Moving Day(s)!!

We are finally all moved in, still have boxes everywhere and are sleeping on a mattress on the floor (only Peter and I; the boys put their beds together already!)

There wasn't one single day that was designated as moving day. Peter just kept loading up the trailer and the cars every chance he got over the last few days and then enlisting the help of one or more of the boys to help him unload it all at the other end. It was my job to make sure there were enough things packed and ready to go to be able to fill the trailer and cars whenever he came back to the rental with enough energy to go again.

Thanks to the wonderful friends and family who helped us move all the little bits and especially to Clare and Debbie for unpacking the kitchen so I could find enough pots, pans and plates to cook dinner and keep the troops happy!

Now we just need to work out where to put everything ...

Our first decorating disaster ...

Even though we have the keys, we decided to do a few things to the house before moving in, like sealing all the concrete floors that aren't going to be tiled, put up curtain rods in every room, put up the sunblock curtains I bought on major sale about a year ago that have been sitting in a removalist box for ages, etc, etc, etc.

I was busily sealing the boys' bedroom floors (to keep the dust down) while Pete was busy putting up curtain rods. Off in my own little world, all of sudden I heard Pete yelling for me. Thinking he had hurt himself, I dropped the roller (into the tray of sealant splashing it everywhere, including all over myself!) and ran for the spare room, expecting blood or broken limbs, only to find him nowhere to be seen and a spray of water the size of Old Faithful spewing from the wall.


Seconds later the fountain of water stopped at which point I realised where Peter was .. out the front turning off the mains. (Thank goodness this house only has a 5 metre driveway and not a 35 metre one like the last house!) Pete came back inside and explained that he been happily drilling holes for the curtain rod brackets when all of a sudden, water just started gushing everywhere .. at full mains pressure! The little tiny 6.5mm wide hole pictured below let enough water into the room to soak the whole floor and the pressure was high enough that it hit the opposite wall 4 metres away.

The opposite wall contains the built-in robe with its lovely fibreboard sliding doors and brand new laminate shelving, all of which was thoroughly soaked. We grabbed a stack of old towels that were already at the house (must have known we'd need them!) and dried things up as best we could. Then we sat down and stressed out about how much it was going to cost to fix.

The remaining water after we mopped up

After whingeing for a while about "what a stupid place to put a water pipe" and "how are we going to fix it?", I thought it was worth a shot to call the builder and ask why there was a water pipe in the wall, right where a normal sane person would drill to install a curtain rod bracket. Surprise, surprise, the woman on the other end of the phone agreed it wasn't the brightest of things to have done and arranged for their plumber to contact us to get it fixed.

The plumber's first question when he phoned was "what have you done to my water pipe?" to which I responded "MY water pipe has a neat little hole in it because YOU put it in a very stupid place and now MY spare room has an indoor fountain that we don't want!" He arranged to come and fix it the next day with no mention of who was paying for it so we decided that we would just wait and see if we ended up with a bill in the mail. (Another example of the new mentality of refusing to get stressed over things we couldn't really control).

And, for those who just have to know these things, the curtain rod bracket still isn't in ...

Got the driveway ... and the keys!

The driveway is finally in after being put off twice due to possible rain (humph!) and I'm a bit disappointed in the overall level of finish. The downpipe grates have bits of concrete stuck to/in them and the fall isn't right.

Oh well, not everything can be perfect. At least the colour is close to what we agreed on!

I refuse to get stressed out over the little things because we finally have our keys!

Now we just have to seal all the floors that aren't going to be tiled, put 'make-do' floor coverings where there's supposed to be tiles, sort out some way of keeping the dog in the backyard, move everyhting, unpack everything and get ready for Christmas.

Nothing to it.

Send Valium ...

and Scotch ...

44 gallon drums would be nice!

Shower screens and mirrors ... at long last!

Boy's bathroom:

Ensuite shower:

Ensuite mirror (between the two uneven window sills ... OCD much?):

And this is why you should be there when the concrete guys are mixing the colour through...

I asked for the liquid limestone to be the same colour as the cream bricks.

This is what they gave me:

Now I know that in this photo, it doesn't look too bad but believe me, this is very orange in real life. When I spoke to the concreting guys, they assured me not to worry and that the 'pink' colour would fade as it dried.

I don't see pink .. I see orange and if it doesn't fade to a nice creamy colour, I will see dead concrete guys!

Prep work done for the driveway and alfesco area... check!

The formwork all ready for the liquid limestone to go in:

And for the driveway and crossover too:

Shame about those huge piles of dirt on the recently cleaned front yard ...

Robe doors and a site clean ... nearly there!!

The robe doors are finally in which means the shower screens must be too but I can't get in to see them ... grrrr! The doors are a lot more yellow than I remember them being in the sample but maybe it's just because of the very white walls ... I hope!

Drew's room:

Brad's room:

And they have finally come and done a 'proper' site clean (after I specifically asked the site supervisor to arrange it .. apparently it had already been done and I'm just too fussy for my own good ... tell us something we don't know!) Yay, we have an undamaged footpath!
Not long now!!

Garage doors are in

From across the road:

My little model, Andrew, to give you some idea of scale (which won't work unless you've seen him recently and realise that he's grown 10 feet since you last saw him!):
The roller door on the back of the garage (put there to enable us to store the trailer out the back instead of leaving it out the front to roll away down the street):

The finishing touches have started going in ...

We now have a hot water system:

flyscreens:

and door handles:

Getting closer every day...

