were coming in today to install the light fittings, power points and light switches and anything else electrical that needed doing.

Took the opportunity to grab some quick photos of the tiling job. Have to say that I am pretty impressed with the quality of the work and how the overall look has turned out.

This first photo is the double shower in the ensuite. You know, shower with a friend and save water!


The plumbers had also been in earlier this week to fit the vanity basins, tapware and toilets.

The shower in the main bathroom.
































Vanity in main bathroom.
















Today there were coming back to replace this laundry bench top. It is going to be reversed as our washing machine is too big to fit in the space you can see here next to the back door.

















I know, this is hardly a glamor shot! But, I didn't really take any photos of the paint job. I did have a good look at the quality of the paint job and again, really impressed. There is a really nice gloss level achieved on the skirts, archs and doors.

This is the only photo were you can get a glimpse of what I am talking about, so I have included it!

Yesterday marked the 10th year that we have been in our current home, and the real estate agent left a message saying that an offer was about to come through - so fingers crossed that it will be a decent offer!

We will be in the house next week to measure up the windows for blinds and bedrooms for carpet. I will take some updated photos then as it all should be very close to being finished.

See you next time :-)

Week 14, tiling complete

There have been no opportunities for me to take any photos in the daylight. All I have managed to do is look through the windows with the torch.

The tiling has been completed and looks great! Can't wait to see it all in full daylight and the paint job too.

They are now moving on to what I would call the finishing touches. The Electricians come back next week to fit the powerpoints, light fittings, light switches and anything else electrical. Other things to happen next week or the week after are shower screens, final plumbing, paint touch-ups, garage door, glass splashback and probably more things that I don't know about.

We have a hand-over date early in July which would put the total construction time at 17 weeks. Amber gave me some good advice recently "start packing!", which we have started doing with great gusto. So far about 40 boxes and some furniture have gone into storage. I put our current home on the market before we were really ready. This has put the pressure on us to have it clean and presented well before our first open house this Saturday.

I will be in the house later next week and will take some photos of the kitchen, bathrooms and paintwork.

I am looking at getting concrete driveway quotes at the moment for exposed aggregate and researching flooring. The driveway has to be done within three months of moving in, but the sooner the better so we can actually use the garage. I still can't tell if the driveway angle is going to be a bit of a **** (swore there and then edited) or not and might get the concreters opinions.

The fences also have to be done within a certain timeframe after moving in, but I will have to look at the land contract as I can't remember. For the flooring, we were thinking of ceramic tiles but decided against this because of the chance of cracking. We will put in a floating floor and if the slab gets some fine cracks underneath it won't matter. Plus, the flooring looks better in our opinion. I wanted to save some money and thought tiles would be cheaper, but I found a bloke on eBay who has his own business importing this flooring. He also has a display at the Pipeworks Market and I went there to check it out. His flooring is the same as that I have been quoted $77 - $105 sqm, if you are interested click this link http://stores.ebay.com.au/kvl102420113_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZQ2d33QQftidZ2QQtZkm

We are very excited about how the new house is going, but right now the selling process of our current home is the focus. I was seriously considering doing the selling myself and pocketing any commission payable, but this post changed my mind http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=1848 as I realised I would be way too stubborn and not negotiate. I will let the Real Estate Agents do the negotiating for us.

See you in about a week with some pics! :-)

Week 13, painting finished now onto tiling

I have not been able to get any recent photos of the place, only been out there one night in the past week with the torch. Was out there today for a very short time looking for a plaster offcut to use in a repair at home and did not have the camera with me.

From what I have seen, the paint work is looking great and I can't wait to get inside to have a proper look.

I said last time there were a couple of things I was not happy with but thought they could be 'work in progress'. Turns out that was the case as there were some shelves in the linen press and bedrooms 2, 3 and 4 where the supports were only tacked in. These will get secured properly soon. Last time I noticed some gaps around the architraves and door jambs when there was only one coat of paint. I am pretty sure that these would be filled somewhere before the final coats, so I will look out for that now the painting is finished.

