Site inspection

I went to the house to find most of the tiling completed. In fact, the tilers told me that they will have completed it today. They schedule 5-7 days but a large team was assigned our job so they have been able to fly through it.

It was great to meet Matt who seems very thorough and organised. I know our home is in safe hands with him. He is, though, going on leave next week for a few days. He is aiming to get the house ready for our Tyrells inspection as soon as Troy returns from leave.

The new things I discovered today were that the towel rails have been incorrectly installed. Standard for our house is a 600mm double rail in the ensuite and an 800mm single rail in the main bathroom. We requested an extra for the main. Unfortunately the 2 800mm rails have been put in the ensuite and the smaller one in the main. We decided to keep the ensuite as is and order another smaller one to add to the main bathroom. Here's hoping EBH don't slap me with a variation for this mistake too ;-)
The cladding on the front of the house has been painted white as per the eaves rather than Mountain Shadow like the render. This needs to be changed.

A busy day at the house all up with tilers, site cleaners and a carpenter there doing touchups.

PS. Oh and the front door handles?? The door aren't hung correctly so when that gets fixed, the handles should be even.

Uneven to your eyes too??

Hmmmmm, a little uneven, I think. Can't wait to meet Matt on site next week to check out all the other hardware items that have been installed since my last visit.

Site visit = photo fest

Alfresco tiles

Rangehood, cupboards with THE handles, stonetops

Undermount sink & stonetop

Sink 'run'

Whopping watertank

Powder room vanity

Front door from inside

Main bathroom vanity - part of 3 way bathroom

Ensuite vanity

Ensuite - floor to ceiling tiling

Stackstone is nearly finished

It was rather difficult to talk, measure and take photos at the same time so there aren't too many for you but you get the idea.
Kitchen handles - I think we will leave them for the moment and readdress later down the track if we wish to.
Everything else is looking great. There is a slab issue in the kitchen/family area that is being addressed before tiles are laid (apparently an easy fix)
I am particularly loving the laundry but I was too busy ooh-ing and aah-ing to take a photo. The LONG bench on one side and the double cupboard on the other are amazing!

Front door is in

And a beautiful aqua colour they are...for now. It will be painted a deep grey colour soon.

Onsite photos - yay!

From water tank slab looking up the side...towards garage

From backyard to the house

From rumpus room to kitchen/pantry

Rumpus room window (room with a view - NOT!)

Where the front doors and sidelights will be

For AJ - the mudroom area

Family room & alfresco from doorway

Photo fest today. I was fortunate enough to have a site visit for the first time today. I am still buzzing! So excited. Tim, from Hayward Landscapes, and I walked around the site so that he could get a better idea of the lay of the land to put together a quote/concept plan.
I was able to meet Troy, our SS, today as well. Good to put a face to the name. I am confident in his ability to deliver us a quality house. He did pick up a brickie error today.

As you can see from this photo, they have bricked where there is meant to be cladding (roof gable). Troy asked if I wanted it left this way. No, thanks! It will be pulled down in preparation for the cladding to be done.

Eden Brae are proving to be SLOW at the moment

And this is being experienced by a few of my fellow H1 members too. This is more a to-do list for me but these are the things that need following up.
1) Quote for a bulkhead in the laundry 07/08 - not needed according to CSA 16/08.
2) Quote for the change in front doors & rumpus sliding doors to Madison 06/08 - received & accepted
3) Follow through on wardrobe shape in main 02/08 - not needed as will leave as is.
4) Quote for extra aircon vents to the laundry, main bathroom & ensuite 14/08

Also waiting on.....
1) Kitchen, bathroom & laundry 3D drawings from Kitchen Culture 17/07 received 22/08 accepted 22/08
2) Answers from electrical guy to tie that variation up 14/08 (DONE 17/08 - accepted)
3) Details from Di Lorenzo for tiles, carpet & kitchen splashback 14/08
4) Quote from Abbey Blinds though won't hold my breath - someone is still waiting on their quote from NOV 2011!!) 14/08
5) Quote from Genneral Stairs for balustrading 14/08 - received & approved
6) Relocation of gas point from inside to outside 14/08
7) Images of wardrobes from HOG 07/08  Received 24/08
8) Image of standard mirrors from HOG 16/08

And now with a change to the Front door colour

Lucinda, my gorgeous friend, photoshopped the front door colour as I was not loving the Nutbush colour. This is what we came up with.....

Much better...and I think we may even go a tad darker & greyer.

Fiddly bits and followups

It has been a while since I have posted an update. Nothing major has happened just loads more research on the forums to see what others are doing and going back through emails to see if there is any item that seems to have fallen through the cracks.

1) The pool contract is here for some light bedtime reading. Hmmmm, I just love reading all that fine print. I also need to talk to the mortgage broker soon to see if we need to take the pool allowance out of the EBH contract as Concept Pools are not related in any way to EBH. (This is more a little note to myself than of any great interest to anyone!)

