Monday, March 19, 2012

Slowly, slowly....


Another site meeting last week - window still not fixed then, but done by the time we dropped around at the weekend.  Yep, it is now not possible to stick you hand between the frame and the glass.  But to counterbalance this we also noticed that they didn't make the glass in the bathroom/laundry door obscure like it's supposed to be. Yet another thing for the window manufacturer to fix.  No doubt they hate this job by now, although probably not as much as we resent them for being a big fraction of the builder's expected SIX WEEK delay past the original completion data..... sigh.  This puts us moving in around early-mid June so we're on the hunt for more housing for May-June.  We had been hoping that our current house-sit bookings (through to mid-May) would have seen us through to moving back home.  

Other things that have happened recently - battens are in for the plaster work and the electrician was just finishing off the first fix of all the wiring, so we expect to have insulation and plasterboard coming soon.   The builder has had to reframe the opening for the attic stepladder, as the supplier has suddently decided that the one we originally specified isn't available any more (after being "on order" for six months and just waiting for stock to come in) so that's a bit annoying for him, but at least we didn't have to pay an extra $300 for a custom made ladder.  The lining for the staircase is in, although we hope they're going to frame the gaping hole that currently exists to the underside of the kitchen floor.  Spent a not too painful period choosing between about 12 shades of white for the wall colour and joinery colour.  When we say "not too painful" it was a bit like being at the optometrist's doing pairwise comparisons - which looks better, antique white or shoji white?  Now which looks better, antique white or chalk?  About 20 comparisons later, we managed to make some choices, no doubt which we won't be able to tell the difference between when they're all in place.  


 Finalised a few minor changes to the pantry - i.e. making the door taller so that Rob can actually go into it!  Water tanks are in place although not connected yet - they're pretty big but the drop in level makes them not too bad once in place.  We'll put some shrubbery (ni!) in front of them to hide them hopefully.  And we have an enormous storm water drain at the base of the driveway now - should keep back the floods we think.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

A grand designs moment



A bit of a delayed post - photos from 29 Feb in this one - as DrK's been really frantic getting grant applications done.  So at the last site meeting, just as we thought the window saga was all over and done with, they came and did the install of the big window.  This involved a crane and building a platform big enough to take the 500kg of window + the 10 men required to lift it into place!  Looks alright from the outside so far doesn't it......  well look a bit closer, where we've apparently been given extra ventilation.  Yep, after all the saga about getting the measurements incorrect, which led to an increase in glass thickness, which led to an increase in price.... THEY BUILT IT 5CM TOO SHORT!!!!  So apparently now that it's going to cost them $$$ to do a new one, they've also discovered that the opening window that goes next to the corner, CAN be wider than designed - in fact, coincidentally it's 5cm wider than designed.... so now they're going to have to redo the frame.  The only good news from this particularly sorry saga is that they're going to take back the price increase provided we agree on accepting the (incorrectly) sized windows they've already made.  All this was supposed to be to everyone's benefit as it was only going to take a few days to fix rather than 2+ weeks to manufacture a new window, and obviously it saves them quite a bit of money to avoid making new glazing units.  But today Rob happened to drop by and found not only has the big window not been fixed, but also that the back door glazing to the bathroom/laundry is not obscure as it should be but clear.  All I can say is this window company has held up the job probably around 4 weeks and they're the most incompetent bunch of clowns we've ever come across.  We're feeling more and more like those hapless folk on Grand Designs whose builds run grossly overtime and over budget. Other minor things that have come up are what the finish should be for a bulkhead in the kitchen (usual robust discussion about what the architect wants to do vs what we've already told them is our decision on what will be done).  Waiting on a paint sample to finalise the joinery colours.  This week we also took advantage of 25% off tables at blueprint and bought a dining table.  Fortunately they're ok to store it for quite a while....    and I've just had to tell the lighting retailer for the dining table pendant that we're not quite ready to pick that up yet so could they store that for a bit longer.... sigh.  This week sees us moving from our short term rental in Glen Waverley to a different rental (same management company) in Bayswater.  Not too bad a commute for me, but we're going to borrow Mum's car for a month to make it a bit easier for Rob.  Turns out the Bayswater place is a fair bit nicer than the Glen Waverley one, for exactly the same price, so at least the commute is worth it.  This one's a unit so not so much room for Ruby as it's only got a small yard, but she seems happy enough.