The tiler has started, with the water-proofing in the showers and the ledge for the shower bases. They haven't yet changed the laundry bench, and I hope it doesn't get tiled on the wrong side!

Until next time :-)

Week 12, more photos of the paint job

This is the architrave profile we have selected for the arch's and skirts, very happy with the choice.

We called into the house today to grab some more photos and for me to check the paint job in natural daylight. Again, it is really hard to see the true colour in these pictures, the one in the garage is probably the best indicator. The photo with all of the doors looks very yellow - which it isn't.

The painters have done the ceiling white and one coat of the wall colour and it is looking great!

Now that there is paint on the wall I can see what a great job the plasterers have done. It did look very straight and neat, but with paint on I cannot see any joins or waves in the ceilings or walls - well done fellas!

I think in this photo you can see the true colours. All internal walls are being painted in Wattyl Porcelain in a low sheen finish. This is a fairly neutral colour and we will add some feature walls after hand-over. We didn't get the builder to do these as we could not decide on what we wanted! Anyway, it is not going to make or break them if we don't use them for this.

We will also let the kids select a feature wall colour for their bedrooms (with a bit of guidance).

I have put a few photos of the outside so that you can see how it is all going. In the daylight I could see that it has only had one coat of paint.

This photo shows our exterior selection, the tiles are Boral Macquarie in a colour called Ebony. The gutters and fascia are painted with Wattyl Sunfast in Colourbond Paperbark (used to be called Marino). The bricks are Boral Settler Sandstock.

We are really happy with our choices and how it has turned out :-)

When I had a look inside, I was very impressed to see that there had already been a start made on the items identified in the inspection report. I noticed some of the fit-out work that I was not totally happy with, but I will talk to the supervisor before I go blogging about it. To me it would be fairly easy to fix and I could be premature to complain about it. But, on the other hand the supervisor has said if there is anything that bugs me it is better to ask.

Supermum says I don't close off the blogg properly each time and it just sounds like I stop mid-paragraph. So... ummmm... 'May the force be with you' .....

Week 12, painting has started

We received a copy of quality inspection 2, and must say that this confirmed for us that the quality of the build to-date is excellent. I could understand about 99% of what was written on the report, but talked to the supervisor about it all anyway. Happy to say that all items identified on the report will be addressed and when inspection 3 is done will be double-checked.

I am going to talk about the job the brickies did again, it is just that I really admire the skill involved and it is just such a major part of the house. The inspection report confirmed that the brickwork was spot on and of an excellent standard. There was really nothing to say on the report regarding the brickwork. So again, well done fellas I owe you a couple of slabs or better!

The pictures you see here are a couple of snaps taken on supermums phone. It was getting dark, so these are a bit blurry. Will take the camera out on the weekend.

I stopped by after work and did another torch job. I could see the quality of the paintwork on the gutters, fascia and downpipe was excellent and this was one thing were I could surely see the colour.

This is another trade that I appreciate after having done quite a bit of painting myself. I was happy to see (in the dark anyway) that there were no obvious drips or runs and no splatters on the brickwork.

I did have a look inside and think that this paint is the sealer/undercoat at this stage. You can see that all of the cabinets and windows have been taped up. This is because they spray paint the house which I think is a great way to go. Would sure beat rollers and brushes!

The architraves, skirting boards and doors have all been hung. I am really happy with the choice of profile we have selected.

Everything in the house is straight, level, square and has even gaps where there should be gaps. These are the things that I am paying attention to now and I think I have a bit of an eye for them also.

When things are not symmetrical and supposed to be, it drives me crazy! In our current home I can point out each and every wall that is not square or has a bow in it.

Tune in next time "Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel" and there should be more photos of the paint job (yes I still live in my childhood and may make Get Smart references also).

Week 11, just past half-way and 'all is well'

These are some photos of the cabinets that I took this morning. It was quite dark this morning and you cannot really see the true colour of the kitchen cabinets in these photos. We are really happy with the quality of the work that has been done recently. The excitement is building now, as I said earlier it is looking like a house, now we can picture a home.


