About Me

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EDIT - Now a 'work at the local school' mum a few days a week while juggling the job of parenting 3 teenagers! I am a SAHM who does work from home occasionally, dedicated to raising 3 Godly, independent, healthy children. Loving the home building process though it is not without challenges. I have fairly free reign over the creative aspect of the project...just not the financial side!

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Maintenance - where are we up to? PART 2

Di Lorenzo, Di Lorenzo a) why is it so hard to replace a tile? b) provide a level of customer service/communication?
The chipped tile in the ensuite needs replacing as previously noted here on the blog. I am wary of these tiles as there have been no sharp objects in our bathrooms to cause damage yet quite a few chips?

Visit 1 by DiLorenzo - no spare tiles left on site for our ensuite. Will need to return.

Visit 2 by DiLorenzo - they wanted to come in the school holidays. OK by me but requested a call a few days prior to inform me of approximate time of visit so I could plan the day around them. No such call. The MJH contractors asked them to call first thing that day to let me know whenabouts they would be there. I went off to the gym at 6am and received a phone call from them at 7:15am to tell me they were 20mins away! Quickly rang my husband to get him to get up & shower before the bathroom was out of action. He arrived 10mins later to children too scared to answer the doorbell and a half naked husband. Guess what? He had been given the incorrect tile to bring. After my coplaint to MJH Contracting about the situation, I receive a baffling call from Di Lorenzo asking me what we selected for our ensuite flooring tile - they do not have the records anymore. Excuse me?! Why send a tiler out with a tile to replace if you have no idea which one needs replacing? Does not make sense to me. I look up my colour sheet, read out the colour and size and I am assured it has been ordered. I book the new appointment for 'the first of the day' on 30/04/14 which is around 7-7:30am, knowing I am always around then.

Visit 3 by DiLorenzo -Waiting today from 7am for a doorbell ring. Nope! I ring DiLorenzo at 8:15am who manages to ring the tiler to see where he is. He needed to collect some materials from Pitt Town before starting his day and he should be there at 9am. Ummmm, no! There was a reason I requested 7am. Blood was boiling. Please reschedule for first thing tomorrow was my curt reply....or I will be home between 11:45am and 2:45pm. The representative said she would recontact the tiler and find out if he could make it today and call me straight back - well, that was 3 hours ago!!

That is just the tiles. I will return to post about the window saga later.....ongoing!

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Maintenance - where are we up to?

Travelling along pretty well at the moment, I'd say. A month after our inspection, we are now just waiting for DiLorenzo to replace a chipped ensuite tile as we didn't have any spares on site and to have all our windows fixed.

This ended up being a little confusing for all parties. ComfortPlus glazing on our windows and stacker doors was part of our package with Eden Brae  - energy efficiency. When the Airlite representative came out a few weeks ago, he indicated that it had been installed incorrectly on all windows bar one. A glazier had put it on the wrong side of the glass. This would be fixed with the damaged ones replaced. Imagine my surprise when I received an email asking if I had installed any film on my windows. Ahhhh NO! A meeting was then called between all relevant parties at our house to try and find out what the issue was and who had made mistakes. Well, it was confirmed that the ComfortPlus was on the wrong side. The confusing thing was that all the paperwork from Airlite indicated that we didn't have any glazing on our windows at all. Yet another mistake from them! Heads were shaking. It will take a day or 2 for them to fix the mistakes made.

Special mention must go to Genneral Stairs. They made a surprise visit on Saturday afternoon to replace the glass balustrade panel that had sticker/suction marks on it (not removable). The lovely company rep then went back out to the truck and brought in a larger panel to replace another one that was scratched (general wear & tear already). He had remembered its condition when he left the factory that morning and loaded an extra panel for what he called a nice customer. It's the little things like that that make a customer happy. I think I declared my undying love & affection for him there and then ;-)

MJH Contracting have done a great job of co-ordinating trades to be on-site. I am fortunate that I don't have to be out of the home for my work but to be honest, I would find it a little frustrating if days of annual leave needed to be taken for all the days when I needed to be at home.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Finally....the reveal!





A little teaser of what is to come....
Anastasia from re-do my space has written a blog post to show us BEFORE and AFTERS of some of my rooms. Anastasia's passion for her work meant that the post is HUGE and it was too difficult to embed in the blog.
Click on the link below and then click on the file icon in the top lefthand corner. Select OPEN - it should take you to the document. Enjoy having a look

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bydle2S04LpAdlhyanV6cE5NQU0/edit?usp=sharing

Thursday, March 20, 2014

The mystery of the cloudy windows


I can just imagine the heated conversations in the offices of Airlite Windows in a few hours. The mystery has been solved but not yet resolved. Part of Eden Brae's package is to put the relatively expensive ComfortPlus film on all of our windows to increase energy efficiency. Well, some poor sod at Airlite put it on the wrong side of the glass on many of our windows (the outside) and the acid wash used to clean the bricks has damaged the film. These 9 windows will need to be replaced outright and all the others (not damaged yet) will be reversed when they return to complete their work. The glazier who came to visit today explained that we will from time to time, see slight cloudy depending on the light but it will then disappear. The windows are also more prone to condensation due to the film. Now, we just have to wait for a few weeks whilst the glass is ordered/made/shipped/installed.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

HOME magazine

Today was the day that I got out of my gymgear and spruced up a little for an interview and photoshoot with NewsCorp. Eden Brae selected us to feature our house in a double page spread in the coming weeks/months. The lovely Anastasia from redo my space worked so hard accessorising and styling the rooms whilst I fluffed around. They took photos of the outside, the family/kitchen/meals, media room, master bedroom & ensuite. I'll let you know when it is going to be published - as long as we get warning!


Monday, March 10, 2014

Oh my!


Just discovered this today. The handrail is coming away from our hugely expensive, upgraded staircase. Of course, this is mere days after our Maintenance Inspection. Funny how we had a cheaply installed staircase at our previous home that after 11 years was showing no sign whatsoever of falling apart. We have been here 4 months - disappointing.
I will be in contact with Eden Brae to see what can be done and at this stage, who's responsibility it is?