But Wait... (we are)

We have had our bricks sitting on the block since I last posted (14th November) and now (27th November) we still have not had one single brick laid! We were told early last week that they would start "Wednesday", which we took to be the next Wednesday according to the calendar - but alas, no. Wednesday it rained all day, so fair enough they couldn't start. We thought for sure that they would start the following day, and it did look very overcast early on, but not one drop fell, so they could have been working all day. Friday - same thing. Saturday was fine so we thought they might make a start, but no. Didn't expect anything Sunday, so we drove by 8am Monday expecting a bricky to be started/starting but nothing. Everything was "locked" up and the only difference we could see was some lintels had been delivered - but the bricking wouldn't have been held up by them not being there! May rang the CSC to find out what was the hold up, but she was conveniently on holiday until today, and today she rang, but as she had been away she didn't know anything about it, and our SS was at an OHS meeting all day.
We noticed tonight that some of the pallets at the rear of the house have been unwrapped and the bricks stacked next to the house - but we are unsure how long they have been like that as we have been mostly driving past without going to the back.
Hopefully we see some action tomorrow - "Wednesday", or at least find out what the heck the hold up is...
Fingers crossed for some bricklaying tomorrow... but showers are forecast :(

The long awaited arrival!

Monday our bricks finally arrived - hooray! I didn't realise that they had been delivered (thinking that they wouldn't be packaged yet) so I didn't bother driving past - then after finding out, we drove past in the dark to find that there were 24(?) pallets of bricks dotted around the outside of our house.
Tuesday I drove past early (8am) to check them out in the daylight (and take some pics) and was a bit shocked to see that the majority of them seemed to be orange in colour (mixed with brown, but definitely orange tones).

I visited again after work, and was not convinced that they were the shade of brick we had chosen. I knicked 4 bricks out of 4 different pallets that seemed like a fairly overall representation of the colours of the bricks (as below)

After considering them and the photos we had taken at the Austral display (see below)





we decided to take the bricks to the Austral display not too far away. Despite the fading light, the bricks seemed to match fairly closely with the display wall. It was now a matter of the 2 display walls not matching.

I rang the CSC, left a message and mentioned that I didn't think that the bricks looked like the ones we had picked, as the ones we chose were mid browns with some sandy coloured lighter ones, but that the delivered bricks had mostly oranges. I got a message back saying that they had checked the paperwork and it indicates that the Cotham bricks were delivered (which we knew as it said so on the pallets), and that our site supervisor had been and looked at them and to his eye they looked like the right colours for the Cotham bricks. They had also contacted Austral to see that there was no mistake.

We knew that the response would probably be that each batch is different, and that they are the right brick. And sure enough it has been blamed on the plant moving, and them hitting a "different pocket" in the quarry which would account for the colour variation. It looks like we are not going to get any resolution, so we are trying to like them and have our fingers crossed that they look ok once they go up and are blended.

My gripe is that we have been waiting over 4 weeks for these bricks, as well as paying $1300 in upgrade for them, and now that they have arrived they don't match what we based our selections on. I don't want mostly orange bricks, I want brown bricks that maybe have a bit of orange in them. (Please look different laid... fingers crossed... breathe in, and out. In, and out).

Our bricking is scheduled to start Wednesday, and according to the Site Supervisor today, we have been allocated his best brickie, that is "not the fastest, but he's the best" and is very particular with blending - so hopefully he makes it look good... According to SS it may take 3 weeks to fully brick, but as soon as about half of the bricks are up we will have the electricals fitted, and once it's bricked the plasterers will be straight in to plaster internals. Hopefully it's plain sailing from here on.. (not holding breath).

Raise the Roof!

Our roof has been on for a bit over a week now. They go delivered and went up in a matter of a couple of days. Probably 70% of the roof was done in one day, then the next they had all the rest of the tiles and capping on. It hasn't had the pointing done yet, but I'm guessing they'll wait til our bricks are done. We had a walk inside (shhh) and looking up we've spotted a few "broken" tiles - corners broken off, etc so we will see if they get replaced when the bricking has been done - if not we might have to mention it to the CSR. Last thing we want is water damaged plaster!

Here's a pic:

When I drove past yesterday there was a big sand pile in our driveway (inside the fence) so I'm guessing that's the bricking sand - but they're a bit early... we don't get the bricks for probably 2 or more weeks yet. To top that off Mebourne has had the most rainfall in the last 24hrs that it's had in the last 2 years, so how much of the sand will still be there is yet to be seen.

More of "not much".

