29 March 2014

Roof gutters and side fence

The last few days there have been a bit of heavy rain across Brisbane so that set us back a bit with the schedule however Plantation managed to finished installing the roof gutters and roof scaffolding getting ready to install roof tiles (or roof battens first).

A mate drove past one morning and saw there were some subcontractors working on site though it was showering so that was a bit of a surprise that they still work in wet weather.

Today, a nice sunshine day, we had our own subcontractor (with the help of hubby) on site to install the side fence and now both of our neighbour and us can have our own 'privacy'. There was also a Plantation subcontractor guy on site trying to finish off the bulk heads for Bed 2, 3 and 4. Felt sorry for all three working in a 29 degrees sunshine day :((

We didn't see Plantation fix the internal door and wardrobe door heights yet. Perhaps, they need to know who should they charge the cost to before doing the fixing.

Now just can't wait for the roof tiles and plaster walls then it will look more like a house with a cover instead of being all 'naked' at the moment :)



Front view :)

There will be wood cladding under the gutter

Side view

Roof tiles delivered

Close up to roof tiles

Roof battens???

Bulk head to Bed 2, 3 and 4
Post installed ready to the panels to go in next

Completed side fence from our side
Completed side fence from the neighbour's side

24 March 2014

House inspection with site supervisor

Today, we came to site to meet our site supervisor, Andy, for a house inspection. When we got there the subcontractor guys still doing the roof truss and it got delayed a bit due to the materials delivered late. Hoping the roof truss completed soon so roof battens can go on next (maybe by Friday) then roof tiles next week maybe (please don't rain). At this stage we don't have a handover date but 163 days from site work is on our contract so that means it could be around mid August if the weather are all good.

So Andy didn't notice the incorrect doors and wardrobes height throughout the house (cause he have like 18 other houses to look after at once) so we mentioned about the height he checked his plans and confirmed all doors should be at extended height. He said it is an easy fix and assured it will be done.

At the inspection we learnt that we may have a slight issue in terms of air conditioning outlets might be placed at the spot we going to install our additional down lights after the handover. Apparently, Plantation Homes doesn't tell their aircon subcontractor where to place the outlets as the subcontractor usually place at a spot where they think works best in each area. The upside is Andy can give us their aircon guys contact for us to request where the outlets to be placed hopefully everything will work out fine else we need plan B which we don't have yet :(

On the other hand, we have good news for our neighbour on the right that now can install the fence which was placed on hold until our house frames are up. Now they can have their 'privacy' and so will we :) We have booked our subcontractor for this Saturday but also depends on the weather.

We returned to site this afternoon and took some photos of the roof truss. It looks they only need to finish off the truss at the Garage then most probably battens will be on tomorrow.

And on Saturday we came back to Carpet Call and had a look at the carpets for the rooms. Indeed, it has been a challenge trying to find the 'right' carpet that goes with the timber flooring and has the technology where you drop liquids on the carpet it doesn't soak in straight away and you can easily wipe it off without staining the carpet. We finally found the carpet that have both of these and with a good price we got offered we surely did pay the deposit and got this ticked off the to-do list :)

Example of stain free' carpets



Front door

Roof on top of piers

Side view







21 March 2014

House frames are half up

As expected the Base Stage invoice will come and it came yesterday which we will make payment sometime next week.

Here are some photos taken yesterday and today. They started the frames yesterday, did some of the roof truss today and the rest will be Monday (hopefully with the tile roof too).

We supposed to have the inspection meeting with the Site Supervisor today but it got changed to next Monday afternoon at 1pm :(

We did snuck in after work, had a quick walk through the site and noticed they did all the internal and wardrobe doors at the WRONG height!! We upgraded to 2340mm and they did at standard 2100mm. I wonder if the Site Supervisor noticed this yet but of course this must be mentioned next Monday before they put in the plaster walls. I can imagine they would need to knock down the walls if this wasn't noticed at earlier.





Sneak peak in early morning where they started to do the roof truss


Completed frames without a roof :(

At last some roof truss are up. Looking at the garage

Looking across at front door and master suite

Looking out to the front door

Afresco and drive through garage on right

15 March 2014

The slab is poured!

Just after morning tea we pop out to our land for a sneak peak while the guys pouring the concrete slab. We caught a couple photos in action but came back in the afternoon for better shots. So now we wait close to a week for the slab to settle then the next step will be putting up the house frames. We got advised the frames will be up by next Friday! Woohoo! But the downside is the next invoice for the Base Stage will be on its way to us soon :(


Sneak peak of the concrete truck

Sneak peak. Slab been poured already!!