The kitchen benches only have MDF board templates at the moment . These will be taken away for the Quantum Quartz (misspelt horribly wrong elsewhere) benchtops to made.


We chose these extra cabinets to be installed in the fridge space. 1) it is a huge space without them. 2) handy to have two pot drawers, microwave space and extra cupboards.

We have gone for a laminate kickboard that will work well with the stainless steel applicances we will be getting in the kichen.

Here is a confession from me. At the colour and fittings selection appointment, we 'debated' over whether the handles should be mounted horizontally or vertically throught the entire kichen. I argued vertical and lost, but now I see it have to say that they do look great this way ... and yes ... I was wrong ...

These overhead cupboards were included as part a promotion when we purchased. I think we will be very happy to have those, but one of us is going to need a step-ladder ;-)

This is the laundry. We received the cupboard and post-form bench top as part of the promotion when we purchased. Does look a lot better than the standard laundry tub. I said in another posting that there was another 'stuff up', well I don't wish to sound too negative as it really isn't a problem. Basically the bench you see here needs to be replaced as it is on the wrong side.

This is in our ensuite. Hard to tell the colours here and I was surprised how the photos turned out, as they looked white in the dark this morning. It is really a nice sized vanity, which we paid extra to have the middle door made into drawers.

I was a bit surprised by this photo as you can't tell the proportions and it looks like a baby bath! It isn't of course, just a standard sized one. We think the two kids will probably want to use the double shower in the ensuite anyway (until they grow out of bathing together).

The bathroom vanity, same laminates as in the ensuite.

Week 10, cabinets done - no photos

As I said last time (maybe Monday now) turned out to be correct. All the cabinets in the kitchen, bathroom, ensuite and laundry have been installed. Looking through the windows with a torch it is all looking pretty good. I can't get more enthusiastic than that until I see them in daylight; in the dark they all look white (which they are not).

No point trying to get photos in the dark through muddy windows with a torch!

As I said last time, when I do a walk-through with the supervisor I will ask to take some photos.

I said in an earlier post that there was a problem with the laundry that got sorted out. Now I won't say anything on the blog yet as I am sure the supervisor doesn't know it yet, but there has been a bit of a 'stuff up' again. I would say at this stage it is no 'biggie' and it will get fixed.

If it doesn't get fixed, I will turn to the dark side ..... (just kidding).

Week 10, lockup now means locked

The lockup stage was completed about two weeks ago, however we were able to go in and out of the house to check the progress.

Went for a vist today to try and get some more pictures, but it was all locked up. This is a good thing anyway as most of the materials for the fit-out stage are now on site. I could see in the family room, all doors, door jambs, large pile of architrave, a few lenghts of splayed quad (no idea where this is used) and some melamime sheeting for the shelves. The flat pack cabinets were still not there - so maybe Monday now.

There were at least two fair sized stacks of left over bricks onsite. I could see that a truck had been in and taken one stack. Which makes me wonder, why didn't they take the lot or was this another theft? I will ask the supervisor next week.

I will be going for a walk-through next week with the supervisor. Hopefully he won't mind me taking some photos, and I would expect to see most of the fit-out done and the cabinets installed based on the info I have from PD.

Didn't see our neighbours today, but their house is progressing to the frame stage now.

Week 10, cabinets

The Porter Davis website said that our cabinets had been installed, so I went to have a look. No cabinets there yet, maybe tomorrow.

What had been done is the completion of the plastering that I talked about previously and a bit of a site clean. I could see that a Bobcat had been in to collect the piles of broken roof tile offcuts and brick offcuts. There is still a large pile of plaster offcuts in the front yard.

There was some AC sheeting and quad there that had been delivered, not really sure where this is going to be used as we don't really have eaves on the house.

For some reason the plastering has not been done in the Alfresco and the plaster sheeting and cornice is sitting inside the house. I could see that some kids had been playing inside the house (not ours) as they had left behind some Easter Eggs. It looks like they must have been walking all over the cornice that was sitting on the floor. Lets just say it is unusable now, as it is broken into about three or four peices each. These sorts of things must drive the builders crazy, there going to have to order in some more and so on.

