Window Furnishings

To  drape or not to drape - that is the question.  We have been stressing ourselves in the last couple of weeks regarding window furnishings.  There are so many options but we wanted our choice to be cost-effective, practical and of course pretty to the eyes!  Our first preference is to have timber eco-blinds in as many rooms as we could.  Bedrooms will have block out curtains or roman blinds.  Cinema and kitchen will have roller blinds.  Both sliding doors will have vertical blinds. Blinds on-line has a fantastic website where you can actually get instant quote of whatever type of blind or drape you are looking to buy  They also have a showroom in Narre Warren  (southeast of Melbourne) where you can view their product range and query face-to-face their friendly staff. If you are not confident about taking measurements yourself, then they can come out to your house for a fee of $80 to measure all your windows.  DIY will definitely save us some money and is the way for us to go. We bought our eco-blinds while they were on half-price sale at Freedom store and will just have them cut by a company that offers the service at reasonable price.  We did our maths, comparing this method vs having custom-made blinds and we came up saving around 40% choosing to buy the sale items and then have them cut. Freedom was also running a promo of getting $50 worth of items of your choice for every $500 purchased, with so many blinds we bought, we surely qualified for the promo.


http://freedom.com.au/Homewares/windows/

 http://www.blindsonline.com.au/

Chasing the Finish Line

Almost there....  Our Practical Completion Inspection (PCI) is booked for the 16th of June.  The tiling has been completed on Friday when the garage door has been installed as well.  This Saturday, we found the electricians putting our lights and shower exhaust fans. We have added a few extra batten lights which we will be converting to downlights after hand-over.

Batten lights in the activity room upstairs

The tiled ensuite shower

The tiled laundry splashback

Tiling

We're on to the next step in the finishing stage of our house - TILING. The guys started Tuesday of this week and are scheduled to complete early next week.   I called in on Thursday morning where one of the tilers confirmed with me our colour choices. Here are our colours all from the standard range: 

Ground Floor

Floor Tiles -  City Beige gloss 400x400 with French Vanilla grout

Wall Tiles -   Gloss Latte 100x300 with Alabaster grout  (Powder Room)

                     Gloss Ice Cream 100x300 with French Vanilla grout (Laundry)

First Floor

Floor Tiles - Still Beige 400x400 with Alabaster grout (Ensuite & Bathroom)

                    Vibe Latte 400x400 with Caramel grout (Balcony)

Vanity Wall Tiles -   Linea Sand 200x300 with Alabaster grout (Ensuite & Bathroom)

Bath Tiles -  Gloss Latte with Alabaster grout

Shower Wall Tiles - Linea Sand with feature tiles Gloss Latte (Ensuite & Bathroom)

We will have tiled shower niches on both the ensuite and bathroom.  We also will have tile trim in silver.

Hallway

Family Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Tiling prep for the ensuite shower floor

Happiness

I felt like singing Alexis Jordan's song "Happiness" when we went to visit the house on the Easter long weekend.  "Hurry, hurry, quick, quick, quick... just step on the gas coz I don't wanna miss this".  We got lucky the house was open on Easter Tuesday because the painters were in and started painting our ceiling and walls.  They estimated that painting will be completed in a week's time.  As I write this blog, the painting is almost completed. The house looks sparkling with the Dulux's Hog Bristle and  Antique White USA  paint colours on.  We  went back end of last week to take some photos of the painters in action.

Fixing Stage

Time to update our blog again.  The fixing stage has quickly passed.  We now have architraves, wall skirtings, internal doors including pantry doors andWC doors, wet proofed bath and shower areas.  The SS also had the site cleaned up from excess materials and rubbish from the previous building stages.  Good thing my husband caught the cleaners in time to ask them not to take away the good bricks left over which are nicely stacked in front of the house.  We have also contacted New Home Inspection to enquire about getting our house inspected upon completion.  We have also advised CH that we intend to hire our private inspector during PCI, the CLE said that this is ok and would just need to be arranged with our SS.  When we discussed the matter with our SS, he kind of talked us out of it because it will be an extra cost that we will incur and usually the things that the inspector will find are minor issues (sounds like he is very confident with the quality of houses that CH builds) and that CH's Quality Assurance Inspectors are independent and are very good at finding defects themselves.  He also mentioned that K* from NHI knows him well and that they live in the same neighbourhood.  Makes us think now if it is wiser to get someone else than K*. 

We received our fix stage invoice last Thursday 14th April.  Then come Monday 18th we got an e-mail from our CLE following up our payment.  Her exact words were " just a following up to let you know that Fix payment is not yet received – you may wish to follow up with your bank".  This set me off, we have never missed a payment within the 14 days grace period with our past invoices, in fact  it was usually within a week from invoice that we instruct our bank to release payment.  How could she send this e-mail on the 4th day from invoice date!  We also requested copy of the Quality Assurance inspection report for the Fixing stage as the Procedure of Construction states that "An Independent QA inspection takes place at the completion of this stage".  To this request, the CLE said that they do not have a Fix stage "report" as such and they do not normally give QA report copies to clients.  However, she said that there will be one report she can give us at Completion/Final stage which is also required before the issuance of a Certificate of Occupancy.  Not really happy at this stage, the only consolation we have is that the house build seems to be progressing well and at this rate, it might be completed within the next few weeks. At the time of writing this blog, we still are waiting for our SS to return our calls so we can inspect our house at fix stage. I hope he didn't go on early Easter holiday. Maybe tomorrow he'll have the time to ring us back.

WEEK 12 & 13 PHOTOS

Balcony ceiling plastered

Skirting boards (dining area)

Cinema Doors

Pantry Doors

Powder Room's Mirror Base

Bedroom Door

WC Doors

Ensuite's Toilet Door

Master's Bedroom Door

Cinema Room