Rating our Metricon Build

Sorry for the long absence from the blog. As you can guess, moving in and turning the house into our home have taken priority. It’s now been 6 weeks since we moved in and boy does it feel friggin amazing to be living in our new house! Metricon’s “love where you live” slogan is absolutely ringing true for us and I pinch myself with gratitude that I get to live in such a beautiful home. 

I’ve had people asking me about our experience building with Metricon Homes. Did we have a good experience? Would we build with them again? So to ease myself back into blogosphere, here’s a brief review of our Metricon build.

THE GOOD

Design

We looked at countless display homes before deciding to build the Hudson. It was a bit of a gamble choosing a design purely based on a YouTube video. But I’m happy to report that the real thing has exceeded all of our expectations. We just love the layout of the house – the spacious, open plan design works extremely well for our lifestyle. 

We love the generous bedroom sizes, especially the master bedroom. We love that the children have their own zones upstairs. So far they have managed to keep their stuff away from the main living areas downstairs. Let’s hope it stays that way!

Sales

Our Metricon journey started two years ago when we first met our sales consultant back in August 2013. We were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to kick start the knockdown rebuild process. No thanks to the hot Sydney property market, it took us 8 long months and countless auction misses before we finally secured the ideal block to build the dream home. Our consultant was fantastic and provided us with preliminary sitings of the many blocks we considered building on free of charge. 

She was also good at giving suggestions on design aspects and expertly steered us away from unnecessary expensive variations. For example she persuaded us to go for aluminium bifold doors rather than the more pricey timber doors, which she also pointed out required more maintenance. The price estimate she provided after the initial meeting ended up being right on the money so no nasty surprise when the tender finally came back. 

Construction

Going into the construction phase, we were a bit wary of the long road ahead. We were prepared for a challenging, stressful and not so enjoyable few months after reading nightmare stories of bad experiences during construction with issues and delays aplenty! But thank goodness our experience was fantastic. 

The hero of the build was without a doubt our super awesome site manager.  Right from the first site meeting through to the end he was nothing but professional, helpful, patient, polite, friendly and easy to deal with. He went above and beyond on a few occasions and we really can’t thank him enough for being as hands-on, thorough and pedantic as he was throughout the build especially given he was managing 18 sites concurrently. We would definitely build with Metricon again if we were guaranteed of being allocated JM!

THE NOT SO GOOD

Price

Having considered other builders, we know we could have built a similar sized house with a similar level of finishes for a lot less than what our Metricon house ended up costing. 

Honestly we found Metricon’s level of inclusions a bit average compared to other builders. For example, Caesarstone benchtops in the kitchen and wet areas were not included in the base price. The standard Metricon kitchen appliances were also not on par with the standard offering from other builders. Personally we would be far happier with a Smeg, Bosch, Blanco or Westinghouse kitchen than Metricon’s Technika or Elba by Fisher & Paykel.

Studio M

The colour selection process could have been the highlight of the pre-construction phase. It certainly was the stage we had been looking forward to the most but the reality turned out to be a frustrating and stressful experience. In hindsight, we should have insisted on including all variations and upgrades in the tender specifically the kitchen re-design. The saga over the kitchen design turned into a royal pain in the you-know-what and left a bad taste. 

Our consultant was lovely but she didn’t really provide any proactive advice or suggestions during the interior colour selection appointment. Luckily we had done our homework beforehand, otherwise it would have been a more unpleasant experience. We also found Metricon a bit inflexible and not accommodating in allowing non-standard variations. For instance, we asked about upgrading the kitchen appliances to Miele but were told we could only upgrade to their supplier’s stock. 

Electrical

Perhaps we should have done more legwork before the electrical selection instead of relying heavily on the consultant’s expertise to guide us. We felt under prepared and rushed into making decisions and unfortunately there were a few things that were missed or turned out to be done poorly.

Here are a couple of classic examples of epic fails😡

Maybe someone can enlighten us as to why the electricians wired the step lights to the same switch as the stair pendants? So we can’t actually turn the step lights on without the uber bright Moooi balls lighting up the stair void. First world problems we know!

Step lights were wired to the same switch as Moooi pendants

We were also left scratching our heads over the location of the bedside light points that the electricians saw fit to place nearly 1 metre from the edge of the queen-sized bed. Now we are left with holes in the ceiling to patch! We also need to relocate the switches closer to the bedside tables. Arrgh😈

I spy with my little eye a hole in the ceiling👿

Overall we are very happy with our Metricon experience. They delivered a beautiful, high quality house that we are so proud to call our home. Big thumbs up! 

Handover

What a whirlwind few days! Practical completion took place on Thursday 13th and we took possession of keys on Friday 14th August. Yeah baby, our Hudson is finally ours!!!

 

Handover gift from Metricon

We are busy unpacking and organising post handover jobs. It will be a while yet before we can rest and truly enjoy the fruits of our labour. But the road ahead will be much easier now that we are living in our new home. 

My little blog has clocked over 54,000 page views since I published my very first post back in June 2014! Wow I’m blown away. I feel like I’ve shared this journey with you awesome readers. Thank you for all the comments, suggestions and design ideas over the last year😄 I will be back to blog about my post-build reviews and share moved-in photos.

The winner of the blog’s GUESS OUR HANDOVER DATE COMPETITION is the lovely Deb, who was only one day shy of the actual handover date with her guess of 13 August 2015. I will be in touch to organise delivery of Shaynna’s book. 