Will have another look on Saturday, and try to get more pics if there has been any work.

Week 9, plasterers and brickies

The house is really taking shape now with all the brickwork finished outside and plaster within. The facade has been bagged now, and will be painted in our chosen colours later. There is still some work to do on the facade with mouldings to go on and brick cleaning to be done over the entire house.
Supermum, kids and Nanna visited the house on Friday when the plasterers were there. They let them have a look through while they worked. The kids thought the plasterers were 'cool' as they were walking around on stilts doing their work.
We visted the house today and took about fifty photos - these are just a sample. We met our nextdoor neighbours a very nice couple from Geelong. They are building the Hudson with Henley (Northridge design). We had looked at this design when 'shopping', and thought it was a great looking house.
The Porter Davis online site says that our plastering was finished 4/5, but I think there is about another 1/2 day or full day to go still. The plastering is looking excellent! Now the inside feels like a home as you can no longer see through walls - thanks guys!
The brickies Andrew and Barry have done excellent work on our house, it is straight and even. I tried to get some shots of the longest wall (about 20m) to give an idea. These guys have been working on our house six days a week - and I hope to catch up with them before they finish to thank them properly.

Week 8, quick update

Stopped by the house after work to have a look at what had been done today, and it was quite a lot! The plasterers had lined all of the ceilings and the bottom half of all walls, lots of progress for one day.

Looks like I lost the chance to install cables, which is stupid of me being a computer user it should have been top priority. Looks like I might go wireless after all.

The brickies have finished 2 and a half walls now, and I need to get some updated pics. To me it is looking like master work - very straight and all the morter joins are nice and even.

I got a really simple explanation regarding the three 'missing' powerpoints. The wires are actually there, they will be mounted in plaster rather than off the studs. The two in the ensuite will be done after the mirror goes in, which makes perfect sense as they could not determine the placement of the mirror at frame stage.

I forgot to mention a couple of things in yesterdays post. On Saturday I met the plumber who has done all of our work to-date and will do the remaining plumbing also. Nice bloke and friendly, we were there putting in wall batts and just stayed out of his way while he worked.

On Anzac day I met a family who will start building with Porter Davis next month in our street. They are actually building the same model house as us, the Francis 26. There are now five Porter Davis houses being built in the street that I know of, but each will look different due to the covenant in the estate. The people I met had to change their facade as they had selected the same as us. The facade they have now chosen will make their house look quite different to ours.

Will get some more pictures soon...

Week 8, sparkies, plaster and insulation

The rain has started to fill up the wetlands a bit more, the photo to the left is just one part of these. When I arrived with the kids there were about 12 ducks in the water, so we will bring some old bread with us next time we come.

The electricians have run all the cables and set out powerpoints and lightswitches this week. For some reason, three powerpoints have not been setout and I will just check why.
The brickies have completed about 1 and2/3 walls, but I have not taken any updated pics of the outside of the house.
There is a huge pile of plaster inside the family room, and some was moved into position before I took the photos. Each piece must have been hand-delivered through the building site - not much fun I would say looking at how long these sheets are!
The plasters have set some ceiling sheets out in place in all the smaller rooms and put up some of the pre-fabricated sections for bulkheads.
Our supervisor gave me the OK to install insulation into the walls before the plasterers start. Mum and Dad came for a look at the house on Anzac day, and after we had a nice lunch together made a good start on the insulation. The brickies were there, but we kept out of their way and just got on with the job inside.
I got 12 bags of 580mm wide Soundscreen from eBay and estimated that it would come close to covering all of the external walls. We came short by about three bags.
This weekend I got some acoustic batts from Bunnings as they were just as cheap as anywhere else, and I could not get more Soundscreen locally. I spend Saturday finishing off, the external walls with the insulation from Bunnings. This stuff was nice and stiff and sat in the cavity well, but was 430mm wide. I had to cut the stuff and install sideways, which took more time and a lot more messing around.
Today, I installed the acoustic batts around the laundry, bathroom and ensuit. We do a lot of washing and drying at night and bedroom 3 is right next to the laundry. Bedroom 2 is inbetween the bathroom and en-suite, so hopefully the batts will reduce the shower noise coming into that bedroom.
I was really worried about interfering with the plasterers work and could just imagine them being annoyed if I had installed this stuff in internal walls and it ends up falling out on them or protuding past the wall studs. You can see in the photos that I have raided the sewing cabinet and grabbed some wide webbing and cord. I inserted the webbing first with a staple gun to give me something to push the insulation back onto (like you can on the external walls having sisalation) and then placed the cord in front. It took a long time to do it this way, especially as I had to do lots of cutting around power cords and water pipe - but it has worked well and is all behind the line of the studs.
After leaving the house at about 7.30PM, I realised that I had not put in the pull-down cords into the wall cavity. These cords will allow me to install a computer network and home theatre afterwards, maybe I might be able to do it one night this coming week.