2) Waiting to hear back from the estimators on the Madison front door and door to rumpus room as pictured below.

3) Still waiting to hear about the shape of our Bed 1 robes - the plan has them as Ushaped but the design of the fitout from Wardrobe World is named L-shaped. Don't want 2/3 of the robes not shelved!

4) Not being au fait with reading plans, I have been a little in the dark about measurements of certain things in my house. This has been highlighted when planing the luxuriously large laundry. No-one has told me what sort of material the laundry cupboards will be made of - laminex? No, gyprock inside, architraves and flush doors. No heights, depths etc. Discovered the height of them which does not go to the ceiling. Now I am waiting on estimating to get back to me on a quote for a bulkhead over these cupboards - I really do not want an open space above the cupboards for dust and lint to collect (or for me to dump stuff!) I am guessing that the picture below, from a display home, are the standard height.

 

5) Caught EBH out on a little error this week too. Reading through a PCV for me to sign there was an extra charge for $494 to install 2 upgraded freestanding baths. Pretty sure that the baths I selected were not freestanding (don't want them) and even if I did, there was no mention of this when I signed the Cooks Plumbing quote. A quick apology was made when I pointed this out to them. I reckon some clients might just sign away without checking too carefully.

6) Finished all my variations (I hope) with Kitchen Culture for the kitchen (obviously), bathroom vanities and the laundry benches. Waiting on my 3D drawings and plans which will take approximately another 2 weeks.
I really wish EBH used more than one company for their fittings etc (kitchen, electricals, flooring etc) These companies know that we are 'stuck' with using them so there is no competitive pricing at all and customer service could be better.
Whilst I am on suggestions for EBH, I will note here for future reference (mine) that my idea would be to have another level of inclusions called Platinum (or the like) for clients like me who seem to want all the upgrades. They could include things like, but not limited to, glass splashback, stone tops in kitchen & bathrooms, wallfaced toilets, raised ceilings/doors, softclose drawers, pot drawers, 2 DPOs per room, more TV points, more data points, overhead cupboards in kitchen & laundry, higher category of carpet & tiles.......
Anyone else on my wavelength?

Ramble over now. Excited about Tuesday's appointment - electrical, window coverings, staircase and floor coverings. I am sure there will be a big post on Tuesday or Wednesday!

Mainly shelves today

Today I spent a fair bit of time following up on loose ends because I received replies to emails that I had been busy sending.
1) Questioned the shape of our wardrobe fitout as it is listed as Lshape whereas our robes are more U-shaped. I would prefer for the whole robe to be done not 2/3s of it. HOG is checking this out with both EBH and Wardrobe World who are doing the job. I can see more $$$$ coming! In looking at this, I began to think about how we already had shelving/hanging rod in the 5 robes and we had not been given a credit for it. Sent an email to EBH who told me that I wasn't entitled to a credit as we were upgrading from the standard wire shelves. This didn't make any sense to me nor my cohort on H1 forum. I copied some of the credit examples they gave me to EBH and voila (!) the estimating team are working out what I am owed!
2) After I signed my 'final' Kitchen Culture variation, I realised that there were colour items missing from there. We decided to upgrade to a white silk finish on the main bathroom vanity and that had not been quoted or recorded and one of our standard choices for the ensuite was not recorded either.
The really big oopsie on my part was that we are having a large bench run the length of the laundry with a shelf underneath it where we can put some baskets for bits n pieces. Didn't really think about the washer and dryer that will need to fit under that shelf - well, it won't (!) so we will need to cut the shelf short!
3) It seems strange but we have never actually seen an image of the large feature front doors that we have agreed to pay nearly $2K for. I think I just trusted the lovely sales person when he said that I would want to upgrade to a nice feature door. I have never been able to find this particular door on the web. Finally today, HOG have been able to produce a picture and I am not sure I like it :-(

This is THE door but we have 2 of them with sidelights and a highlight - too much glass and not enough door in my eyes. Agree?!

I prefer something more along these lines......

 

I think my next project is to research more front doors.

External Colours

Two days later and my head is still swimming with colours, designs and choices. It was a long and exhausting day, made that little bit easier by having Anastasia by my side. Here are the external colours we are using

BRICKS - Chocolatto

ROOF, GUTTERS, FASCIA, WATERTANK ETC - Colorbond Monument

RENDER, CLADDING & BARGE - Taubmans Mountain Shadow (no image)

FRONT DOOR - Taubmans Viking Grey (no image)

GARAGE DOOR - Colorbond Dune

EAVES & ALFRESCO CEILINGS - Bristol Greylocks

LAUNDRY DOOR - Taubmans Surfmist

WINDOWS & REAR STACKER DOORS - Airlite Bond Off White (no image)

Let's see how it actually turns out when on large areas, with shadowing, full sun etc. You can get the basic idea though...