CONGRATULATIONS Deb👏

Waiting impatiently

Today marks week 37 of what is supposedly a 32 week contract period. Conveniently for Metricon there are provisions in the contract that entitle the builder to claim an extension of the contract period. The two main causes of delays and extensions applicable to our build are due to adverse weather and the industry shutdown being a 5 week period commencing on or about 22 December. 

Unfortunately after taking these extensions into account, we are still inside the contract time. Mind you, the liquidated damages that we are entitled to if the building works do not reach practical completion by the end of the contract period is outrageously inadequate – $30 for each working day equates to roughly $180 per week! If you’re renting and paying the mortgage, any delay imposes a strain on the finances. Sigh😭

So, where are we at I hear you ask?

• We received notice of Practical Completion (PC) for Thursday 13th August but JM hasn’t confirmed time for the PC walk through. 
• Metricon sent the final invoice and we are now waiting for our bank to issue the cheque. 
• We received an email outlining all the items that are our responsibility to complete prior to the issue of Interim and Final Occupancy Certificates. The only item required for the IOC is the installation of privacy screen to the master bedroom balcony. This is proving tricky as Metricon won’t allow our contractor onsite to complete the works until after handover. 
• We also received our independent building inspector’s Pre-Handover report. For peace of mind, I highly recommend investing the money to engage a licenced builder to check for any defective workmanship or incomplete works. Houspect’s report contained 26 pages of detailed notes and visual evidence of all external and internal defects. Some of the defects were obvious but a few were surprising and would have been missed had we not had Houspect carry out the inspection. JM has his work cut out to rectify all the imperfections before our PC walk through. 
• Temporary fence and portaloo have been removed. This is a huge milestone and signals the end is very very close!

Builders fence gone

Suffice to say, we are officially over the build! We just want our house.

Home Stretch

Sadly there was no Christmas in July at the new house this year. The majority of readers who played the blog’s handover date guessing competition picked a date in July. Unfortunately the saga over the timber flooring cost us precious time. Good news is that we are back on track and handover is just around the corner. 

This week is all about inspections, inspections, inspections! 

1. The Construction Manager completed his inspection on Monday. 
2. Our independent inspector Houspect went through the house this morning to carry out their final checks of the exterior and interior finishes. We hope to receive their report within 24 hours. 
3. Finally, Metricon’s Quality Assurance will conduct their separate checks tomorrow. 

Depending on the list of items from each inspection, our fantastic site manager is quietly optimistic of presenting the house to us next week. We actually had an informal walk through with JM today and the only red flag was painting issues. JM duly noted our concern and he reassured us that the painters are on standby for the final touch ups. So, we think that Practical Completion will be short and simple. 

Handover will be dependent on a few things, the major one being the interim occupancy certificate (IOC). One of the conditions of the Development Consent is a privacy screen along the South-Eastern side of the first floor balcony. The screen is our responsibility but as per the terms of our contract with Metricon, we will need to have this job attended to after handover as they do not allow clients’ contractors on site. We hope the appointed Principal Certifying Authority (PCA) Local Group don’t hold back on issuing the IOC. Fingers crossed.

Now for the visual updates…

Here is the infamous H-trim across the hallway. Not the prettiest sight in the world but one we have to live with! 

Expansion gap across hallway

I have to say JM and Carpet Call have really gone the extra mile to keep me happy. I couldn’t be any more satisfied with the rectification work around the kitchen and butlers pantry. The caulking around the island is fantastic and looks a million dollars😄

Caulking around the waterfall

 

 

Butlers Pantry

Appliances have been delivered but only the microwave has been installed.  

Microwave in situ

One of my first world problems is no more😜 Square shower heads are in and they look awesome.   

It now looks like a close race between Trixee (11th August) and Deb (13th August). Good luck ladies. I will be in touch as soon as we have a date😄

   
   

Tripping the light fantastic

As the anxious wait for news of PCI continues, we are keeping ourselves distracted by ticking things off the long list of post handover jobs. It feels like every spare minute we have is spent running house-related errands.

Last weekend was all about lights. I had already spent a lot of time short listing pendant choices for the house so it was a relatively simple selection process.

For the bedrooms, the girls have given the large ‘Polk’ pendant the thumbs up. Little missy moo and miss 14yo have chosen white whilst miss C has picked the black pendant. I couldn’t justify splurging on the Coco Flip but I found the Polk a fantastic alternative.

Large ‘Polk’

For the entrance, we want something subtle but not boring, and won’t clash with the hero of the space – Tarisse King ‘Earth Images’. So, we are leaning towards the idea of a timber pendant like this timber ribbon.

Timber Ribbon

Or maybe the Bali Ball..

Bali Ball

In the dining room, we need a fairly large pendant to provide sufficient lighting for our 2.7m x 1.2m reclaimed wooden table. The lighting expert at Z Two suggested getting two smaller pendants (60cm diameter) instead of one large (90cm). We only provisioned one light point in the dining room so before we commit to buying two pendants, we need to check with the electrician.

Wood Shaving Pendant

We have three light points provisioned for the kitchen island. To tie in with the black dining room pendant, we have decided on the Tom Dixon Beat.

 

Tom Dixon Beat Fat Black

The stairwell void is earmarked for the  bold statement piece – Raimond Moooi pendant. The only question we are mulling over is whether we should go for one large (89cm) pendant or a cluster of three pendants – possibly two small (43cm) and one medium (61cm) at offsetting heights.  Decisions decisions decisions!

Moooi