It was horrid weather here last week, so the concrete remains unfinished, and while the painters managed to do the inside of the house, it was far too dreary for the outside.
There was a lot of progress inside the house in spite of the weather, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
I'll be honest. I'm not loving the paint. Its Taubman's "crisp white" which is meant to be a true white - to me, it looks quite cream (although looking at this now, I realise its very hard to see the problem in some of the photos above!).
What I was looking for was quite a stark white - more like ceiling white. I took some photos on my iphone today which show the yellow-y tint a bit more.
Against the "polar white" of the cabinetry and the ceiling white, its pretty obvious !
The frustrating thing is there are tins of paint lying around that are definitely labelled correctly, so at this stage I don't know if we have misunderstood what "crisp white" would look like or if there has been a problem with the mixing. I've asked the builder to check it out, but at the end of the day we may have to live with it. To repaint would cause a delay that I'm not sure we'd be willing to afford at this point, we may just have to hope that when carpet is laid/blinds are installed etc its less obvious.
In brighter news, other progress...
Door handles installed
Towel racks
We had organised a solar tube for the kitchen, which we've now decided not to install. The air conditioning vent has been put right where the solar tube should have gone, and there's really no alternative that's not going to "look" funny. On the plus side, the room is a lot brighter than we'd expected so the solar tube was probably overkill anyway !
My very large oven ready to install - bring on Christmas lunch !
Driveway (we found out about the colour - its still drying, and the sealant will help even it out)
Concrete path...we will eventually have...one of these days...
This will be another big week - electricians have been working on site today installing power switches, lights, etc. By the end of the week wiring will be finished and carpet will be laid, plus the last of the floor tiles and kitchen splashback were installed today.
We're hoping external paint is finished this week too, which leaves the "finishing up" things - solar panels, deck oiling, hot water system, and of course the air conditioning unit. We know these tradesmen have been lined up for next week (ie so Mr Concreter has been told he needs to get his bottom into gear, as those external units will sit ON the concrete we're waiting for).
All of this progress leaves an obvious question - when is handover? It is obviously getting closer but there are still quite a few things to be done even once the house itself is finished. We have decided to have an independent inspection, not that we're not happy with the quality of the build, just that we really don't know "what" to look for ourselves so if someone doesn't find the problems for us, we'll either miss them or discover them the hard way. And then of course there's the cruelest of masters, The Bank, who will need to conduct their own inspection before final payment is applied. This will take a few weeks even if everything goes to schedule over the next 2 weeks of work, so we're now hoping to have keys in our hot little hand in mid-September.
Which reminds me, we're moving out of our current house this Friday, so its back to packing for me !
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