PCI Confirmed!

Hi everyone! PCI has been confirmed by our SS and booked for our independent inspector on the 8th of March 2013! The Final and most expensive inspection. haha! Funnily SS insists that our independent inspector does his inspections before he conducts one with us. I'm not sure if this is the standard procedures, but I definitely want to have a PCI with my SS, and not just rely on the report from my inspector.

As I was driving past today, I see people working on site and chiseling away our slab despite the crazy downpour in Melbourne. I think there must have been an over exposed slab, where the frame was sitting more in of the slab edge. 
They still hasn't rectified that steel rib sticking out...Its already started to rust away...

Rusting Steel Rib from Slab

Indoor and Outdoor taps and basins have been fitted out! Our Milli Edge wall mixers and taps are looking great! The Ensuite free-standing bath tub has also been connected. The only thing I am not too keen on is the shower rose that has been provided as standard. They look very cheap and poor in quality, looks like something that you buy from bunnings that would cost you $20. Probably something we will have to get changed later on after handover. Even our island bench vege spray has been installed! The plumber have also connected the downpipes to the storm water outlets - just in time for today's downpour!

Master Ensuite bath/mixer

Vege Spray on Island bench

Vege Spray

Outdoor Tap (too close to 20amps?)

Connected gutter pipes

Silt pit

I haven't been able to contact the SS regarding the lining board colours. But I will hope to be able to have a look in the house sometime this week. Probably will make an appointment with SS to do that. 

Garage doors were installed 25th Feb 13. I thought it was the wrong colour installed - from afar it looks like a surfmist colour bond, but in fact it is a dune colour bond - the right colour. 
Im also not sure if the garage door is suppose to have such a huge gap between it and the wall it's affixed to. I guess it would have to be picked up at our PCI.

Bnd Garage Panelmasta Contemporary Style

Colourbond Dune

Almost big enough to fit an entire finger through

Garage door gaps

Noticed that there had been some trucks from Stegbar parked out at the back yesterday, and a couple of guys cutting white laminate boards. Im guessing that the linen cabinets and the shelves for the walk in wardrobes have been fitted too. Im hoping the splashbacks and shower screens will go in tomorrow!

Im really excited to see the powder room. We paid the extra $852 (plus $102 extended mirror) to get the tiles to the higher height, just like how the display homes  has done theirs. We have 600mm x 600mm tiles too. I really hope the tiler has completed our powder room like the pictures below. I believe they add some kind of grandeur and style to the home. Just like our void :)

600mm tiles

Increased height of tiles

Nice workmanship

I also visited a LED wholesaler today. We decided to get baton holders installed in our entire house instead of getting the downlights installed by PD. PD was going to charge us quite a fair bit to have LED downlights. Our wholesaler insists that they can beat their price - so wholesaler is it. 

I picked out some 10w (for ground level) and 7w(for upper level) LED sample lights and I'm going to have to get an electrician to install them to the entire house. We will be rushing this immediately after handover.

Thinking of getting this for the activity room. Looks great and feels very sturdy. $880!

OH! and I received a letter in the mail from PD today advising me that the final payment is almost due! Oh PD... we haven't even had our PCI! come on! Well anyway, it states that we should get a bank cheque from our lending institution to exchange for our house keys on handover date. If we were to release the funds electronically, the keys wont be passed on to us until the funds have been cleared. I guess that will be fair. I also just hope that PD will be fair in keeping to their word when we find somethings to be rectified during our PCI. 

January & February Update

18th Jan 13 

20th Jan 13Completed Hebel on Garage

23rd Jan 13 - Scaffolding for garage roof

Garage roof

24th Jan 13 Completed garage roof

Garage roof completed in 1 week! Tooo easy!

We had a call from our SS stating that the electrician were at the garage fixing up the electricals in it. He said that on our drawings, the garage was not an extended one. As such, we had an additional light on the front wall of the garage door (for flood lights) which may not be in the right location. We came down to the site and told the electricians where we wanted the lights to be, they were very willing to help us. One of them even told us that we should be watching out for the painters as they were washing down the foothpaths with white paint. Pretty sure the council didn't order white footpaths when they approved our building permit.

The garage roof tapers to the rear of the garage because of this design, we managed to get a credit back for our S flashing gutter box. You will use a S flashing gutter box when your garage is on the boundary line of your property, this flashing will prevent the gutter box from sitting on your neighbour's boundary line. Our BC initially assumed we needed this, but looking back at the design of the garage, we didn't have to. Saving ourselves close to $300. The gutter box will sit to the rear of the garage, not the side as initially planned.

We are in the midst of painting the interiors this week. The painters started their work late last week due to the Australian Day weekend and I believe they had the whole house under 1 coat in a single day. The guys there were dressed in a full suit and they had a machine which sucked paint and the painter would spray paint the entire wall.

Spray painter machine

End of 1st week of painting

Single coat on the architraves

The lounge room

Laundry Door

2nd Coat on laundry door

We wanted to leave the laundry door the timber look, just like how the showrooms have. We told our SS that it was our plan to have the door stained after handover. He says that he'll have the door completed as per our contract. We didn't get a chance to have the contract changed, and BAM! we have a whitedoor now. I looked on gumtree and we can get another door for about $130. Pretty cheap to replace, Im just not sure if we have the time and strength to do it all. 

2nd Coat on internal garage door

2nd coat on internal doors

The 2nd coat of paint to the door really adds the gloss to the finish and make the door look really grand! I can't wait till the carpets and the flooring come in!

29th Jan 13 Our bathtubs! One for the upper floor and
another free standing alexander for the Ensuite

30 Jan 13 - Bathtub installed!

Master Ensuite Vanity - No conies to the ceiling
full tiling to the entire room

29th Jan 13 - Telstra trench dug and installed

A damaged steel rib from the slab
This seems to be quite concerning that
the slab is SO exposed 

So our SS had a timber piece installed in-between our ground level and our upper level to 'join' the two.

If you look at the photos, you can see that this timber piece really is an eyesore to the void area. We went to the showrooms and one of the main reasons why the Sandringham 45 is such a beauty is because of the void that it had in the kitchen and family area. This entire area needs to be a straight flush/plumbed piece of wall. Our SS says that the timber can prevent future cracking and possibly add strength to the void. I say that I don't mind having it crack - I rather the grandeur look than a piece of timber. He even said that PD doesnt build as per showrooms! :0 I was so shocked! Its like saying, you're going to the supermarket to pick out a product but when you get home and you open the package, you find out that the product wasn't what it was advertised on the packaging! We didn't request for this timber 'upgrade', therefore we shouldn't have to put up with it. 

In the end, we emailed the office and our SS, of which later he agreed to remove the timber for us, and finish the void the same way the showrooms have. I know for a fact that the frames were not plumb in the joining area of the upper and ground floor, as such the contracter may have just wanted an easy way out of making the frames plumb and use a piece of timber to cover up the area. 

Notice the joins between the upper floor and ground floor
(Brown area)

This side of the wall was not plumb
The gap between the kitchen ceiling and the wall above

PD's solution:

Timber

Timber

Timber

FIXED BECAUSE OF OUR AMAZING S/S!

3rd Feb 13

Waterproof render to the garage 

Extension of Garage
Possible a workshop/storage area

3rd February 13