Post Handover Post TBC...

Hi all.

Not gone yet, I am planing a big post about everything post handover, from getting a fence done, furnishing the house and to dealing with Porter Davis Home Care Inspection.. keep tuned! :)

Handover!

Where do I start? handover is such an odd day. You get the keys but you shouldn't start moving in just yet so all the tradies can get their jobs done. So make sure you have supplies for that day! Food you can eat out of a packet, get disposable everything, get some tea bags, if you're really keen to stay the night like I was then go to Kmart, get a blowup mattress, they have pretty good ones for cheap. Don't forget to bring towels and bed sheets and clothes to change. And don't forget to bring your laptop with movies and shows and a good book to keep you going. Bring some cleaning materials to start preparing for the move. They might clean the house before you move in but it may not be up to your standard or due to the traffic in the house since it was last clean it now demands another sweep. We received a welcome home tea gift from Porter Davis. We got our amazing site supervisor a thank you gift as well, I am just glad it was just him at the handover and we didn't need to suffer through seeing our building coordinator. On the morning of handover we met with him, took a couple of hours for him to go through the house with us explain what they did and what needs to be done, there rest of the day is just a long waiting game for tradies to come.

Tea

On the day we moved they finally installed the stove top!

You beautiful giant

We went overboard (or just right on the board) with buying tons of new things for the new house and we made sure that most of the things will be delivered exactly on handover day.
So....a new 75" TV from the good guys, I think I'm in love with it~

had to keep this baby boxed for a whole day until we got the TV stand

A wool rug from Pottery Barn

was 50% off when I bought it! 

A sofa and a dining table from Early Settler, the chairs will arrive later, they're not in stock :( 

Used the Tea gift box as a temp desk

Under all this mess is a beautiful table honestly! 

We got a pretty good deal with our movers, got them off gumtree, made sure they are insured and it all went without a hitch. I strongly recommend spending extra money to get someone else to do the move for you, if you have kids I'd probably suggest you get someone to also do the packing. We also got a cleaning company to clean out the old apt, they were very reasonably priced and offered a bond return guarantee. Last thing you want to do when you get your new and wonderful home is to go back to your old crappy one and start cleaning it. There is so much to do in the new house, save your energy where you can.

Still got a few issues to rectify, small minor things but once you're in your new home, all the PD bs just disappears, you're glad to be rid of this build and to just settle in. I feel like I can slowly start breathing again.

Pre-handover BS from BC

Coming up to handover I decided to make sure that PD gives me the delays they owe us (over 2 months!) but my experience with PD made me question just how much they are going to respect the original start date. So I sent my bc an email saying that I would like to know exactly how much they will pay us back prior to handover. Only then she sent me a document saying they would like to claim around 2 months back because the delays were my fault. Fair enough to claim the time it took us to remove the asbestos but it took us 5 days to do it, why did they delay for over 2 months? I would have non of it especially because my BC kept replying to my emails with incorrect information throughout this period, so saying that emails were already sent about whats been happening is ridiculous because these emails state things that never happened causing more delays. They wouldn't budge and wouldn't explain, I still went ahead with handover but be aware that if PD awes you money then ask them to send it to you in writing well in advance so you can have time to dispute it.

PCI, weird viking burglars and a great internet and phone line without Telstra!

Ok! lots has happened since I last updated my blog. I decided not to go see the house until PCI, to get a bit of a surprise. Luckily I have an amazing Site supervisor (Michael Webb, he gave me permission to use his name, and seriously if you're building with PD try to insist having him as your site supervisor) so I felt comfortable just leaving everything up to him.

We just had fun in the meantime buying all the new furniture for the new house. mainly from The Good Guys and from Early Settler- I absolutely LOVE this shop! anyone going for a more of a classic but didn't try too hard look with reasonable prices then this is the place for you! I'll post pics once we move in of everything.

Last week we had someone try to break into our garage and ruined our garage door in the process so we had to reschedule the PCI from Friday till Wednesday. On the positive side they didn't manage to get inside the house...
We were told that a guy in a viking hat has been wandering around our house very early in the morning and that he is suspected of also stealing our water meter- all the stuff he can buy with selling that little bit of copper, lots of gum or chips I suppose..

