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😄

   
   

Moving on

We met the SM this morning and begrudgingly accepted Metricon’s decision in regard to the flooring issues. Whilst they agreed to remove the trims around the kitchen and waterfall edge, they stood firm on the expansion joint in the hallway. We challenged the join as the floating floorboards in their display house – ‘Henderson 42’ in HomeWorld was laid without trims in the hallway.

The response was there had been a policy change and it’s now mandatory to install a join if the floor area spans more than 15 meters in length. This bit of info should have been clearly communicated to us but at no point during our flooring appointment were we told about it. I feel very much let down especially given all the to’ing and fro’ing over the scotia beading! Honestly I would gladly take the edge trims over the in-your-face join across the hallway any day.

As disappointing as it is to have the join, the good news is they agreed to replace the C-channels with a H-trim which should hopefully give us a much nicer finish. We are relieved to put this hiccup behind us so the SM could move forward with the rest of the final touches.

Apart from the flooring dramas, we couldn’t be any happier with the house. It still feels unreal to be so close to the end after months and months of planning, designing and stressing over every little aspect! Our Hudson is almost ours! Excitement level is running at an all time high right now! Eeeek😄

Guest powder room

  

Shower screen (with a door) in guest powder room

 

Kids bathroom

 

Kids bathroom

  

 

Ensuite – dual rail shower head still to be replaced

So where to from here?

The line up for next week looks something like this…

• Carpet Call are committed to finishing rectification work by no later than Monday
• The carpenters and Castlewood Kitchens are back on Tuesday to re-fit the skirting and kick boards respectively
• Painters are coming on Wednesday for touch ups
• Brick and house cleaners on Thursday

If everything goes to plan, the Construction Manager will be carrying out his inspection on Monday 27th July and then the QA inspection on Wednesday. We are praying they both pass the house so we can get our independent building inspector in for his final inspection. Only when all these checks have been signed off will the SM present the house to us. So as much as I have my heart set on getting keys this month, I just don’t see it happening. Your guess is as good as mine😄

If you haven’t already played, enter your handover date guess for your chance to win a copy of The Block judge Shaynna Blaze’s book.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Well today marked 219 days since the official start of construction. This week also saw us reach a milestone with all the major items now being completed! I can finally say we are in the home stretch. Woohoo!!!

View towards front door

Up close and personal of the Island

From a different angle

Under stairs storage

Carpet feels super soft underfoot

Childs Retreat – love the natural light flooding this space

View of our lovely ensuite

Garage door finally installed – ‘Caoba’

Bosch security alarm also operational

#FirstWorldProblems

I drive my husband crazy sweating the small stuff. It’s very easy to lose sight of the big picture and focus on the negatives when things aren’t done to expectations. I’ve tried following hubby’s lead and gloss over the little imperfections but some things are just too important to play down! To keep the blog honest, I thought I would share our list of building dramas. Thank goodness it’s a short list!

Welcome to my first world problems😄

Floor Trims
The first one is the mother of all FWP. As I previously rambled here, we paid the hefty variation to delete all beading throughout the house so imagine my disappointment at seeing trim edging all over the kitchen floors. JM hasn’t given me an update in regard to the kitchen trims but guess what else made me see red this morning? It would appear the installer saw fit to put a join smack bang in the middle of the hallway! Pardon my French but seriously WTF👺I duly sent a “please explain” email to JM.

What’s wrong with this picture? 

Shower head
Well, my pedantic nature saved the day! By chance, Nick and I were at the house during the plumbing fitoff. I noticed straight away that the round shower heads were installed in the ensuite instead of the square ones we selected. It turned out we overlooked the typo in the colour schedule and Metricon’s reply was short and sweet, “sorry but you signed off so bad luck”! I was kicking myself for not picking up the error especially as I recall discussing it with the colour consultant. I feel slightly embarrassed to admit this but I spent hours in bed thinking back and berating myself for being so careless when I had a flash of genius. It dawned on me to cross check the product code on the colour schedule with the code on Reece’s website and ta da the code specified on the schedule in fact pertains to the square head. I felt a bit ridiculous arguing over square vs round shower head but needless to say Metricon relented and the round shower heads will be replaced ASAP.  Phew, I can sleep better now😝

Porcher Cygnet Round Dual Shower Rail

Tap point in guest powder room
I have to thank my fellow Metricon home builder ausbuster for flagging this next FWP. We upgraded all our toilets to BTW so the tap points are hidden behind the wall cavity. For unknown reason our downstairs powder room seems to have an extra tap point near the floor next to the toilet. Neither of the upstairs bathrooms has this tap point so it baffles me why the guest powder room had been done differently. Stay tuned for JM’s response!

Stairwell Painting
We chose to paint the ground floor and first floor walls a different shade of Dulux Sandy Day. Downstairs, we went full strength and upstairs we decided to go half a shade lighter. Given the stair walls are more visible upstairs, it was a no brainier to run Sandy Day Half Strength along the stairs to tie in with the rest of the first floor walls. This was clearly specified on the colour schedule so I didn’t expect any surprises at all. Hmmm, either the painters didn’t check the contract or they completely disregarded our instructions? The mind boggles!!

Painters hedging their bets?

One final vent…I received an email from our Metricon construction support in regard to installation of electrical meters. Apparently connection of power to the new house was not included in the contract. HUH??? How could such a critical item be left out of the contract? If I hadn’t read ausbuster’s blog post about this, I would have been blindsided by this latest news. I haven’t received the formal quote from Vaccaro but I emailed the electrical consultant to get an estimate and she advised it could cost anywhere from $500 to $1500. Not happy jan!

Are we there yet?

Well, one of the last major jobs was completed yesterday. Our spotted gum timber floorboards look amazing!  They really complement the rich walnut stain on the front door and stairs.  

It’s been an anxious wait for the timber floors more so because I’d been stressing about Metricon complying with the ‘no beading’ variation. We paid the hefty $2000 variation for the privilege of having no beading around the floors including the kitchen. I even reminded the site manager about this who reassured me that they would caulk around the waterfall edge to seal the expansion gap. I thought we were on the same page. But guess what I saw around the island? So the trims don’t look as bad as the scotia BUT we paid a lot of money not to have any type of beading! You can imagine the conversation I had with JM👺 He promised to escalate this issue to management and I hope for a positive outcome. Seems to be a recurring theme in our build lately….issues seem to be coming up left right centre! 😱

Cleaners seem to have done a good job giving the house a once over.

Kitchen and butlers pantry

Green subway splashback tiles are finally laid. They look a different shade to the sample we picked from. Hmm jury’s out.

Jade green tiles in the Butlers Pantry

‘AFA Vertus’ double undermount sinks

Roca The Gap BTW toilet suite

Kids’ bath ‘Decina Metro Island’

Ensuite – ‘Kado Lure’ freestanding bath

Ensuite – ‘Axa H10’ basins

Stormwater pit in situ

What’s on the agenda for next week?

• Carpet
• Shower screens, mirror and glass splashback 
• Carpentry adjust and fixes

JM will do a thorough inspection of the whole house before passing it on to the construction manager who will then complete his own checks. Depending on the number of items that need fixing, the QA team will then be booked to come in for final inspection before client presentation. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I don’t see why Metricon can’t deliver the house by the end of July. Here’s hoping!