Tandaland

….I think it is DONE!

Our house is now officially complete! We thought it was a bit touch and go there over the last few days…especially with a public holiday in the way. Some things on the list were not quite finished, last time round, and a few things were not quite right (all minor I might add!) but our SS has come through with the goods as we had hoped!

Thuy and I both had the day off today to finish packing, and to organise some stuff from Bunnings for the new place. We went to the house early this morning to measure up the courtyard and alfresco for dirt and paving etc. We were amazed when we arrived to see now less than 7 or 8 vehicles parked all around our house! Plumbers, electricians, air con guys, painters, tank guys you name it they were there. It was a pretty crazy half our when we were there, with so much happening. We did our best to stay out of everyone’s way, pretty much keeping to ourselves and doing our outdoor planning. Our poor SS was looking a little under pressure (hopefully not from us!) with his phone going off every 5 minutes. I know I’ve said it before, but a really big thumbs up and thanks to him for getting our house done and looking great.

Without further delay… here are some long awaited pictures of our NEW home!

Thuy in the kitchen

Bathroom 2

Out to alfresco

Theatre room door open…

Theatre room door closed…

Theatre room door half open (or half closed?)…

Prep room

Shiney new ovens!

Down the main hall

Ensuite basins

Ensuite

Tank, hot water, air con

Kitchen fully installed!

Action central!

That’s one way to get a tank in the yard!

On Monday our new lounge arrives, our driveway and decks are being built, and later in the week our blinds should be being installed. Perfect timing! Of course, the only people to NOT have their act together are Telstra. Apparently the whole estate won’t have phone connections until the 21st…. which is pretty bad considering we have neighbours that moved in nearly a month ago now!

I actually didn’t think it would be that hard to find a cartoon of an octopus wearing pants! Anyway… wasn’t really worth the effort… WORST PUN EVER!!

WOW!

Ok, well anyway…. we have on Occupancy Permit!! WOOT! This means our house is officially suitable for living in! Now all we need is the bank to go look at it and give it a rubber stamp, and then our second inspection, and then settlement and then move in!!

I reckon 2 weeks from now and we’ll be in! Fingers crossed!! We’ll be going by the block tonight to see our completed fence Yay!

We dropped by the house last night, not to see the house this time, but to see the fence! We got a call from “u need a fence”, it turns out that they were doing Lot 1’s fence this week and asked if we were happy to have ours done this week too!! Why not, I say!!

Fencing started

Thuy forgot her shoes…

Telephone, gas, termite protection all installed!

Portico render finished…looking lovely!

The only potential issue we had was that there was still quite a bit of concrete and mess out the back of the block that was awaiting clean up. We mentioned this to the fencer, and as it turns out he knows our SS. So he got on the phone and got that organised, and got the OK to build the fence early as well! So, as we speak, our fence is probably just about done (it was just posts yesterday).

Also yesterday, MCSConnect came out and dug our phone cable. So that’s another one we can tick off the list!

AND, all the way around our house we now have some “termaguard” thing which apparently stops termites from lunching on our woodwork.

On top of all that, we had a peek in the windows and it looks like the painters have been back and redone the couple of patches that need doing. So that’s another bit of good news! We’re not sure when our 2nd inspection will be, but hopefully soon! With the fence all done, we won’t actually be able to get into our yard to peek in the windows anymore!!

Right now I should be writing a post about how excellent our inspection was, but alas it has been moved to Friday. Certainly not a big deal for us, they’re a month and a half early anyway!! Apparently they needed to redo some of the paint which meant delaying the cleaner, which means now we’ll do the inspection Friday arvo. We’re still really looking forward to it! If all goes well we should be able to finalise everything next week. It’s scary to think we could be moved in in only a couple of weeks!

We don’t expect there will be much to pick on though, the place was looking pretty nice last time we saw it, and our SS has been doing a great job of making sure everything is finished off nicely. Fingers crossed!

This post is actually a bit behind schedule. Thuy and I have both been a bit sick lately. I just got over one cold and jumped straight into another one. Thuy would yell at me if she knew I was even posting right now!

Well, let’s jump straight into the good news! We received an email from Urbanedge today letting us know that our first inspection date is on the 15th of October! The news was a great birthday present for Thuy! We figure we’ll be good to move in in the first week of November if all goes well! We’re definitely at the last mile now!

It’s good to have a time frame, as now we can finalise our fencing, drive way, decking and blinds! Yay!

I have some photos here from a few weeks ago, as well as some “through the window” photos taken over the weekend. As I said, I’ve been a bit slack at updating the blog lately!

Before the site cleanup

Laundry all finished

Main bathroom shower

Control for heating/cooling ducts

Our non-standard tapware (Thuy is very happy!)

Basin with taps

The dunny!

And the most recent photos from last week (through the windows)

No more temporary fencing!

Through the back window to the lounge, waiting for carpet.

Ensuite bath

The big ensuite mirror installed! Looks awesome!