We are still sitting at a standstill. We have been awaiting the roof tiles to arrive and be put on, but it seems there is no hurry, so the SM hasn't really been pushing for it to get done ASAP.
May sent a message to our CSC asking if we could have regular updates so that we are aware of what is happening or will be happening. In the reply it was stated that we are about to swap Site Manager's (now it will be after the roof is done). Also we were told that there is a wait on our bricks. Apparently Austral have moved their plant (or something like that) and our bricks (Cotham) will come out of the kiln on 12th November. We will then get them onsite some time after that.
We are disappointed that there will not be any real progress for the next 3-4 weeks, but are willing to wait for the bricks we really like (and paid extra for).
Looks like we can kiss goodbye any hopes of being done by the end of the year. I just really want to be moved in by the time school goes back next year!

Um, not much...

Well, It's been over a week since I last posted and the only thing we can see that has been done is that someone (plumber?) has put in pipes where the basins, etc will go. They run up the walls and into the roof. There is also a largish yellow pipe which I believe is the gas that runs in the roof and comes to a hault out the side of our bedroom (to the side) which is just behind where they have put the electrical meter box. Problem is that we were planning to fence all that off so that it would become our backyard, so it looks like we will either have to push the fence back another 3-4 metres or include a gate so that there is access to the meter boxes. I didn't want a gate there as I was going to have garden/trees right across there but looks like either our backyard is reduced to not very much or a gate... I'm going the gate at this stage - but that's a while away.
Matt saw a truck heading down towards our block on Thursday and got all excited, but when I checked Thursday night there was nothing new.
So, no guttereing or fascia, no roof tiles and no bricks.

Through the looking glass

As I wrote about yesterday, we were a little concerned that the sidelights in the front door frame were not what we had selected. After writing an email last night, and a phone call this afternoon it was all cleared up (thanks "C") and they will replace the sidelights later on as they are a special order. It appears that the sidelights we currently have were manufactured from the drawings in our contract, but I remember "B" saying at the contract meeting that the computer software they use only had the standard sidelights as a picture - so the drawings looked wrong, and that we would get what was written in the contracts as the wording overwrites the drawings.

We also have a minor issue with the glazing for our toilet window (otherwise known as a WC) because we selected "satinlite" (like frosted) and yet it appears that they have installed "white cathedral" (that bubbly obscure glass). After a quick google (don't you wonder how we ever survived without it?) I found a website that explained all the names of the different glass finishes, and I was correct in my memory of what it should have looked like. We are awaiting the reply for this matter (but as I said, no biggie).

So yes, we have our windows and doors/frames in. Below are some of the pics - please note, the colour of our windows is Colourbond "Paperbark". It still has some black tape over parts of it.

We were also told during our chat with "C" that the invoice for frame stage was sent today, the gutters and fascia will be installed some time next week, followed by the roof tiles and then bricking will begin. We reckon that if work continues at this rate (and we know it won't) we should be at lock up in about 3 weeks.

Now the only question that remains is where they installed this:

Rip rip woodchip

YAY! This is our house as at 5pm 4/10/07:

On our drive past on Monday (early afternoon) we discovered that they had started our frame. We decided that we couldn't resist the temptation to take some pics - so this is what we found:

Bedroom 2, Laundry, Bathroom, Toilet and Bedroom 3

From the Front

We drove past Tuesday before we headed out of town for a couple of days, and the chippies were having morning smoko. We took the opportunity to hop out and say hi and ask could we please have a noggin put in the laundry for the dryer. The guys were lovely and despite my lack of bribery (beer) they were happy to oblige. We couldn't get over the fact that they were putting it all together from scratch (well, from lots of long bits of wood) - and what a fantastic job they were doing!

On our return this afternoon we were totally ecstatic to find that we not only had a full frame - we also had a roof!!!

This is the view from the end of the court (the side of our house)

The view when standing in the entryway looking towards the rear of the house. To the left is the sitting room, to the right is the doorway to the master bedroom - with the WIR the small room you can see that backs onto the passage to the right. The doorway to the Linen/W.I.P/Garage is just behind the sitting room wall on the left. The doorway at the end of the passage leads to the dining (right), kitchen (left) and family (straight).

And what's more we have windows sitting there ready to be put in.

Some are below:

The first complaint we have with them (which I have to add, we haven't spoken to anyone about yet) is that we paid $750 to put in "Corinthian PMAD101SL" sidelights to match the front door - because we wanted translucent glass and we wanted it all to match.

From what we can see the sidelights are in the doorframe laying on the ground waiting to be installed - and they aren't the Corinthian PMAD sidelights as shown on the website - infact it has a sticker on them from the manufacturer. We shall see what happens...

BRING ON THE BRICKS!!!