Completes slab. Looking at the garage and front door
Looking across front door and master suite
Behind side gate on the right. Slabs for solar hot water, gas bottle and air conditioning unit at far back
Facing bedrooms hallway. Bedrooms on the left and kitchen on the right of the hallway

Looking at the Alfresco and Living room from the backyard. Going to be timber bi fold doors at the alfresco :))
Looking at the dinning room and alfresco
Left side of the house from backyard. Going to be a roller door as a drive through garage (but only motorcyle can go through lol)









13 March 2014

Appliances, variation and construction update

Last night we made a purchase of Asko's washing machine, dryer, dishwasher and a Samsung fridge from JB Hifi Browns Plains. The sale rep named Willow was incredibly nice and helpful. Do recommend to see her if you need to purchase any appliances there. JB Hifi will be holding these stocks and deliver for us in July when we have the handover (well hopefully it is July). 

With the Variation we received the updated plan where we changed back to the original Kitchen island bench height as the previous height was approx 5cm higher than stove bench top which may cause inconvenience if we were to move something like large, hot and heavy, pot from stove bench top to the island bench top. Also it looks ugly to have a big gap under the island bench top where the dishwasher going to be. We also changed our floor and bath hob tiles for the bathroom and powder room as initially we were going for porcelain tiles for the main area (doing after handover) but now we going with timber flooring  instead so the tiles we chose for the bathroom and powder room doesn't go with the timber flooring. Yep, that's what happen when you change one thing you might need to change something else as well.  

With these two changes the admin fees would've been $500 but because we were in early stage Plantation Homes halved the admin fees for us. There was a slight miscommunication where we asked if there will be any other cost on top of the admin fees (eg tile cost differences) and so either the lady misunderstood the question or shouldn't have given us the answer 'no' that she did if she didn't understand our question properly so we thought the variation will be $250 and that's it. The variation document came and it shows $266 the total. We questioned why and yep, the lady misunderstood our question she thought we were asking about the admin fees (hmmm).

We also had another question came to mind about the non-standard grout cost that we paid for the previous tile selection because the grout, Alabaster, for the new tiles we selected now is a standard grout should be no cost which means we should be getting a credit for the non-standard grout we paid initially. And so it turns out the Alabaster grout is a non-standard grout which is an upgrade which also means we should've got charged from the beginning but we didn't hence we thought it was a standard grout. Plantation Homes realised it was their internal error and as for 'goodwill gesture' they agrees to give us the credit. So a bit of miscommunication and confusion here and there but in the end we're happy we going to receive some credit for the 'non-standard' grout we paid.

Now - construction update - so hubby made the call to the site supervisor to ask what's going on as we haven't received any call and we noticed there hasn't been any movement in the last 3 days. As suspected, he said the slab supposed to be poured the other day but due to the rain they had to cancel it and rebooked it to tomorrow (starts 6.30am omg) which is the earliest. So tomorrow being a Saturday we can come out to site and see how they pour. Maybe we can get some photos in action :))

So here are the photos showing previous and new tile selection (the colour shade of the timber flooring actually different in real life) and photo of kitchen appliances we bought so far.










Asko washer
Asko dryer
Asko dishwasher
Samsung french door fridge :)






11 March 2014

All boxed up and ready for the concrete slab

And finally all boxed up ready for the concrete to be poured. It has been a bit of a rain so this delayed until today.

Well so far so good. No additional cost to any of the work being carried out so far. Hopefully it stays like this until the hand over. Fingers crossed :))

Getting excited for the concrete to be poured soon then frames will be up! :) Woot woot


Looking straight at front door


Looking across to the right facing front door and master suite


Reinforcement steel installed for the two piers at the front

Garage


Close up of garage


Looking towards to front from the back


Looking at the afresco


Looking at the living room and laundry


And so they installed reinforcement steel in those 3 deep holes









07 March 2014

Framework for the slab

Indeed, there were some work being done today preparing for the concrete slab:
  • Foam boxes delivered
  • Reinforcement steel delivered
  • Frame work completed
When we saw piles of big foam boxes delivered we wondered what were those for then we went online to do a bit of research and apparently they install those under the reinforcement steel then pour the concrete onto the slab. At this point it is a big hard to tell how big each room but hopefully it isn't too small when the plaster walls are up. 




Reinforcement steel and foam boxes delivered




Size of our backyard. Less garden work whoohooo




Weakness point hence 3 hole drilled


Pretty deep !