Rangehood, kitchen sink, lights, door handles & more

07/12/09: I arrived at the house this morning just after 8:00am to drop the lights off so they could be installed today. As I got out of the car I saw the chippies there doing something around the front door, I then looked over towards the garage and saw that our main floor tiles were getting delivered. I guess it won't be long before the tiles get done.

I unloaded all the lights and gave the electrician a print out of where each light was going, he told me that it will make it a lot easier for him to follow and it meant that I could get back to work quicker, damn. As I was leaving the electrician was installing the rangehood.

When my fiancé arrived this afternoon she couldn't believe what had been done. All the lights had been installed, the towel rails had been installed, the rangehood and stove were in place, the front doors have been stained, the kitchen sink has been put in and all the door handles have been put on.

I'm going to give our site supervisor a call tomorrow to see if I can get a practical completion date so I can get the ball rolling with the bank. I hope you enjoy all the pics.

Internal paint finished, external paint almost done, plus heaps more

06/12/09: What a great end to the week we had. All of the internal paint has been finished, almost all of the external paint has been done, bar the staining of the front door, portico, the feature gable and the external painting of the rear garage door.

We arrived at the house just after 5:00pm on Saturday, the painter was still there finishing off the external paint. We have been so lucky to have our painter Scott, he has gone above and beyond what we ever expected. He has been so willing to go out of his way to help us and to make our house look even better. For example; the columns in our main ensuite were only meant to be painted the standard wall colour, the painter though this would make them too plain so he finished them off in a gloss white. He did this at no extra cost as he seems to take pride in his work and is more than happy to make things look their best at no extra cost. We really can't thank Scott enough, we have been so lucky to have such a great painter.

When I spoke to the site supervisor on Thursday he told me that the electrician and plumber would be starting on Friday. When my fiancé arrived at the house on Friday afternoon she was shocked to see what had been done. The water tank had been delivered, the dishwasher was sitting in the house waiting to be installed and the gas cooker had already been connected. The Rinnai instant hot water system had been installed along with the gas point for the heater. She walked into the downstairs powder room, the bench had been installed along with the toilet. When she went upstairs she went into ensuite two and saw that the showerhead and tap had been installed, the other ensuites haven't been done yet but everything is there ready to be installed.

All the power points and light switches were done on Friday. On Monday morning I'll be meeting up with the electrician to drop the lights off so he can install them that day. Last week I couldn't imagine the house being finished before Christmas, after walking through it on Saturday I'm starting to think that it could happen. We don't want to get too excited, but it does look possible and the site supervisor is still saying if all goes to plan we should be in. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

We have our Caesarstone bench top

01/12/09: Our house has had its second coat of paint, now all that is left are the skirting boards, architraves, doors and finishing off around the cornices. He has told us that he should be finished by Friday, I'm not sure when he plans to do the rest of the outside paint, we're not too worried as it's not holding anything else up.

Something else that happened today; we got our kitchen bench put in. I didn't expect that we would have it just yet, so it was a good surprise. One bad thing though is that the site was cleaned up today and the off cuts from the Caesarstone were taken away along with the left over roof tiles. We were going to keep the tiles so I'm a little upset that they were taken away, we didn't move them around the back because it still looks like they need to finish off around the feature gable and we weren’t sure if they were still needed. I'll have to talk to the site supervisor about this on Thursday.

First coat of paint

29/11/09: Well today was a bit of a surprise, the whole house has had its first coat of paint. When I spoke to the painter on Friday morning he suggested we paint the house with half strength whitebox quarter. He then told us to go up and have a look on at the house on Sunday as he should have some of the colour completed. He told us that if we weren’t happy with the half strength whitebox quarter he would get it retinted on Monday for the second coat.

The first time we walked into the house the paint fumes were so strong that our eyes were watering and it was hard to breathe. We did a quick dash around the house then got out quickly so we could breathe some fresh air. We weren’t 100% sure with the colour at first, we though it might need to be darker. I called my mum to get her to come up for her opinion, since she was an hour away we went for a shop and had a discussion about the paint.

Once we returned to the house for our second look the paint fumes didn't seem to be as strong. We both had warmed to the colour, thinking that it would be dark enough. This is because we want the paint to be a small feature of the house, not to over power everything else. We asked what my mother had to say about the paint, she said it was exactly what she expected it to look like. As we had taken her to the display house we borrowed the colours from and she hadn’t been involved with all the trouble and dramas to get the paint on the wall this was a bit of a relief.

I hope you all enjoy the mega pic fest I have included below, let me know what you all think.

Garage

Laundry From Garage

Laundry Towards Garage

Entry Feature Wall

Study

Dining Room

Piano/Christmas Room

Theatre Room

Family Room

Kitchen

Upstairs TV Room

Upstairs Cupboard

Main Bedroom

Dressing Room/Walk-in Wardrobe

Paint prep started, portico feature and more

26/11/09: It was finally great to see something happen at the house today, I was beginning to think nothing more was ever going to get done. When my fiancé arrived this afternoon the painter was there prepping the house to start the painting on Saturday. He is very concerned that our internal paint colour "whitebox quater" will be darker than what we want inside and has suggested that we halve the "whitebox quater." This is something we need to discuss tonight as he will be ordering the paint tomorrow.

There were a few other things done today on the house as well. The wood feature on the portico was done today, we are getting that wood stained along with the wood in the feature gable to match the garage door. When my fiancé was talking to him about this he said that because the front door is lighter that the other wood he will do something to make it match best as possible to the feature wood. I've only met the painter once and spoken to him on the phone once, but he seems like a great guy, one that likes what he does. He is willing try his best to help you out with your paint choices and is willing to make any changes you may want before he starts painting.

One other thing to get done today were the pillars in the main ensuite, this is one thing we were hanging out to see what they would look like. Now that we have seen them in real life we love them, we can't wait to see it all painted.