We have the keys

Today we finally received the keys for the house from Henley, 11 months after demolishing the previous house on the block, 12 months after settling on our former home.

The House Inspectors

We had our pre-handover inspection on the 12th with our site supervisor and it went very well with only a few minor issues including

• lots of very minor paint and plaster touch ups
• bulkhead above the kitchen cupboards (known omission prior to inspection)
• the join in the stone kitchen bench needs polishing
• some woodwork scratches

The site supervisor effectively checked every dot we put on a wall to make sure it was legit, that we weren't looking too close. He was adding his own stickers as well, he was not just relying on us to spot which a touch up is needed.

But the best part is seeing the almost finished house.

The dining and family room.

The dining room and kitchen, which always seems brighter than looking the other way towards the family room.

The living room with the fireplace. We expected the carpet to look grey but now that installed you can clearly see a lot of blue in it.

The powder vanity outside of bathroom

The kids bath with the tiles unexpectedly lining up with the floor. Henley had claimed they would not line up with the floor tiles, but they do.

The building inspector we hired was late due to traffic, not a good look, and then got off on the wrong foot with our site supervisor by immediately pointing out a tiny dint in the guttering. He did however find some more useful things including

• shower screen seals
• sliding alfresco doors do not lock/connect easily, the kids certainly could not do it themselves
• some re-pointing/sealing in a few places
• the mortar at the base of the portico pillars
• some minor guttering adjustments

What the inspector failed to tell me was he would not release the report until we had paid him, so instead of receiving the report that Wednesday evening, he finally sent it Friday night after we followed up. So we did not get the report to Henley until the following Monday, potentially costing us a few days before handover. Not happy. We are so looking forward to living in a house with space, we can't wait to get out of here.

Not the moat

I'm sure like anyone else building right now, the site is largely mud with all the rain we had last week. So with the house now so close to done, we went in search of someone to do the landscaping.

Most companies we called either didn't respond or said they could not start before Christmas. We eventually found a company called Gardenridge who have had some great ideas and can start as soon as we are ready.

We signed up today for Gardenridge to do the driveway, paths, decking, retaining walls, lawn and drainage and then we will have to do the plants and fences ourselves over time.



They are already getting the permits.

BTW, we now have carpet :)

Floors underneath

We dropped by tonight as one of our fences was meant to replaced today. Work has start on the fence, but even better some of our flooring was done.





It looks fantastic, so good we started wondering if we should have had this done in more rooms than just the family/dining/kitchen and the main corridor.

Our SS supervisor is apparently going to do our handover and said to expect a call next week!

We are also about to sign up a landscaper, more on that in another post...