Bricks are finished.

On Friday 21 we had a meeting on site with W. He was very informative and friendly. While we were conversing with him, we found out that the bricks will be replaced. We got a bad batch apparently, and are now waiting for more bricks to be sent over. Other interesting things we found out were: *Ultimate are a medium sized company and only build approx 200 odd houses a year, whereas some of the bigger companies are doing 500+ a year. This suits us as it means that they aren't focused so much on quantity, but more on quality. *W also only supervises 20 houses, so not too many and, from what the brickies said, goes out 3 times a week. *The plus series houses..what we are building...take approx 6 months to build. So may be looking at an April/May finishing time. (YAY) *Hopefully the grey coat on internal walls will be done before christmas.

When we pulled up to the house we noticed that the roofing materials had arrived. W said they were booked in for Friday, but were held up on another job, so should be starting on Monday, they will take aprox 4 days to complete, then the roof tilers should come and do their bit. It looks like the roof will be finished, by the time I come back from my holiday. The brickies were also finished, possibly early that morning, going by some wet mortar, and that means that the inside is now completed too! Everything looks great, and the internal bricks were pretty decent compared to some of the ones I have seen in other houses.

Front panorama

Kitchen...with my lowered wall oven :)

Alfresco, looking into completed meals/kitchen

Main bedroom.Games roomRoofing material......tiles haven't arrived yet.

External finished...

On Sunday we made our bi-weekly trip to the block to check progress and all the external walls are up with windows and doors placed. The inner external brick was done also. All they need to do is finish all the internal 'dividing' walls, and robes/kitchen. And that will be the brickwork finished. Hoping they will finish by the end of this week, or the beginning of next week.
We were disappointed to see that the cracked bricks were not replaced, and now every window has cracked bricks under them. Yes thats right, every brick under every window is cracked! Just the ones the windows are sitting on. Not sure if they were cracked before, or after the window was placed on them. But it looks ugly, and it will be fixed. I dont care whether they think it is 'acceptable' there is not one other house built in the area that has the cracks in the window bricks. We will be seeing W on Friday and discussing it with him and see what can be done. Hoping he is a reasonable man and will fix it.

So now time for some photos...
Front of house

Inside main bedroom.

Looking from the back into alfresco/meals area...games room to the left

Along the back wall...games and 2 bedrooms

More of those ugly cracks.

We went out again today...and part of the inside is done. 'Mr Brickie' said they should be finished by Friday. Hope so, as it is meant to be raining this weekend. Will post more photos and another update on Friday when we meet with W.

Quick update.

Just a brief update today. Went out to the block, to see how much had been done, on Sunday. Most of the garage walls were completed and the 2 row of bricks down the side, behind garage towards the alfresco, and windows were placed. We seen some things that we didn't like. 1: In the garage some of the face bricks are facing the wrong way... not really a big deal, but surely they could tell the difference, and if they do it there who knows where they will do it next. 2: The garage wall was really rough in a couple of places, some bricks had mortar missing, and the back of the electricity box is showing. 3: On the study wall (behind garage) there are a couple of bricks that have been broken and subsequentially, just filled up with mortar. 4: The second course under the windows along the side are all cracked and facing the wrong way! We sent off an email with photos of the above mentioned, and we received an email back that day! Very effecient. The parts in the garage that were rough will be having piers in front of them as well as the electricity box,the bricks that are the wrong way- there is nothing they will do about that, and I dont think you will be able to pick it on the outside anyway. We were also told that the broken mortar filled bricks were common as they are getting covered over with plaster and it helps the grey-coat to stick. I guess I would rather have them filled with mortar, than nothing! As for the cracked bricks under the window, they will be replaced. As they are visible, someone with authority said that they will be redone, they agreed that it doesn't look so nice. All in all I was very happy that our questions were answered in a timely manner, and am happy that the cracked ones will be replaced. She even thanked us for sending the photos with the offending bits circled. What a wonderful lady S is. We were also updated on the progress, brick layer will be there for another 3 weeks, then the roof will be delivered along with piping/gutters etc. I will be sending her a thank-you email tomorrow to let her know that I appreciate the work she has done so far.
Hopefully the brickwork will be completed (or close to) when I go for my holiday, and on my return the roof will be finished.

Bricks..Bricks..Bricks..bricks..

Our bricks have arrived! We were informed by our CLO that they were going to arrive on the 30 Oct, and that they brick layer was booked for the 5th Nov. When we went out on Sunday 2nd we seen that they had indeed arrived on time. The kids still aren't that interested and were too busy playing ball and chasey around the bricks to care. The photos show the bricks, the ones on the slab are the internal and the ones around the outside are the external bricks.
side view, garage closest, looking towards front door and main bedroom
front view

These are our external bricks...not sure about the colour they are different to what I imagined them to be, going by pictures and other houses, but they may look different as they are built and the mortar goes in between. I just thought they would have more of a colour variation to them.

Close up of external bricks

The electricity box, toilet and storage shed were also brought in sometime during the week. The kids seem to always need to 'go' while they are here....don't know why...surely the use of a portable toilet isn't that interesting!!

