Moved In

Hi fellow buildees,

Well we're in, and Sandrine and I want to thank you all for your very kind comments.

There's no question that the last couple of weeks have been a blur. We now completely understand why most build bloggers 'go quiet' for a while after handover: it's the 1000+ things you have to do! Add a couple of small children to the mix, and it's pandemonium (bet that Rachael and Shayne can relate ;).

We needed to schedule a move-in for the weekend immediately after handover or else wait another weekend with an unoccupied house. That presented an interesting set of problems:

• Schedule flooring and carpeting for the day after handover.
• Schedule installation of builder appliances after flooring complete (i.e. so flooring in before dishwasher etc).
• Won't have hot water, cooking appliances and ducted until then.
• Furniture and items from storage and in-laws will arrive before we're able to thoroughly clean the house.

So amazingly, and in spite of our kids fascination with the stairs (and first minor incident), we pulled it off...

• Solomon's bent over backwards to get our flooring and carpeting all done in 3 days.
• Trips back to the inlaws for showers and baths.
• Borrowed microwave and cup-a-soup.
• DVD's to keep the kids distracted (we dig you Rachael ;)

What we didn't expect is that the gas supply would remain offline until the appliances were installed. This meant we also had NO HEATING for the first 3 nights. Remember that cold snap which started a couple of weeks ago? Yep.

Appliance installation day arrived as scheduled (our SS kept his word on this), with tradies arriving at 7am:

Plumbers
- Gas hot water and cooker installed. 'Bung' in gas pipe removed so could now start using our gas heaters also.
- Got them to fix all the sinks because they were all leaking, some worse than others.
- Turns out that the gas provisioning for the hot water wasn't right, so they had to cut 5 large holes in the gyprock of our garage to sort it out. SS has since sent the gyprockers back to repair it (needs repainting).

Electricians
- Rangehood and microwave installed.
- Cooker electrics wired up.
- Ducted a/c motor and control panel installed.
- Miscellaneous unfitted wall plates.

I also scheduled the alarm installer and FTA antenna installer on the same day. Big day.

Since then we're slowly working through the chaos and looking forward to getting everything in its rightful place and all cleaned up. Foxtel have been and so have Telstra to connect-up the lead-in to our house (see my post-handover notes on our Electricals page). Our landscaping has started also, after which the concreter is scheduled to pour our driveway, then fencing.

OK ladies I know you want photos, here's all we've got for now, with more to come...

Kitchen with appliances installed and our new stools.
The rangehood ducting had the blue protective wrapping still left on because of the missing section, which has since been fitted.

Another kitchen view showing appliances.
We are really happy with all the colour choices.

View from foyer area showing stained lower steps and carpeted stairs.
The 'bandage' at the top of the post is to protect from damge whilst moving furniture / tradies / deliverymen.

Ensuite at night.

Handover - Its Ours, not yours any more Metricon

Thank you everyone for your well wishes. What a crazy couple of days. We can hardly believe its real. That its ours. That we don't have to wait till there is a tradie onsite to get in there.

Final presentation went very well there were a couple of things that were outstanding that they fixed that day.

Our flooring started today. They are half way through laying the timber flooboards and they look amazing, even with all the dust. Timber floors will be complete by tomorrow and then carpeting man is booked for tomorrow morning for an early start and says that its a one day job.

We are all set for our move in for this Saturday..we are so excited.

Great birthday present for my old fella, who's birthday is today. Happy Birthday Craig- The King of Our Castle.

Pics of flooring and move in day to come..

Handover Tomorrow!!

Yes, we can hardly believe it too. I think we'll definitely be pinching ourselves if everything does to plan.

Following more screwups by tradies last week that put things in jeopardy again, it took some pushing and shoving to get the SS to agree to having the council inspection on Monday. Thankfully, it did happen, and passed.

Some wisdom we've gleaned about these final stages of the build, all of you whom have reached this stage will no doubt relate to:

• Expect that nothing you've been promised will actually take place, then you might be pleasantly surprised on some rare occasions. But you all know that already. :)
• Organise bank settlement request (and valuation inspection) early. In our case it was almost 10 days between submitting the final invoice and being able to collect the final cheque.
• Do not expect the same expediency of the builder's admin and accounts departments in issuing the aforementioned final paperwork as they do with issuing the progress payment invoices.
• Don't expect the builder's QA processes to be adequate.
• Don't expect that an independent inspection will catch everything either.
• Don't expect that the builder will agree to fix everything, there will inevitably be some compromises.
• Do organise telco and pay-TV connections well in advance.
• Expect to have "fun" trying to guess the handover day (officially, we had TWO days notice) and keep flooring/blinds/landscaping/furniture companies on "hot standby".
• Do expect that eventually The Day will arrive and you won't believe it's finally here either. 

Stay tuned...