Our Site supervisor has been working like crazy getting everything done so we will still have handover within the time frame we set before the burglary.

I'll get on with PCI, stay tuned for the Telstra outrageous rip off after that.. 

PCI went very well. A few items needed attention, a lick of paint here and a clean up there, I didn't expect them to find very much, Michael regularly visits our site and makes sure everything is up to standard. After we received Darbecca's report our amazing Site supervisor sent us a detailed email explaining each item Darbecca found and told us what he has been doing to sort it out. Hand-over is scheduled for next Friday and the house looks amazing!!

OMG this floor is flawless~~ <3 

Ceiling fans are great! powerful and quiet

Not much of a garden (yet!)

Sooo a few weeks ago I received and email saying it is time to start contacting Telstra to get our phone and internet lines connected. We called our internet provider TPG and Telstra so they will be both working on it to get it set up as soon as possible because waiting times can reach over 3 months and almost $600 to get connected. We are also very far from a Telstra hub so our internet will be very slow once we get it. Obviously I will not wait 3 months for internet, what will I do without Netflix? They also offer the option of naked ADSL which is basically a wireless wifi which is more expensive and much slower but without the expensive installation and long waiting time. So I opened the webpages of all internet providers over the weekend, put my address in them and see what they will have to offer me. And then I put my address into the Optus website and for some strange reason the website said I can get connected to their cable broadband which is up to 30Mb, free installation and a free modem and no activation fee. Apparently besides Telstra, Optus are the only ones who have their own cables and are able to provide better internet, faster and cheaper. Needless to say I went with Optus and they were able to start installation (for free!!!) the following week, I just booked them for the first day of handover instead..  The only downside is that the cables are overhead but you can get underground ones if you pay your own electrician to do it. I'd rather just go with overhead, it's an established neighborhood with many overhead cables and the cables just get connected to the side of the house, not the center. Maybe in the future when we fill back our coffers we will look into it, in the meanwhile we will spend that money on landscaping :)

I hope the time I took to write all this down will help someone in the future.

We have a date for PCI!!!

Week 15 of the build, I had a day off today so I went to see the house. A lot has been happening! It is starting to look like a house, can't wait for the floors to be put in~
10 Nov will be our PCI, hope things go smooth until then...

Ensuit 

ensuit shower

Front door

main bathroom

pantry

Kitchen tiles

Site visit

Week 11 to the build

Finally I was able to see my beautiful kitchen up close, it was magnificent!! I am so happy we decided to spend all that money on the kitchen upgrades (You can see all the upgrades and pricing in this post: http://buildingmontague21.blogspot.com.au/2016/12/kitchen.html ).

There are boards covering the stone for protection

LOVE IT!!!!

Was worried the stone would be too blend, the tiny sample they give you in WoS is not very attractive, I was so happy to see how glorious the stone is.

The bins

Wasn't too impressed by the size of the bins, they are too small and there's lots of dead room underneath. That being said, it might be good to throw the trash before there's too much of it. right now we live on the third floor so throwing out the garbage is such a hassle, might not be that much of a hassle in the new house :)

Need ideas on what to do with the space between the cupboards and the window

I bet we could have had a bigger window there but the lady in our tender was too lazy to check how big we can actually have it and just went as safe as she could. would have looked so nice having a big window there especially since it's the only north facing window in our living/kitchen/dining area..



The bathroom cabinets are also in. I truly regret not upgrading to stone in the bathroom and kept the included laminate bench-tops, I hope it will look better once the sink is in and it's given a proper dusting off.

Last thing is the render... You can still see the outline of the bricks I hope it's not the finished product

Approximate move in date is still end of October, can't wait!!!!!!!!!

Next week I am flying to Israel for 2.5 weeks for the Jewish New Years. Will probably go see the house a few days after I come back... :)

Kitchen cabinets being built

Week 9 into the build and the kitchen cabinets are in. We couldn't go in so we had to take pics from the windows outside. I am very happy with how it turned out and I love the handles that my husband chose.