Two years on

I cant believe it has been over 2 years now since we finished building our home, and we still love it. There has been lots of redesigns internally, but I always think that is one of the best things about owning a home, and I don't think we will ever stop 'tweeking' it. ;-) The estate is growing up around us, and looking much more established now, which is great to see. In general I have no complaints with the house, and there have been no major issues, There are a few little things I would like to change about the house, which I do wish we had done whilst we were building the house, for example, sliding doors to the Family room, kitchen work bench in the laundry, extend the alfresco, but none of these issues are serious, and can be added to my current to do list. We are still working on the garden, but so are nearly all of our neighbours (it would seem no body realised how much time and effort landscaping would be) but we are getting there slowly, which is nice to see.

One year on

Its now almost a year since we got the keys to our new home. We have got through a fair amount of our list of 'extras' that we wanted to complete ourselves. It is amazing how long that list can get, even though it is a brand new house. It really is starting to feel like a proper home now. We have been fairly lucky with the house, as there have been no major issues so far. A few minor issues with plumbing, but otherwise nothing to report inside the house. Other than quite a few upgrades to things like wardrobe door handles (which really were cheap and nasty), we have been happy with the overall finish. Our main problems have been the outside area. It really was left in a horrible near unusable space when the builders left. After many, many hours of hard work though, we do have the effect of a usable garden now, well, despite the sloping aspect of the back garden (who'd have thought a fall of 1.5m across the whole block would create the annoyance that it has, lol). It had always kind of annoyed me how things were left by Urbanedge, however I assumed this was just standard practice (as I believe it is by most of the 'big ' builders). In the last few weeks however a 'small' builder started construction on the house next door to us, and that site is always immaculate, even after the slab was poured there was a guy in cleaning up the mess AND levelling the area around the house - wow, I know who I will use if I ever build again, if they continue at this standard!!!

We finally have internet access!

Its taken almost four months to get connected to the internet on the NBN, but is finally done! That was a painful process, in fact it was probably the most annoying part of buiding a new house, in a new estate. What a dissorganised organisation!!!!!!

Week 16- Getting the keys

We have the keys - such an exciting day! We love the new house, but the landscaping is going to be a huge job - i didnt realise what a state they would leave the site in.

Week 15 - PCI, and final inspection by the bank

Things are still moving along great at the moment. The QA with the manager went with out a hitch. Our PCI on tuesday went very well, with no major issues, and we didnt find much that the SS didnt already have on his own to do list!

The bank did their final inspection today, I havn't heard how that went, but i assume there were no issues! The only thing preventing us from submittng the claim for our final payment now is getting a physical copy of the 'certificate of occupancy'. Although this was approved, the council wont hand it over to the builder until the gas line had gone in. There was apparently some delay here due to the skip being positioned where they wanted to dig the trench. The gas line however went in this morning so fingers crossed we will have that certificate very soon.

No pictures today, but i'm hoping to be doing another update very soon! Were all starting to get very excited about getting our keys soon! (Not so excited about packing up and cleaning the current rental house, but we'll get there, lol)

Week 14, Certificate of Occupancy Granted

 

 

Exciting Times.

We had our first weeting with our SS on Thursday, which went really well, it was so exciting to see everything all finished! Then today (Friday) the manager was out to do his insepection AND the council came out to do their checks. We got our Certificate of Occupancy, so everything is moving along perfectly so far, with our PCI booked for Tuesday! I cant believe we could be getting our keys in  a couple of weeks! Every spare moment I have is now taken up, with packing up the rental house, planning the move, or thinking about how to decorate the new house!

 

I am however, a litte confused as to what carpet they have given us, its definately not what i chose last week, but i think it might be our original selection, which we were told was out of stock.

Week 13

 

 

In a few days the house will be complete. Its so exciting to think we could be moving in, in just a few weeks (so long as the inspections, repairs, and paperwork all go smoothly!)

 

This week the sockets all went in, the lighting, and the plumbing. Even the sink taps were installed, which is suprising as the basins are still the wrong way around!?!? 

 

 

The wooden flooring also went in, this photo was unfortunately taken through a closed window but it did look great. Carpets are due to be laid tomorrow, and i believe that will make the house complete (except for appliances). I got a message on Thursday to let me know that the carpet we had selected wasnt available, I was dissapointed, but I headed down to 'Carpet Call' to see their recommended alternative. Once I got there I realised that i was actually quite glad that we'd had to reselect, as in natural daylight (the UE office didnt have much natural light) the carpet that we had chosen didn't look so great! The sales guy was very helpful though, and we found a much nicer alternative, in the same price range. I cant wait to see it down in a few days (Its the bottom on in the picture)