Lights, Camera and Lots of Action

Electricity has been all connected this week. I popped over late yesterday and the sun goes down early so it was a good opportunity to take a few photo's with the lights on. Gotta admit, very impressed with the tilers. I need to look over it in fine detail but it looks like they finished up and they did a nice job. The electricity work by Rod West electrical through Kurmond Homes has been excellent, the placement of everything I have to say is bloody fantastic, and Kurmond Homes team take the initiative to improve on things when they're on the job. By splitting things on to different switches etc if they feel it would improve the house design. I noticed changes and they were bloody good decisions.

As for people wondering where I'm at with things. If I was to list the things outstanding this is what I can think of.

• Carpet (Done last)
• Kitchen Splashbacks
• Front paneling on and painted above front archway.
• Pantry gyprock repairs and some minor painting
• Stairs need staining and painting.
• Door Handles for all doors need to go on.
• Balcony Rail to go on.
• Garage Door Motor needs installing.
• Some flyscreens need to go on.
• AC Installation powered up and installed.
• Alarm Powered Up and installed.
• Rainwater Tank plumping
• Some minor paint fixes.
• Some minor door frame issues on 2 of the cupboards (Notches were done originally on the wrong side so there's a cut in the wood where they put the hinges on.)
• One of the bathroom doors needs replacing, it looks like someone has dropped the door and it's cracked.
• One powerpoint to be put in under the Hills Hub (Don't forget this needs a powerpoint under it like I did.)
• Appliances Installed
• Lots of cleaning, inside and out. :0)

So as you can see,  there's a few fiddley things but overall it's not a huge list, but still a fair few things to knock over.

The concern now is the baby is due on the 10th, and I don't think there's any possibility of being in this house by then. I could be proven wrong but we'll wait and see. I'm guessing it would be a week or two after. My wife has been having some Braxton Hicks pains recently so I'm thinking we may also have the baby earlier. Tomorrow I'm off to get all the new baby stuff from Baby Kingdom out and we've arranged someone to store it for us. Talk about managing a nightmare. If we don't have the house in time we're changing houses, we'll be moving into a quieter house and leaving all our stuff at the current place until the new home is ready. With 7 people we defiantly wont be taking the baby back to that house. 

Anyway take a look at some of the photo's I took. Looks good doesn't it.

Taps and Showers

Got some pictures sent over from my building supervisor Ben. It looks like I now have all my taps and shower heads in, also with that my shower screens. I really like the taps and especially the way Kurmond Homes put the tap for the baths on the wall away from the tap. My wife is a big fan of the shower head also, they look pretty snazzy.

I also had my fan changed over in the alfresco to a silver one. A white one went up and Rod the electrician came back out the same day I noticed it and fixed it up.

This week has been a long week. We were expecting to do a first walk through but the tiles job is a big job it seems. The tilers were there Saturday last week, all this week and this Saturday as well. With the porcelain tiles having to have a smaller gap between them and covering most of the bottom floor you could understand why. I think they may have finished yesterday, will probably go and have a look later today.

New Park and Living Streets for Illoura (Stage 2) - Jordan Springs

Funny enough I haven't been able to find any info or documents on the hilltop park in the Northbridge village but I've managed to dig up some stuff for Stage 2, Illoura which is now under construction by JK Williams if anyone's seen all the works going on. (I've included a shot of the lake under construction to)

So for those who've waited and will be waiting for a bit longer yet for our property in Illoura then it may pay off for some. You have a great new park going in which includes BBQ facilities (I hope they plan to upgrade all the parks with the same feature) and a snazzy slippery slide for the little ones.

On top of that you may find yourself purchasing in 1 of 3 Living streets which does sound nice but may have a few drawbacks. The living street concept is basically for streets less then 250m long, has less then 300 cars per day passing through it and is developed for interaction with the community. It contains some park like features, trees down the centre of the road and benches. Wider paths for bike riding and jogging and protection for the public not in cars. Thats the only draw back I see is the street will probably look lovely but with bollards and certain types of fencing going up basically in your front yard you might have to be careful opening doors, pulling into driveways etc. What do you think. Doesn't look to bad.

