Show and Tell

It’s been a big couple of weeks. Firstly our existing house finally went on the market.

Secondly the baby had another big screen test of its own with the 19 week scan. And then of course simmering away in the background were yet more dramas in the build.

Where to start? I’ll try my best to mix up the good with the bad….

1. The Rogue Post

You won’t see this post on the plans. It was the idea of the site supervisor and the roofing carpenter to install it to add stability to the stairs. Structurally – according to the engineers – it’s not needed, but without it the stairs are likely to have a little give and over time that means noisy creaks. And of course the best bit is, we’ll never know it’s there as it’ll be hidden in the middle of the wall. So it’s a good thing, right? Well yes…..

…all except that somewhere along the line (they say it’s the stair carpenter’s fault, the stair carpenter says it’s their fault – who are we to judge?) it found itself completely outside of anywhere any walls are going to go.

All this led to an on-site meeting with the site supervisor to discuss our options. Believe me, it’s a looooong story, so I’ll save you all the twists and turns and just jump straight to the punchline; we’re going to have a bit of a step in the wall:

It’s a wee bit odd looking, but certainly the lesser of all the other optional evils.

2. The Kitchen is born

Ta daaaaaah!

Beautiful! (And best I keep quiet about my ongoing self-questioning about whether I still like our choice of two-tone or should have just stuck to all white…hrmmm)

So far the only snag to be found here is a tiny one – the bin drawer:

It’s so deep you couldn’t possibly reach the bottom to clean it. No biggie. They’ve taken it away again to give it a bit of a re-shape.

3. Doors

I was going to show you the photo I took of the big pile of doors when they were delivered. But in my tardiness to get a post written up, they’ve since almost finished installing them all, meaning now you can get much better pictures:

Hallway:

Front door and door through to garage:

From the outside (all yet to be painted white):

Master bedroom – french doors to the garden and double en suite doors:

And here-in lay the next issue.

We paid a small fortune to upgrade all the windows in the entire house to special acoustic noise-reducing glass. Being directly under the flight path it was a council requirement to have thickened or double glazing.

The master bedroom backs onto a main road; nowhere could be in greater need of a little noise reduction. Again, this is another long story – the punchline of which is we’re assured the standard 3mm glass we discovered in those French doors is being upgraded to the 6.5mm laminated VLAM Hush glazing as promised.

And how’s this for the best door of all? At the bottom of the laundry sliders is: The Cat’s Door:

Lucky fellas hey?!

Right, I’d best speed it up a bit… so much to get through……

4. Balustrades

5. Tile Delivery

6. Ceiling Painting

7. Bullnose Sheeting Delivery

Which actually should have been installed by now. Apparently the roofers arrived on site to find one piece missing, so couldn’t even start… next post!

8. Bathroom Cabinets

Notice the bonus undercoated entry doors.

9. Hot Water Unit

…in the wrong place leaving no space for the AC unit. Is nothing easy??

There’s no punchline for this one just yet, in fact it was supposed to have been resolved some time ago. The AC guy is due to meet with our site supervisor in the next couple of days to discuss this and the missing bulkhead.

10. And Finally

I’ll leave you all with the final drama that’s due to be resolved tomorrow when a chap with a big angle grinder is going to be on site making a whole big mess with the concrete recess for our alfresco stacker doors, all in aid of setting our plans for a seamless inside/outside alfresco effect straight again.

This is the effect we’re after:

But in our case, there are problems with the doors, issues with the brick-line…. you get the point….. And the big gaping hole where these doors are supposed to be is the only thing taking away from our official “lock-up” status now that all rest of the windows and doors are in place,

Phew! I think that’s everything – good, bad, big and small.