We are in!!!!

Last Thursday we had handover and it was such a great feeling. Handover was at around midday as we had to wait for the cleaner to finish cleaning the house. The rest of the day was a huge blur of us moving our things in, delivery vans coming with new furniture we had bought, blinds being installed and a fence going up outside. We have been living here for a week now and it still feels surreal to come home to this beautiful house each day.

Handover!!

 Our dining room

 My kitchen

The living room

 Our bedroom

 The kids upstairs rumpus room

Ensuite

8 More Sleeps

Our walkthrough with the SS went went. Our main concern was a crack in bricks from our garage door to the top floor, but we were assured that it was just normal settling once the roof goes on and that the bricks would be replaced. Other than that, mostly it was just the painting that needed to be done in some parts and touched up in others. Most excitingly our SS gave us a due for handover- Friday 15th of November, which was 2 weeks and 2 days away. 

We then started to ring a few places where we had bought couches, a fridge and TV to organise delivery as we now had a date and the three different places delivered on Thursday or different days such as Monday/Tuesday. As we wanted the items as soon as we moved in, we asked that they be delivered on the Thursday. We made sure it was ok with the SS to have some things moved in a day early and he said it was fine and that we could move handover to Thursday instead. Yay! So now it is only 8 more sleeps until we are in our new house!!!!

Our driveway was poured yesterday and it looks good except it is very dark. Hopefully once the concrete sets it will be lighter. Also found out our appliances will be installed on Friday. Can't wait to check them out.

We have a date for PCI

Quite a bit has been happening at our house. We had great news about the garage door. Our SS's manager drove past our house the other day to have a look and he talked to the colour consultants and then called up my Hubby and said that we can choose a different garage door colour. We were both happy about the outcome, but are now nervous that we have to choose a colour ourselves. Here are the Timber Coat colours to choose from. 

We are thinking of going with Jakoba as we think it is the closest match, but we are not 100% sure as the colour of the 'cedar' on the picture and our house are quite different so the colour of 'Jakoba' on the picture will probably look different in real life too.  What do you think? 

Our main floors are now tiled too and they look terrific. We are really happy with them.

Here is a picture of them- they are still dirty here, but you get the idea.  

Our site fence came down last Friday too. 

Also our verandah was fixed up. In the top photo you can see it was made out of pine with a board at the front which was going to be painted but that was not what we paid for. Now (although it is a bad picture) you can see our verandah is made of cedar.

Also we finally have a walkthrough/PCI date with our SS, which is tomorrow. I hope we don't find too much that needs to be fixed. Our SS said that after our walk through we should have the keys in one or two weeks max. I hope he is right. 

So close now.....

Hubby and I drove to the house in bad moods last night as we were upset that our SS is refusing to fix our garage door problem (so far). Rawson messed up our cedar cladding (it was meant to be laid vertical not horizontal) and we left it, they messed up our kitchen bench tops (was meant to be osprey not urban) we left it, they are messing up our verandah (is meant to be made fully out of cedar but is made out of pine) and we are leaving it but asking for at least the outside edge to be cedar so it matches the house. We have swallowed all of their mistakes so we think it is only fair that they fix up just one of their mistakes because this one we are not swallowing- it looks awful!

Our moods were lifted after looking at the house and seeing how much work was completed in two days. I don't know about your builds, but usually with ours no work starts till around Wednesday and then we might have tradies working on the house for 2 or 3 days if we are lucky. But not this week- in just two days the glass on our verandah went in, as well as shower screens, bathtubs, mirrors, air conditioning ducts and shelves in all the cupboards, wardrobes and pantry. Wow things certainly start moving when you get towards the end of the build. Although there doesn't seem to be much left to do on the house besides flooring, scaffolding removal and driveway, our SS still won't give us a date to when it will be ours. 

My powerpoint in the island bench- you just pull it up when you need power 

 My sink

Our verandah. Now that it is finally complete, the scaffolding can come down Yay!! 

Close up on verandah. Hopefully the blue board will be replaced with cedar so it matches the rest of the house. 

 My walk-in pantry

 The shower in the kids bathroom

 The kids bath

 The vanity in the ensuite

 The bath in our ensuite (it isn't really yellow)

The rain shower head which is in both showers

It was all going so well......

This week started off to be a great week, all electrical fit out was completed and the plumber has done half of the plumbing and then our garage door was installed.....

As we have cedar windows/cladding, we wanted a cedar look garage door to match it. We originally chose a 'Timbegrain' garage door in cedar colour. We then talked to the colour consultant and told her we wanted the garage door to match the house as closely as possible and asked if she agreed with our choice. She recommended that we get the 'Timber Coat' garage door in Cedar colour which is an upgrade, but would match very closely. We went with her suggestion and were upset to find that the garage door looks nothing like the cedar on our house. 

As we have kept all the emails re the garage door, we are hoping our SS will help to rectify the issue by either changing the garage door to the one we originally chose (this would have been a much closer match) or by staining our cedar windows/cladding darker to match. 

 I actually like the colour of our garage door, it just doesn't suit the rest of the house

Some of the plumbing completed yesterday

Some of the electrical work. Most of the lights will be changed to down lights, except for a few pendants. 

Painting

The internal painting was completed today and it looks great. The walls are all one colour (Taubmans Martini) except for some feature walls (the stairwell, dining room and two walls in the theatre room) which are Taubmans Zelda. The external staining (cedar windows, cedar cladding and battens) is completed and we are just waiting for the pole in moroka finish to be completed. The painters need the scaffolding down and front of the house brick cleaned so they can finish it. 

 The feature wall in dining room

 The theatre room with the niche for the TV. 

 The two walls in the theatre room that are a feature wall.

 The stairs

 Love our wall colour. This is the kids rumpus upstairs.

Kids rumpus room

Kitchen bench top dramas!!!

I was very excited to see our kitchen bench tops go in until I realised that they were the wrong colour!!! Early on at our colour consultation, we chose greyish colour kitchen cupboards and urban colour caesar-stone bench tops to match. A few days later, we decided we wanted our kitchen to be the same colours as the seaview display home we love so much. The colour consultant said it was fine and she changed all the colours for us- or so we thought. Turns out that she changed the cupboard colour for us but forgot to change the bench top colour from Urban to Osprey. Silly us didn't realise this until today. 

I am not that upset about it as I think the Urban colour is nice, I am just not 100% convinced it goes with the Malt cupboards. If I do not like it after painting is finished, I might pay to change the top cupboards to a colour that better suits the bench tops, because changing the bench tops would be far too expensive. 

Anyway, here are some photos of the kitchen. What do you think???

The bathroom bench tops are Osprey- the colour our kitchen bench tops were meant to be.