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 :-)