Our Garden Retreat: September 2014

Friday 26 September 2014

The Easiest Floor Ever!

In my mind, we would whip the flooring down in record time and then we would be able to move in straight away. After all, the box says it's the easiest floor ever and that anyone can do it!

Haha haha haha haha! Don't mind my delusional crazy laugh because geez, was I wrong! Now, I'm not a 'handy' person at all and probably never will be (and either is my husband) but my dad's a builder and has laid timber floor, laminate, stick on vinyl planks and tiles heaps of times. We were told this click together, locking floor would be the easiest of all. The you tube video shows people just sliding and clicking the planks together easily.

From the start it wouldn't click together and every plank needed to be hammered in. It was taking hours just to do the front entry area :(

After 4 and a half days we had finished about half the house and were exhausted!! Maybe it was acclimatising to the house or maybe we were just getting better at doing it but it was a litle easier as we went. When we got to the kitchen we had to stop because we still hadn't had the end panel of the island bench replaced.

I eventually heard from the kitchen maker and apparently the end panel will be delivered on Thursday. I told him that it was holding us up and he said it may come a day earlier but it's unlikely. Grr, if only it had been ordered after PCI like it was supposed to and it would have been all done by now!

We had the garage door people come out to fix the tension of the door as it was not closing smoothly and the scratched oven handle was replaced. I've also organised a different bath spout to be installed as it is round as opposed to the square look of everything else in the bathroom.

Anyway, the floor looks great but is a pain to lay and we will need to move in and then finish it at a later time unfortunately.

Post handover work

In the days after handover we decided we would spend a few days laying the flooring before moving in. We also needed to make temporary steps and MJH needed to move some of the fill away from the side fence in order to obtain the occupation certificate.

The bobcat had been arranged to come out and dig some of the fill away from the fence so while he was there we asked him to push some dirt outside the patio, alfresco and back door to satisfy the inspector for the occupation certificate. During the morning he accidentally broke two pipes leading to the storm water. Luckily my dad was there and had spare pipes at home and quickly made the necessary repairs.

We also needed to make a temporary step from bricks outside the laundry door. The right hand side of the yard had a deep muddy puddle the length of the house, so it was a very messy job!

My husband and dad went to Harvey Norman to pick up the 85 boxes of flooring and we unloaded it all into the garage. Each box weighs 20kg so it proved to be a great workout! I have been dying to see the floor down. I love the colour and it will be nice not to have the worry of cleaning carpet.

So we got to work scraping lumps of paint and plaster off the floor and vacuuming the flooring, oh probably about 30 times, lol! It was cute to see the kids trying to help clean up too.

Handover... and a roller coaster of emotions

After a two week wait after PCI, handover day finally rolled around on the 18th of September. I couldn't wait! My husband was at work so he missed out on being there. .

I was given lots of keys, went through some paperwork and checked what had been done on the list of things I'd identified at PCI to repair or complete.

I was extremely annoyed and disappointed to see that there were still about a dozen scratches on the overhead cupboard doors and the end panel of island bench had been touched up with paint. However, it was patchy, uneven and not glossy like the rest of the panel. I commented to the SS that for a $5000 upgrade to polyurethane I would not be accepting any scratches. He agreed that it wasn't adequate and said they'd replace the cupboard doors and end panel. If only they'd done that before handover like they were supposed to, instead of a poor quality quick-fix! So I'd waited a fortnight for something that never got done properly anyway. The other thing that was really upsetting was that we were going to be held up laying our floor now. The floor boards all interlock and click together so need to start at one end of the house and continue to the other end.

On a positive note, there weren't too many other things to be completed or repaired:2 glass stackers had been replaced due to scratches, the painters had fixed up the walls and skirting, bricks had been cleaned and 2 scratched kitchen handles replaced.

We were given a bathroom gift box of towels and accessories. In the afternoon, the kids and I sat in the alfresco and ate chocolate dipped strawberries to celebrate our new home.

Yes, it felt amazing having the keys to our new house, but the damaged kitchen definitely soured it for me and the fact that it could have and should have been replaced before handover (and wasn't) was disappointing.

Thursday 4 September 2014

PCI

Yesterday was PCI. We spent about 2.5 hours going through the house, checking doors, drawers, paintwork, etc.
There were a few hundred paint touch-ups identified, just about the entire house needs to be repainted, lol! There are coloured pieces of tape just about everywhere showing where it needs to be repainted. We also found quite a few scratches on the poly urethane kitchen cupboards, a chip on one end of the island benchtop as well as a scratched glass stacker door, 2 scratched kitchen handles and a few minor things to be fixed. The site will also need to be cleaned up again due to the poor job first time round. There is still lots of rubbish (drinks and food wrappers) and broken bricks etc around the yard.
Overall, I am extremely happy with the quality of the house and the professionalism of McDonald Jones. The whole build has gone smoothly and to plan.

Unfortunately, we are still trying to figure out the very complicated requirements of building a retaining wall parallel to the water easement down the side of our block. After months of research, we are still unsure of what is allowed by council and how to construct it so we don't waste too much land (our side yard).
We are still chasing up concretors for driveway quotes. Feeling so frustrated that most don't bother to return my calls!

Handover will be in two weeks, to allow time for the painters to come back and for the kitchen to be fixed up. Hopefully two weeks will fly by quickly--we are all very excited and looking forward to moving in!