I know me and my little boys will be at the park for sure.

This is the new park in Illoura

How cool does that kids playground look.

One of the living streets.

Here's a map of the park and one of the proposed living streets. 3 in total in Illoura.

One of the living streets.

Should a new home builder care about Fences

As a new home owner should we care about how our fence is put up considering it affects both you and your neighbour? Word of warning to anyone building, you may be shocked about how things happen.

The sad thing is that so many people fall into the category of having your builder supply everything. Everything including your fences. Now imagine this. Your builder  installs a fence. Without any consultation with your neighbour and with no discussion with yourself. They'll install it as per the council rules. 1.8m from the level of your yard.

A few problems with this....

1. You actually are at a lower point then your neighbours, if you install your fence first then its likely your builder won't raise the fence for your neighbour so they end up with a 4-5 foot fence, a fence they can look over without any issues at all.

2. Your neighbour actually needs to put in a retaining wall which you actually maybe responsible for. If your fence is installed before hand your giving your neighbour a lot of work to try and retrofit it, he may also have to cop the wall on his property fully rather then on the fence line. Council states that if the land is altered then the difference is covered by each owner, relevant to how much the owner changed the land. So if I made no change to the levels then I'm responsible for zero. If I change my land by 20% then I pay 20%.

3. Your neighbour may start organising quotes and the builder just goes ahead anyway, waisting a lot of time by different people.

I'm sort of going through this at the moment and have a few good examples of this. Yet....I could do what everyone else is doing and simply put up a fence and take no consideration of the neighbour and make it there problem. After all that's what the builders seem to do. Unlike me I didn't ask the builder to do it so I could check what my neighbours wanted. Not sure if I should have bothered with how things have gone on.

Take a look at this photo, perfect example of the problems this is going to cause. The back fence has been dug down to install without contacting any neighbours, the back fence defiantly needs a retaining wall and to top it off the fence installers have put all the dirt onto their neighbours property. They have also excavated my property and affected my levels.

So......should we worry so much, looks like no one else is?

Sunday Effort

These guys don't stop, I can't say how happy I am with Kurmond homes. There's people at our house 7 days a week lately and again today. Today the external painting was finished and what a massive difference it made to the house. There's still some timber to go above the doorway and be painted but looking at these pics you can tell I'm pretty happy with everything. The upstairs Eve's and cladding were also painted.

It looks BLOODY AWESOME!!!

Shiny New Tiles

Went to the house yesterday afternoon to take a look and was happy to see the tilers on site. We're really happy with the colours and I don't know how we've managed to get it all right. They're looking great. The tilers should be there until tuesday and then Ben has told us that we should expect our first walk through on Wednesday. The house won't be 100% but they get you to come and be picky and mark up any of the issues you have.

I asked Ben what will come first, the new baby or the house. He thinks he's going to win that race and I hope so. With everything in storage and living in a house with 7 people it won't be fun if the new baby wins.

As for the rest of the house there isn't much left to do. Carpet, shower screens and touch ups, that's about it.  As for the driveway and landscaping were going to sort that out when we get the keys. I found a concreter who can do the driveway pretty cheap and the landscape I can take the time to do while I'm enjoying 2 months off work.

Internal Paint Done, Electrical Today

I had to pop in this morning to the house to catch up with the electricians but everything is going well. The house now is finished painted inside and the electricians are busy at work. I've been told everything will be hooked up today (powerpoints, lights etc) and then they'll come back and connect the power later this week.

Ben has let me know that the AC guys and Sentinal Alarms will be in this week and the main floor tiles start this week as well so we're now on the home stretch. On the weekend the builders were in painting and also installing all the benchtops. It's coming up pretty well. They've stained the front door and stair rails as well. I'm guessing the staining of the stairs will be done last with the carpet.