Well it's been weeks since my last post, and that's because of a range of different factors. Life has been going at a million miles an hour so far this year (so what else is new!) and getting out to the site has been noticably more difficult than it previously was. At least we've been able to get ourselves into a good shape to handle the move and the other works required when we do finally get to settle on the finished home.
Work on the site has been achingly slow over the last month, with the few big and noticable jobs happening in amongst the multitude of minor detail focused jobs. Whilst since the last update the most noticable job completed has been that the flooring has been laid throughout the house, the other things also completed include the showers having been fitted, the bath installed (which has come up sensationally well!), all of the door fittings attached and flywire screens put up on all of the windows. Unfortunately with all of the doors locked, it's been impossible to get in and have a good look (and worse still, we haven't been able to take any good photos). From what we have been able to see though, we've been pretty happy with everything so far. Our site supervisor has given us a lot of confidence in his ability to deliver a good quality project in the end, giving us regular updates on progress and being pretty open with his thoughts on the work being completed. A couple of issues he's encountered with the completed work have been rectified before any progress was made, the largest of which being the reinstallation of the front door frame which had not been done to a high enough standard. I've got pretty good faith (hopefully not misplaced) that by the time we get to PCI everything will be done to a top quality standard.
Speaking of which, although we don't have a date yet, we're getting pretty close to it. From our last visit a couple of weekends ago the temporary fencing had been taken down, and the only noticable jobs to be done were the installation of our stove and cooktop, rangehood, shower fittings in the main bathroom, hot water unit and front door. In the grand scheme of things, not very many tasks at all considering where we've come from.
On the post-handover list of tasks to complete, we're finally starting to get some good traction. I'll be meeting with a fencer and concreter for some quotes last week. The original couple of fencers who did our two side fencers have been as good as useless to us, so we moved on. It wasn't us, it was them! Honest. Serviceseeking.com.au certainly resulted in a huge number of responses to my quote requests. Hopefully I'm not getting too overconfident here, but if we can get a couple of reasonable quotes, we'll be pretty quick to act on them. Sare has been busy gathering ideas for decking and garden to take care of the next most important tasks we'll have. Furniture shopping has been happening in amongst this as well. Not too many commitments yet, but we've bought three stools for the kitchen breakfast bar, got a pretty good idea of our future couches, framed the print that was my xmas present to Sare and had a canvas made up of one of my favourite photos I took in Vietnam a few years back. We've also been shopping for a dishwasher so that I can hang up my tea towel once and for all!
It may be time to open up the sweep on our exact handover date. With absolutely nothing to base it on, I'm going to go with March 28. Bring on the next few weeks!