I really feel sorry for the guy who is doing the tiling in our house. Our tiles are 300mm square, and we have about 100sqm of tiled floor space. That works out to be over 1100 tiles throughout our house….not including showers and the like. The poor guy has been tiling for a week now, but he says he’s just about done…. but i tell you what…tough gig! Once he’s done with our place, he has to go off and tile Lot 1 and Lot 12! EEK!

I really have to hand it to these guys. They really do put in a lot of hard work. It’s easy to forget how much work goes into building a house. Especially when you’re just walking through or perhaps visiting a display. It’s been great each week to actually see these guys hard at it as it just helps you appreciate the attention and effort that goes into something which we usually take for granted every day we walk around our house.

We’re still waiting on a handover date… but we’re hoping it’s not too far away. We have fences, decks, curtains, blinds and a driveway we want to get moving on…but everyone always asks the same question…. “when is your handover date?”. BAH! Hopefully we’ll find out tomorrow, because then we can spend the weekend getting the rest of this stuff organised.

Photo time! It’s all looking a bit messy in the photos. A lot of dust and stuff everywhere…but once it is has had a bit of a spring clean it will look lovely!

Master Ensuite

Main bathroom shower

prep room

kitchen almost complete

kitchen looking proper flash

laundry tiles

main hallway

Well the excitement never stops at Lot number 3! It’s hard to believe that we could be any more excited than we were last week…. but… we are!

We were lucky enough to drop in whilst our Site Supervisor was there… and even though we hadn’t made an appointment to see him (which we’re supposed to…sorry!) he was kind enough to show us a around the place and point out a few of the things that we may not have noticed that have been done. I must say, I’m very impressed with how thorough he is! He pointed out a number of things that he has personally seen to being changed and/or fixed. It’s nice to know that someone who has our best interests in mind is looking after our place! So a big thumbs up to him!

We had a couple of questions about some very minor issues, and he was more than happy to see to them being rectified. To be honest, it’s been pretty hard to find anything wrong with the place at all…..and believe me I’ve been trying!

So anyway… it’s hard to believe, but since last time we dropped by, the painter has finished, the tiler is in and tiling splash backs, the electician is in and doing power, lights, TV etc, our basins are installed, the stone benchtops have all been installed, the garage door to the backyard has had locks put on it, the render has had another coat and is ready for colour AND we now have a garage door!

All this since Saturday! There would be more photos, but we felt a bit too much like tourists with the site supervisor there

Garage, now with rollerdoor

Freshly painted front door

roller door…huzzah!

TILES!!!

SINKS AND BENCHTOPS!!!

ZOMG… it looks like a kitchen!

Ensuite basins and benches

ensuite basins

Inside the much loved WIR

These guys certainly don’t mess around. The painters look like they’re almost done already! The ceiling is all done and the walls look like they need another coat (maybe two?). All the woodwork has had the enamel gloss done as well. This week apparently the tilers will be in, which will mean most of the floors and wet areas should be done pretty soon!

Probably the biggest change this week wasn’t actually in our house, but in the main road!

Trees!

Inside the place is looking much more like a house! White paint is so much nicer than plaster board!

WIR to bdrm and ensuite

back door

bathroom being waterproofed

garage painted. foam for fills

nice glossy enamel

Render half done

lounge looking significantly whiter

Theatre room

Bathroom looking a little nice

If painting and tiling is finished this week, which may be wishful thinking, we’d then be down to electrical/carpets/appliances left! Wow!

(I realised that I’d been forgetting to my stupid images up!)

I couldn’t resist, so I had to go out and meet our cabinets! Now I’m back with photos!

Cabinets, benches, built in robes, vanities etc are all in. Unfortunately the painters are already in and have covered most of the stuff on plastic, including all the windows

I think Thuy likes her new WIR

Shiny new kitchen!

The kitchen

Island bench cabinets

Laundry sink

Laundry

Prep room (or cellar :P)

Pot drawers!

Kitchen again

Ensuite vanity, sans sinks.

The place looks like something out of E.T. or some sort of Ebola virus movie….

Looks like the decontamination unit has been in

The step up for the theatre room has also made an appearance since last time we were there.

Theatre room step

Also, looks like they’re getting ready to do the render. The corners of the brickwork all have a metal strip running the height of the wall, and there is a heap of foam in the garage for the few infills that require it (the garage, alfresco and lounge windows).

Portico waiting render

Just as we were leaving the waterproofing guy turned up to paint blue stuff all over our bathrooms as well

No they haven’t finished fixing stage Someone from Urbanedge has us confused with number 1.

Such a shame!!

Oh well… they’ve made good progress anyway, besides…. we thought fixing stage being complete was too good to be true!

Here are a HEAP of photos

Fully bricked

Cupboards, skirtingboards and architraves

Big ass garage

alfresco waiting for render

rear windows waiting for render

Alfresco from other side

Rear of house (can finally get there without gumboots)

Looking from lounge to dining/kitchen

Kitchen

From kitchen to alfresco

From dining to lounge

Hall cupboards and front door…nice colour!

Bedroom doors

We’re expecting cupboards and vanities this week