About Me

My photo
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!

Thursday, May 22, 2014

HOME Magazine

To celebrate hitting a WHOPPING 70,000 page visits, I thought I would post the magazine article done for the Telegraph paper a few weeks back. Even since we did the photoshoot, we have put up more artwork and got more furniture to fill in the gaps - an ongoing process that my husband loves so much (sarcasm)
A kind friend, looking to rebuild herself was sent this article by Eden Brae. I was waiting to see if I could get access to an A3 scanner!




I also ordered some new Freedom scroll armchairs for our bedroom today to take advantage of their sale of 50% off the second furniture item. Unfortunately, I will need to wait around 14 weeks for them as they are not in stock.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

I can see clearly now

Our pantry window yesterday

Our pantry window today!
A big difference. I haven't been reporting in each day with the 'window journey' The short story is that Airlite rang last week and informed me that despite 3 of their representatives telling me I had ComfortPlus glazing, I didn't! They still believe that the damage is from the brickcleaning. Airlite were happy to replace any window in the house that I wished from them to replace. The following day, a glazier and I selected 20 to be replaced which happened today. If I feel the windows that have stayed are damaged (compared to the new ones installed today), I am to call for replacements. After six months, I can see clearly now!

Friday, May 2, 2014

Window issue STILL NOT resolved

I posted back on March 20 that the mystery of the cloudy windows had been solved but not yet resolved. Unhappily, I report that from my perspective we seem to be no closer to a resolution. It seems that Airlite cannot quite believe that one of their employees made 2 errors (installing a special glazing despite the work order stating it was to be standard clear glass AND installing it on the wrong side). I have had 3 people from Airlite out to check on the issue and assess the windows and now it seems they want to send out yet another to write a report. NO WAY! Enough of the round table discussions and buck passing, I want this fixed now. Six months of living with damaged windows is more than enough. And I don't want to wait around at home for tradespeople anymore than I already do.
Airlite need to replace the damaged windows (all parties agree) and flip the remaining undamaged but incorrectly glazed on the outside windows (all parties agree). I have requested that the new replacement windows be glazed to be like the other windows in the house (Airlite apparently are not agreeing to this as yet) Surely as a goodwill gesture and as compensation, this would not be an issue. I have been told that they wish for these windows to be as per my contract - standard clear glass. The only other option I will accept from Airlite is for them to replace every single window in this very large house with standard clear glass as per my contract with Eden Brae. I can assure you this is not on their list of preferred options at all.

A reminder of what some of my windows look like.....



Thursday, May 1, 2014

Update on Di Lorenzo

The tiler did show up, shortly after I hit the 'publish' button on yesterday's blog post despite not getting the call to confirm whether he would be making it or not. Fortunately for them, I was at home. The tile was replaced as requested though the tiler did say that the colour would be a little different due to being from a different batch. He wondered if this mattered to me given the tile was right in the middle of the bathroom and therefore very obvious. I felt I didn't really have a choice - a chipped tile or a slightly different shade? It looks fine!
Interestingly, I was able to view his job sheet for the day. Our job was listed for 10am (3rd job of the day) NOT the 7am timeslot. That information was not shared with me yesterday morning when I rang to ask where the tiler was ;-)

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