The oven is officially in the building

My lovely new one-and-a-half oven:

Can't wait to test it out by baking up a storm ...

Paint...

Unfortunately, not wall paint but it is welcome nonetheless.

The front door is now Ironstone instead of the sickly green colour it was before:

The internal doors have been painted:

Now we are just waiting on door handles...

Kitchen update

We have the kitchen sink:

Here's the plumber trying to install the hotplate without damaging the bench or the new tiles: And here's the fancy-schmancy new hotplate that cost me a kidney and part of a lung
(arms and legs are so passe!):
Finally, we have the rangehood:
After looking at it for a while, I have come to the conclusion that I need to paint the walls sooner rather than later, as the clash between the white of the walls, the cream of the tiles and the stainless steel rangehood is going to drive me mad .. well, more mad than I already am!
PS: the oven still isn't in but rest assured that I'll post photos as soon as it is!

Tiles and toilets!

The ensuite vanity:I originally wanted the accent tiles to continue in the same line around into the shower recess but was talked out of it by the tiler and the site supervisor. Peter very graciously left the decision totally up to me and I am now kicking myself that I didn't stick to my original decision. Hopefully I won't notice it as much when the shower screens go in.

The boys' bathroom:
Again, I wanted to continue the accent tile on the same line through the shower recess but was talked out of it because it would have been "too difficult to cut the accent tile around the tap fittings". However, in the ensuite, they have cut the accent tile to fit around the shower head fitting ... too difficult my backside! Too lazy more like!

The main throne room:

Either that toilet is really small or just really far away! ;-)

Concrete done ...

... by very animated ever-so-slightly-crazy (read as way-over-the-top-crazy) guys wearing no shirts with their shorts hanging on for dear life.

Still levelling:

Bit more gratuitous underwear flashing:

With the expansion joints put in:

They were asking me all sorts of questions about whether I planned to make my hubbie sleep out here seeing as he had all this room! But where was the toilet supposed to go? Apparently it would be the only thing missing ...

Change in plans...

We've decided to not move into this house and to use it as a rental instead.

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..

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Just kidding! Too many late night 'discussions' to give up on it now!

Seriously though, we were originally planning on moving in mid December based on several factors:

1. 
   
   Based on when the roof went on, we should have expected the first Practical Completion Inspection (PCI) at the end of November which meant we would have the keys around the 10th of December.


2. 
   
   According to Peter's current roster, he would be home on the 15th December so despite me vowing to not move in the week before Christmas (again!), it was either move then or wait until mid January.


3. 
   
   Waiting until mid January would have meant a longer period of time paying both the mortgage and rent, so the earlier we could move, the better off we would be (financially anyway).

Then the site supervisor threw a spanner in the works by telling us that we should be able to do our PCI at the beginning of November and get the keys two weeks later (provided there was nothing major wrong). So it looks like we're moving in 24th November.

Now I'm in a bit of a mad panic trying to organise a driveway (didn't like the paved one the builder offered) and a tiler to lay 120sqm of floor tiles through the whole house, both of which have to be done before we can move in.

Aaaarrrggghhh!

Cabinets and benchtops in ... tick!

Please excuse the beautiful blue protective coating on the benchtops. It is most definitely not the colour I picked!

The ensuite vanity with a set of drawers and a cupboard each: Couldn't see the point in having two basins as it is just another thing to clean and we're hardly ever in there at the same time anyway.

The laundry, with plenty of room under the bench for the various washing baskets:

The boys' bathroom complete with bath and waterproofed shower recess:
The kitchen, complete with bikie who has vowed to help with the dishes (in my dreams!):

Next step is tiling .. can't wait!

Shelves, shelves and more shelves

... and now it looks like I've spelt shelves wrong even though I know I haven't!

The 300mm deep pantry shelves:

The 450mm deep pantry shelves:

The linen cupboard shelves:

And Brad's BIR shelf:

Whatever shall I do with all this storage space? ;-)

Windows and doors and shelves... oh my!

Well, technically the windows were in the last post and the shelves aren't in yet but we have doors!

My favouritest ('tis so a word!) internal door is pictured below:

It's my favouritest because it will keep the funky odours of 'big-boy-toilet-smell' away from my towel in the ensuite!

If you squint and peer closely at the screen, you should be able to see where some of the multitude of pantry shelves are going to go:

Whatever will I do with all that storage space?

Windows and doors are in and we're (almost) locked out

We went out to check out the local spring fair and found windows and doors as well! Luckily they hadn't locked all the doors so we were able to get in and have a look at all the pretty new cornices and painted ceilings (there aren't any photos of the inside 'cos the camera battery died).

The front of the house:

Down the alfresco side from the back of the garage:

The games room and family room's sliding doors:Woohoo! Getting closer and closer to being finished!

Is it just me or does this look really stupid?

The ceiling is up in the alfresco area and due to having to have different material for the eaves than the ceiling, there is a bit of an issue. I know that the cornices are made of the same sort of stuff as the ceiling sheeting and need to be protected from the weather (hence stopping at the edge of the ceiling sheeting) but this just looks plain stupid.

Especially this:

Why put a piddly little amount of cornice on one corner of a post? Looks like someone forgot to chip extra plaster off the pillar.

Maybe stupid isn't the right word. This just looks wrong ... unfinished ... tacky ... crappy ... unprofessional ... I could keep going but I think you get the message.

Off to make another call to the customer liaison ...