Week 7, inside pics

The electricians have been in today, not sure how much has been done until next visit.
The 'bit of a problem' in the laundry has all turned out OK and is really not a problem at all. Our supervisor was really helpful in getting it sorted out.

On the weekend, thanks to the Internet I have met some of our neighbours (virtually) who are also about to build with Porter Davis and had a chat online. Also exchanged stories with another blogger also building with Porter Davis.

These are some pics of inside the house that I took on the weekend.

Week 7, the brickies

I have now got the blog up to date.
Went to the house today to have a look and take some measurements of the laundry and the framework. I wanted to check the width between studs, as we are going to be putting in our own wall insulation before the plaster goes up.
The brickies were there having their lunch, so I had a chat to them for about 10 minutes or so. They were quite happy for us to have a look while they ate their luch, takes some pics for the album and do some measurements.
Good to see some real rain! But, the soil is really sticky clay, I had about 2 inches stuck to my shoes to get off before getting back into the car.
We do have a bit of a problem with the laundry, but the supervisor has told us about it and we are very confident of it all being worked out.
The bricks have us scratching our heads again as they look different now. I think it is something to do with moisture in the bricks as the ones on the pallets look a lot lighter.
We have noticed that there are three other Porter Davis houses going up in the same stage as us, and all at about the same progression as ours.
Our next door neighbours site has started, with the excavation done and temporary fencing in place.

Week 5 & 6, roof tiles, sisalation and a theft

This week I met the supervisor onsite to ask him some questions and go over the site with him. This was our second supervisor, as management changed them the week prior. The site meeting took place on the day the roof tiles went up. The entire roof and pointing was completed in one day.
Later in the week somebody had decided they liked some of the windows and removed them. They left no damage, it was like they were never there.

The two photos with the red crosses are where the windows were taken from.

The bricks had been delivered, and these had us scratching our heads at first. We said to each other 'I remember these looking different, although it has been about six months since we chose them, they don't look right'. EDIT 21/4, OK it was really only me who was looking at the back of the bricks.
It took a couple of days for me to realise that we were looking at the back of them on the pallets! Bit silly of us, and I only realised this when I pulled one out from the pallet on another visit.

The house got wrapped in sisalation later this week, and the plumbers came in to install the gas and water pipes. Again, this was something that seemed to happen really fast in between our visits.

Week 4, roof, and windows

This week the roof trusses went on and the windows were installed. Then the roof battens went up. This probably doesn't look much different from the week before!

Week 3, Slab and frame - fast!

The slab went down by the end of week 2 and the frame went up over week 3. The frame really went up quite fast, probably only took about 3 or 4 days. Not sure as we did not visit every day. Going from slab to frame is quite dramatic, as it all starts to look like a house.

Week 2, more action

We got the confirmation letter that the site start had commenced and the procedures from here on. I called the supervisor and introduced myself, rather than wait for him to call.It all seemed to happen fairly quickly, I did not have time to get photos of the waffle pods before the slab was laid.These pics are from my mobile phone, so the quality is poor.

It's started, week 1

The Feb site start came and went, which was no fault of Porter Davis as the titles had not been released soon enough.
Supermum regularly went past the block just to see what was happening after school pickup.
In the 2nd week of March it started with site excavation and plumbing. This was exciting, but we did expect to get a letter and a call from the supervisor to let us know what was going on.



