Concept Pools

I have been asked by a few people about my experience so far with Concept Pools, specifically if I would recommend them. Publicly, my answer is that the jury is still out on that one.
I would change the way I went about the whole process. In my naivety  and desire to make things easier on myself, I made the assumption that engaging the services of Concept Pools would be a good move. Concept have an office at Home Options Gallery and build the pools for Eden Brae's display homes so I thought there was a link there between the two. Nothing could be further from the truth as confirmed in an email from the owner today. I went with Concept thinking that the two companies would help to make the process smooth and didn't even shop around for competitive quotes.

I have found the people I have dealt with to assume that I have knowledge on pool building and get frustrated with my questions; I have found communication delays to be less than desirable either by email or phone call; I am unsure about the quality of the build as to date I only have a concrete shell; I have been asked to keep Eden Brae management out of my email correspondence (I CCed one into my last one) as it has 'nothing to do with them'; I was told before signing that it would take a week to finish off the pool once the house was completed. I was not told that 'week' would be over stages with long gaps due to situations outside their control from other companies. One week is now in an ideal world, according to them;

So to date, we are still waiting for the Finishing Supervisor to contact the landscaper to schedule a time to start his work laying pipes. We were expecting that to be done about 2 weeks ago.

Read this and make your own decision about whether you would use them. I'll keep you posted.

PHOTOS - landscaping progress

Beauty in building - The Ruby Room!

I have been trying to work out how I can incorporate beauty/grooming treatments into my building blog and I got stuck - no idea apart from needing a good massage to relieve the tensions of building. My friends, Mike & Jemma, have recently taken over The Ruby Room in Westfield Hornsby (down near Woolworths) Jemma has managed the place for years and looked after me VERY well. The beautiful couple have bought out the previous owners. Nothing like starting a business and planning a wedding at the same time. If you are in need of a little pampering or deforestation, call in to see Jemma (9476 6672) - she will look after you even more so if she knows I sent you.

Things I love (and not so much) in the bathrooms

After living in the house for a week or so, I thought I would tell you what I think about the bathrooms. This will be particularly helpful for those building themselves.

I love the handheld shower heads. Brilliant for hair washing with young daughters and easy shower cleaning.

Hmmmm - we cannot have an open window and fully open slats. Design error.

Best thing ever! Nightlight near the toilet. Actually gives enough light for the whole landing upstairs.

The narrower design of the internal bowl means we are getting a lot more, um...skid marks!

I was going to add that the height of the shelves means that larger items cannot stand up (eg. hairspray, moisturiser) but I then discovered that the shelves are actually adjustable.

Landscaping mud!

A few photos from Monday after all that rain in Sydney. Getting to our front door required serious navigational skills to avoid sliding or falling into muddy waters. Fast forward 2 days and the scene is completely different. Photos to come tomorrow.

Mud glorious mud!

This is a photo of me outside my front door yesterday...well almost! Oh my, I wish someone was with me and was able to take some video footage to share with you all. I decided to take another load to the house and started to wade through the deceptively OK area of dirt near the front door. I was wearing thongs having recently thrown my gumboots out due to low usage. I took one step into the dirt and immediately sunk low to above my ankle. I very nearly lost balance and topple head first into the mud. I managed to extract my leg only to leave my thong behind. Not wanting to lose my precious $5 thongs, I stuck my arm into the abyss to reclaim the footwear. I decided to change direction and head towards the laundry door on the side of the house. The very small, slippery, muddy walkway made me land awkwardly onto the newly formed concrete retaining wall. Picked myself back up again with 3 limbs completely muddied and get into the house. I hoisted myself onto the laundry bench and twist around to place my feet into the sink. I say a quick THANKYOU prayer for the choice of a detachable spray nozzle, only to find that we have virtually no water. I do the best I can to clean up, feeling fairly miserable about the state of our yard.
In fact, I then go into research mode to try and work out what we are going to do for the official moving day on Friday. Lots of great ideas from friends. I even lost sleep over it last night - it was stressing me. MDF, pallets, cardboard, astroturf, gravel etc. I received a welcome call from Tim, from Hayward Landscapes, today following an email from me asking for ideas. Tim said he would organize a load of gravel for the driveway and some pallets to make a bridge to the front door. Thank you, Tim! Now to organize the inside to prevent further dirtiness - plastic galore to be purchased to protect carpet, tiles and glass balustrading.

And the water pressure? Upon receiving my plea for help, Troy sent an email asking some questions like, hot water too? all taps inside & out? when was it noticed? etc. I had mentioned it to Tim this morning. When he drove past the house, he stopped to check the water meter and found the tap had been turned off! No need for the plumber to make another visit and I provided a few laughs for Bev, the Customer Service Manager when she found out. I think we are going to have a few issues like this being on a 'normal' street as opposed to our private access road off a cul-de-sac. We also found our letterbox ripped out of the ground on Sunday morning.

Landscaping update - photos

It has been a while between posts. I have been very busy moving things into the new house, box by box. I aim to pack the car each night with items and then each morning take them over to the new house and unpack straight away. Yesterday's project was Brad's wine collection. Here is some of it....

The overflow area

The wine cupboard

Back to the landscaping. It started in earnest 2 weeks ago. Each day we have had 4-7 guys working solidly on the site, making more mess ;-) We all have fine dirt in every orifice. Every outside surface of the house is filthy again and the floors inside are incredibly dirty. The concrete will be poured in about 10 days time, giving us a driveway and front porch area. The landscapers have impressed me no end and are a credit to their company. Polite, friendly, courteous, always offering assistance and greeting me each time they see me. A pleasure to have around. Here are some progress photos....