Moved in! - Day 24

Latest pics of the house and whats going on outside the house. Had a hiccup with our landscaper + poor melbourne weather meant we are delayed by 2 weeks!!! Not happy at all. Foxtel got installed (little satellite dish) so we can at least watch some tv.

Moved in! - Day 17

Pictures of the timber like venetian blinds we got for most windows. Finally we can remove the drabby cloth drapes we use to temporarily cover the windows. Also a pic of our complete dining set, with chairs! We don't have to eat our meals sitting on the floor any longer! :D

13-3-2011 (Moved in - Day 9)

We got some pictures finally! :D As you can see the house is pretty messy! A consequence of moving into a new home, plus we had to buy all our furniture.. yup everything except our mattress!! LOL So there were tons of boxes, plastic wraps, styrofoam, lying all over the floor. Vacumn cleaner, one of the greatest inventions of all time, working overtime, like 5 times a day!

You will notice in one of the pics Liwan busy puting furniture together. She was a machine!! Felt bad having to ask her help lift those heavy furniture.. :( Every single item we bought had a glass panel as part of the furniture and they weigh a ton! Some pieces of glass weighed up to 35kg! Assembly was a tedious and tiring process for both of us. As you can see from our pictures how the furniture looks like unassembled, and it actually took us almost 3 hours just to assemble one tv-stand!! Blame the poor installation instructions and the million bits and pieces, its like a jig-saw puzzle! Satisfying to see the end result though, when its put together right!

We got smarter too after the first few furnitures we assembled gave us sore wrists and backs.. ouch.. So we went out and bought a 12V Lithium Ion battery powered Ozito power drill to help tighten those hundreds of screws!! (free advertising here but its a great power tool for people looking at getting one, its got good warranty, compact, light-weight and easy to use)! It sure saved our poor wrists from repetitive strain. The power tool also came in very handy when i installed a security peep hole today. Drilled a 13mm hole in our brand new front door! Have to admit i was a bit hesistant about doing that to our brand new front door.. It was pretty easy though with the right tools which is not much - drill, drill bit, eye protection, security peep hole thingy, vacumn after. Toughest bit was making sure you get your measurements right and line it up, after that its a 5 minute job.

So whats left to do you might ask.. Well, there are still some furniture to turn up like a tallboy and 6 dining chairs. Also all our window furnishings are yet to arrive believe it or not.. grr.. so frustrating that it is taking so many weeks to turn up. We have been living in a fish bowl for over a week now! Everyone can see inside! Resorted to puting a few drapes on bedroom windows.

We will also start on our backyard landscaping soon. Was going to start yesterday or today but it rained cats and dogs both days. Still raining now in fact, so will have to check weather forecast although Melbourne weather is usually a lottery. I did head out to do some weeding and rubbish picking though, got rid of some nasty thorny weeds and picked up loads of large plastic bags, nails, sharp metal bits strewn all around the house by the tradesmen. Our backyard was a pretty dangerous place but its a lot safer now :)

And if you are wondering about our front yard landscaping, that is the developer's responsibility. They are meant to come do it up within 3 months of us submitting our certificate of occupancy. We don't expect too much, although we were at least given a choice of designs and the one we chose has 8 different types of plants, 1 tree, river pebbles, mulch, and granitic sand path so we think it won't look too bad. Question is when they will get down to work! Some homes only got their front yard done 6months after moving in!

Anyway thats it for now everyone, stay tuned for more developments! :)

8-3-2011 (Moved in! - Day 4)

Today is the 4th day since we moved into our house on th 5th of March! We couldn't update the blog as 1) We had no mobile internet, and 2) We simply had no time or energy to be updating the blog.

Also as some of you may know we have also welcomed a new family member and her name is Zella, and she is an 8 week old Golden Retreiver :) She is so beautiful but she has also kept us on our toes with her house training.

Will update with pictures soon!

10-2-2011 (Day 219)

Today is Day 219, and liquidated damages were meant to start applying after Day 220 but due to adverse weather conditions, the builder was entitled to apply for extension of the building timeframe to Day 224 (15-2-2011). After that, "Kah Ching"!! $$ our way!

Exposed aggregrate concrete driveway completed today, and our fencing + gate completed PROPERLY, as per contract. Just the remaining 100+ items left to rectify... getting there lol

PCI 7-2-2011 (Day 216)

Hey all, this is Belinda aka Liwan aka Ah Mei updating the blog. We just came back from our PCI (Practical Completion Inspection) with our site supervisor, Paul. Rob from New Homes Inspection was there to do a inspection too and guess what, i believe we found at least 1 hundred defects! Well...some are really tiny and easily fixed while others are pretty massive e.g. missing architraves, scratched glass (doors, windows and splash backs!), broken door handle, dent in the sink, tear in the ceiling etc. We were told by Paul that it usually take around an hour but we actually took almost 3hrs to complete our PCI! Rob also found some defects that we would never have noticed e.g. bow in the wall and cornices. Anyway, the painters came today to finish up our facade and here are the photos. I find the colors a little brown overload but Zee likes it. And btw today is DAY 216 and not DAY 222! Reason is we were told by builder that site start date was 6 days later than what we initially thought (1/7/11).. funny that because we even have photos to prove it! Anyway, in 4 days we will be into liquidated damages territory so the pressure is on them really :)

19-1-2011 (Day 203)

Latest pics, look at what they did to our front door in the last picture!! Can yous see something wrong there? We think the long door handle is a misfit, probably more suited to bigger and higher doors but our colour consultant didn't say a thing when we picked it and now it looks funny. What do you all think? Should we change the handle?

They have at least started cleaning up the house a bit, and our carpet is in! It's actually not as dark coloured as we thought it might turn out to be, so we are pleasantly pleased. Our glass splashback in the kitchen also looks better by the day. Initially when we first saw it we thought omg.. too dark, but it actually looks pretty good in the flesh and we quite like it now :)

And if you are building a house, be prepared for stinky toilets! *faintz* The tradies obviously used it, and we can smell it!! Gross! The porta-loo and temporary fencing has been removed from our property due to costs cutting so go figure where the tradies would go to relief themselves! And we can't complain, yet, because we are not meant to be inside the house taking pictures without permission from the builder :|