The kids were excited to see something happening, and spent some time running around the site trying to work out where their bedrooms were going to be. They then found this pile of dirt, which looked more interesting!

Waiting for title release and site start

The contract was signed in November, with a site start in Feb 07. The land developer said that the titles could be released in November, but if not would be in Jan 07. Jan seemed tight, as we had to wait for titles to be released before the builder could actually start.
From here to Jan nothing really happened, and we just got on with other things.
Jan came and went with no titles being released. I think it was about mid-Feb before they were released.

We got final drawings to look at and approve. Having a really good look over, spotted a small error in one drawing - some taps had disappeared, and a conduit drop in the kitchen for a powerpoint. We really did not want any conduit in the kitchen and asked if it could be changed, or removed altogether. Porter Davis changed the way the powerpoint was going to be installed.

I also realised that the internal access door to the garage opened inwards. Now I did talk about this at tender, but was told it was done this way as to not damage cars if it opened outwards - seemed fair enough to me. But now looking at the drawings for final approval it stuck me that as we had extended the garage, it could open outwards. I asked Porter Davis to change this also, as I could just imagine someone coming inside from the garage and opening the door onto one of the kids.

There is lots I have left our here, a couple of variations (mind changes), etc but I don't want to make War and Peace out of this.

Time to make some descisions

The next part of the process is where your file is moved to the head office, you get appointed an administrator, make your colour, fixtures and electrical selections, be presented with a tender and then a contract.

Colour selection: went really well, probably because after reading the homeone forum realised that we needed to be prepared before going to this appointment. We have emailed the colour consultant examples of our tastes and visited the selection showroon over two weekends to preview all that was available.
Still, we did change a few things while there with the guidance of the consultant. She was very polite in guiding us to some better choices in a couple of areas - mainly the laminates we had first chosen.
Would you believe that we vigorously discussed the back laundry door! There is no window in the laundry, and I only wanted a half-window door for safety and security and the consultant agreed with me. But supermum said whats the difference, if someone is going to break in, the gonna break in! I changed my mind and said that we could add a security door afterwards.

Tile selection: the lady at National Tiles was an ex interior designer who used to set up display homes. Again, we had largely made our choices after visiting another national tiles centre previously. But, again the consultant gave us some polite guidance to help with our selections. It did take the full two hours to make our minds up with the tiles. We also spent more money here as we selected some extras over the standard inclusions - only about $550 though.

Tender: this is where you are presented with the drawings and a contract sample to take away before signing. At this appointment, we added more powerpoints. Really a simple process to go through. After reading the forum, I knew what to expect, standard HIA contract , etc.

Contract: sign your life away! (as they say). Again, this was another process that we felt comfortable with after reading the forum. The big thing is: no structural changes after contract. Had we thought of everything? What exactly was a structural change?

Sales quotation

The next step after making the deposit was to complete some selections and receive a Sales Quotation. To do this, you do a walk through with the sales consultant to select any additions or upgrades that you may want.

We took a few beers with us as it was the end of the day, and we both thought the sales consultant was a great bloke. These turned out to be well-earned as the customers before us took an hour and a half over their appointment time to make their selections.

During this walk through we decided on:

• Changing the Rumpus room to have double doors and sound-reducing batts in the walls
• Installing a wider the standard sliding door (after recovering from the shock of the display timber triple bi-fold being a $4000 option)
• Instaling extra pot drawers in the kitchen, in place of cupboards
• Instaling a microwave cupboard and extra shelving around fridge space
• Upgrading the kitchen bench to quatam quartz
• Installing an internal access door from the garage
• Adding a sliding cavity door to the ensuite
• Upgrading the hot water system to a larger Aquamax
• Adding a 'bunch' of extra powerpoints, a couple of junction boxes to hook up external lights after we move in and an external powerpoint
  

Then there were some items that we wanted to consider depending on the finances:

• Vinly wrap kitchen doors $2500 - $3000 upgrade
• Colourbond roof $5000 upgrade
• Alfresco $5000 extra
• Extended garage $6500
  

It can really start to add up...

