Day 54 of 266

Finally, after a couple of cancellations, our slab and frame inspection was done today. Carl, our Darbecca inspector found some minor issues which he said would take about two hours to fix but nothing major. All his finding were marked with red spray paint for PD to see and he will send us his report which we need to send to our site supervisor. 

What I'm really excited about is that we were able to go up the first floor this time and have a look at the view from our master bedroom and family room. 

This is the view from our bedroom! Woodlea is still developing this wetlands. We were told that they will still landscape the area and put some walking tracks. 

Some of the areas marked by our inspector..

The Main Entrance, Lounge Entrance, Stairs Area, IT Nook Area

The Lounge Room

The Laundry area

The deep void partition in Living Area and Kitchen wall and floor

The Living Area

The Family Room and Dining Area flooring

The Galley

The Master WIR

The Master Ensuite

The Toilet Door

We're just thankful that we decided to reserve budget for private inspections as we would never in our wildest dream be able to catch these issues no matter how hard or how long we stare at them. As always, PD is very efficient in sending their invoice and I got the frame invoice early this afternoon.

We are moving on to next stage which is the roofing. 

Home Theatre Set-up in Cinema Lounge

A few weeks ago, we tried to add some upgrades to our house, but our BC said that we can't do variations anymore as we are already at construction stage. The biggest disappointment for us was the sound insulation and projector pre-wiring to the cinema lounge as my husband is an avid, avid movie lover. I know how much he would enjoy watching his movies on a big screen and I can just imagine the endless hours he would spend in that room. 

I had a chat with our site supervisor about my disappointment and he confirmed that he can't do anything about these. He suggested that for the sound insulation, we can surround the walls with curtains to help absorb the sound which I think was a very good idea as it will give the room a complete cinema effect. He then told me that I can send someone to install our projector pre-wiring and he will be fine with this.  He said that I need to find someone to do this in 2 to 3 weeks.

Clueless me, I organised for an electrician to do the wiring for me as I thought it's just a matter of having a power outlet to make the projector work. It turned out to be more complicated and the electrician referred us to Big Picture People in Watergardens who sells home theatre stuff.

We ended up getting a home theatre package from Big Picture People. We need to pay 20% of the package price so they can do the wiring which was included in the package and the remaining 80% will be paid when we are ready to have the full installation, to time pressure!   

We paid a deposit for Action Pack 2 which includes the following:

• Viewsonic PRO7827HD Projector
• Big 2.5 metre screen
• Yamaha HTR 5071 Receiver with Music Cast, Dolby Atmos and DTS-X
• Sony Bluray Player
• Yamaha NS-555 5.1 speaker pack
• HD set top box, HDMI cables, and bracket
• Bonus: Atmos Speakers
• Full Installation

The owner, who turned out to be building a house with Porter Davis too, also gave us a $500 discount.

Our theatre room inspiration....

I tried to push our luck farther and messaged our site supervisor to ask if he can get the PD electrician to install our pre-wiring for wall mounted TV and surround sound to the first floor game room instead, but no chance! It was a wasted $920, but we are still happy with the outcome.

Day 45 of 266

Our site supervisor advised last Monday that due to weather and materials, our slab and frame inspection will not push thru today. He couldn't give me a new date yet, so they must still be waiting for materials.

When we went to site today, no one was working, but they have done some work since we last visited on Sunday. They have done the roof frame and some windows and doors had been installed. The house looks bigger now that the roof frame has given it more height. 

Hopefully, it won't be a long wait 'til they finish our frame!

     

The front window

The powder room window, laundry sliding door and galley window 

The living and dining area windows

Day 41 of 266

We are, obviously, over-excited to see our construction that we drove to our place after dinner yesterday. After 5 days of good weather, this is what we saw!

The Main Entrance Hallway

The Cinema Lounge

The Living Area

The Family Room

The Kitchen and Galley...loving those windows and the view! If only we don't have a neighbour on that side...

The Dining Area

Our site supervisor booked our slab and frame inspection for Wednesday as he thinks they will finish on Tuesday. I hope this good weather holds and all goes well for our slab and frame inspection.

No More Variation!

I emailed our BC today to ask if we can still add and upgrade a few things for our house, but I was told that they no longer allow variation once construction has commenced.

These are the items that we tried to include:

• WIR set-up to master bedroom: We were quoted about $4000 for this during colour selection. We thought it would be good to have this all set-up when we moved in. 
• Upgrade LED lights to porch, hallway and powder room to LED light with sensor: Wouldn't it be fancy to have lights that automatically turn-on when you enter a room?
• Exhaust fan to powder room: Just to make sure that the room will always smell clean.
• Projector pre-wiring to theatre lounge: For our movie dates!
• Sound insulation to cinema lounge, powder room, master ensuite, first floor bathroom and WC : To keep the noise down especially in cinema lounge room
• Privacy lock to bedroom 1, 2 and 3 
• Keyed Lock to all openable windows
• Soft door closer to main entry door

These were not included in our priorities during contract stage due to our fear that our loan will be undervalued, but because we ended up overvalued we have spare budget and can afford to add more upgrades. Unfortunately, some of them we need to live without as we can't add them anymore such as sound insulation, projector for cinema lounge and exhaust fan to powder room. Those that we can do after handover will just be done later.

Day 37 of 266

Our frame was scheduled to start last 11 September, but our site supervisor rang to advise that it had been moved towards the end of the week. This was perfectly fine with us as we heard that slab which are water cured for longer period are stronger and more durable. Our site supervisor said that they usually start the frame at least 3 days after slab pour and it was just because of availability of framers that we got moved a bit and just consider it a bonus that we got extra curing time.

We drove by our site last Thursday and it was busy with frame material delivery. When we checked on Sunday, no frame was up yet, but the slab has been marked with room partitions and all our timber are all well wrapped up.   

I was so surprised to see the progress when I visited today and I really couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I was just hoping that they would at least have started and didn't expect the work they have done already in just 1 day.

 

I'm so happy at this stage that our slab has been well rested and cured for 21 days and our timber materials for frame was delivered at the right time and haven't sat in the rain too long. 

Day 23 of 266

I popped in to our construction this morning after a rainy night to see if there are any uneven areas where water would be pooling.

From what I've seen, our slab levelling has been done very well and only the living area has a small amount of water left over from rain. I told our site supervisor about this and he said that it will be inspected and fixed later if there are any issues. Darbecca will also do a proper inspection for us. Hopefully, this would minimise our cost when we do our own flooring after hand-over.

Now, the hole that I mentioned in my previous post is not a damage and is meant for a toilet fixture as confirmed by our base supervisor and site supervisor.