Putting down a deposit

We decided on the Francis 26, as we wanted to include some of the non-standard extras. We put a deposit down on the Francis, and there was the added bonus of a three thousand dollar discount on that design - which was just great timing for us!

It also included, brick in-fills, tiles, carpet, fly screens, larger stainless steel appliances, glass splashback, white laundry tub with post-form bench, tiled shower recesses, downlights and overhead cupboards in the kitchen. Also included was raised ceiling height to 2550 and entrance to 2700, large master bedroom entry door 2340. There were a couple of other extras too.

The deposit on the land was easy, we really liked Claremont Park over some of the other estates in Tarnet at that time (September 2006). The added bonus was it was the closest to the school. And a $7,000 rebate paid to the builder applied.

Now the hard part, finances ...

The next question was, how much will the bank actually lend us?
I had a rough idea how much equity was in our current home, but when we got it valued realised it was more. In ten years, the value had risen 140% - more than double!

Still though, we had incurred other liabilities on the way with renovations and purchasing a new car in 2005.

We did not want to have to sell up and rent while waiting for the new house to be built, and wanted to arrange some kind of bridging loan.

Porter Davis have their own finance company, and I had an appointment with a consultant. He worked out how much we could borrow and gave me some options on what we could do with our current home. He was excellent, and told it how it was without any BS which is the way I like things. The final figure he gave me showed it could be done, but probably not the way we wanted the house to be (base design, plus extras).

It looked like a choice of, 1) have the Francis 29 base plus a few of the extras we liked or 2) Francis 26 with most of the extras we liked.

Now which design ...

Now that we had selected a builder, the difficulty was which design. There were two designs that we were 'debating' over. The Monteden (my choice) and the Capri (better half's choice).

Really, we just wanted to have a larger house with 4 bedrooms, a rumpus and a study.

Our sales consultant looked at our preferences and suggested we have a good look at the Francis 29 which the display had just been completed in Derrimut. We weren't sure about it 'on paper', but took a drive to see it each on our own.

Well, we thought it was perfect! Especially as the display version had the rear door relocated to the side with an extended Alfreson added. That is what sold it to me, as I could picture myself out there with a barbie and a beer enjoying the good life!

Purchase descision

During the time of August to late September 2006 we looked at all of the displays around Tarneit, Hoppers Crossing, Point Cook, Geelong and Deer Park.

The kids actually got a kick out of looking at the display homes, and demonstrated expensive taste by choosing the most costly around because it had a swimming pool a movie room and a water feature out the front.

The kids wanted to go back to one display home with their bathers and go for a swim.

Supermum did a lot of legwork with kids in tow through the display homes for about two weeks, gathering brochures and talking with sales people.

Then after looking for about 3 weekends looking together, we took some time off work and got the kids looked after to go through the displays seriously.

To us, there seemed to be two tiers of builders. Those that build to a price, and those that build to a certain 'look' or 'standard of quality'.

We narrowed it down to two builders, and then started talking to other people and looking for more information on the Internet.

I found the site on the internet http://forum.homeone.com.au/index.php which was extremely helpful. As many people were sharing their experiences - both good and bad.

We had decided to go with Porter Davis just before I found the Homeone forum. There was at least one awful story there, but that did not put us off. We had heard more bad stories about the other builder we were considering.

Deciding to move

About August 2006 we decided we had engough of being crammed in to a 12 Square house with about enough toys to fill what seemed like 10 square. People have suggested getting rid of the excess toys to make the house feel more spacious, but we have done this several times and the house is still too small.

We tossed around the idea of putting on an extension or making the back pergola into an outdoor rumpus room by putting up PVC blinds. But, after some thinking on this decided it was just not worth spending money on the place after all the other improvements we had done.

Then started looking around at established homes closer to the school. These were quite pricey for what they were when you added on the cost of stamp duty.

There were actually plenty of display homes not too far from the school, and this got us thinking about building.

So the search began...