On Thursday 6th we again went out to the block, as the brickie was meant to be there Wednesday, so we thought that we might check it out to see how much progress he had made. Seeing as it was wet Wednesday afternoon, we didn't know if anyone showed up or kept away because of the rain. We were pleased to see that he had, in fact, been out Wednesday, not sure how long he was there for. The first row of external perimeter bricks had been placed and we have 2 half finished garage walls. Thursday was of course raining, today it's not... so we will see if there is any more progress on Sunday, when we again, venture out there. Looks like we will be making bi-weekly trips at least until the walls are up.
garage walls

bedroom recess looking towards front door
main bedroom looking down the side, towards back of house.

Close up of garage wall.

We also took up 'S' on her offer to meet 'W' our SS, he was meant to get in contact with us to arrange a meeting. So far we haven't heard anything, so may have to give 'S' a call and see whats happening...hope this is not the start of things to come... ie: slow to call etc

We rang up the developers during the week to find out about the back of the land. At the moment there is a ditch and a post and wire fence beyond that. Initially, as the land was getting developed we thought the back of our property would be forward of the ditch. Not so, we measured the length of the property on Sunday to find that it goes back to wire fence, which means the ditch is on our land, and cuts about 1.5-2 metres off our small backyard. I put the question to the forum, and was shown where the ditch is on the 'house-siting' plans, so it was there all along. Anyway after the phone call we have been told that the area will be covered in. The developers were waiting, as they didn't want to put in a retaining wall. The land behind us will get developed and end up level to us, only problem is I have no idea when it will be developed... not for a few years yet at least. They will send an engineer out soon to do whatever he does..there are 3 houses being built on our side so far (6 blocks total... until the rest of the area gets developed), that will need fences up sooner rather than later.

We have a slab

Yay! The plumbing etc was done early this week, it was definitely in by Wednesday afternoon. We were hoping to get out to the block before the cement was poured, but alas when we went Thursday morning...it was already done. So no photos of the pipes etc. just some of the slab...as we were leaving the windows turned up too, so we got a couple of photos of those. It has also left me doubting whether I we picked the right colour. Our mortar will be darker than what the windows appear to be, and what about the render, will it match?? Maybe I should have gone with the 'magnolia gloss' ones instead, it is darker than the 'white birch' we have got.... or maybe even 'silver lustre' might have been nice. Its so hard to choose when the only samples you have are 10cm lengths of pipe, 4 bricks with mortar, and no render colour to compare with! Its too late to change now anyways, so I guess I shouldn't stress myself out about window colouring!! Also found out while checking the contract that not only do we have flyscreens for the windows, but for sliding doors as well. I didnt even see that until today *blushes*

So now the photos....


This was on Sunday, before pipes etc had been laid.

Our slab... it takes up most of the block, I dont think we will be having any backyard at all. Not happy about that, but what can you do when block sizes these days are sooo small!
Looking from rear of house to front. The pipes sticking up are toilet, laundry and bathroom pipes..the ensuite ones up the front.

This is the way they do garages here. The rest will be laid later on, towards the end of the build.
Our new windows. I hope they dont go "walk-about" while they are sitting there waiting to be installed.

It has all started!

Well as the title says, things have started on the block! We got an email from our Construction Liason Lady...'S'...to let us know that now that everything has gone to construction, she will take over from 'C'. We have to go through her if we have questions etc, and she says she will keep us updated fortnightly on progress. She also told us who our Site Supervisor is, we'll call him 'W' from now on, and that site works are starting and slab will be down within the next fornight. We also can meet W if we like, we have to go through her though to make an appointment. I think we will take her up on the offer, mainly to put a face to the name, find out how long building should take etc, and hopefully get a 'feel' for him... (see if he knows his stuff or if he's a dodgy SS!)... I will also have some Q's I will want answered too.
Luckily Mr G knows someone who has built and is living in the estate and kindly said she will go past and update us. We will be making weekly visits out there now that everything has finally started. Hopefully we can get pictures before the slab goes down, which should be sometime next week. I guess the next step after slab is the handing over of money.... eeekkk!

We have a sign...

Well the bank finally come through, about a week after my last post. After getting confirmation, we paid the deposit (out of our pown pocket :( ) and rang our CA, who was away. The replacement girl, thanked us and had everything sent to construction.... Yipee no price-rise!!

We also got a plan for the storm water disposal...theres a soak well on the plan-not sure if this is a good or bad thing yet. The council had deleted one soakwell from the back, (not sure where the water from the d/pipes goes for them though) and it looks like from the scribble on the plan the front one was moved from near the house to the near the footpath??? A bit later down the track we will go to the council and work it out between ourselves, we arent quite sure what it all means!

A call to Ultimate last week, had us excited as we were told that everything should start in the next couple of weeks. Our original CA 'C' is also back from holidays.

A trip to the block on Sunday had us (Mr G and I) cheering as we had our builders sign erected.....the kids weren't impressed, all they still see is dirt, once building actually starts I think they will be able to muster up a little bit of enthusiasm.... quite possibly it will dimish quickly though, when we drag them out there week after week!

The houses are going up all around in our section of the estate, so its quite nice to see it develop.

Kids sitting in front of the builders sign..(note the beanie miss7 is wearing :) )
Looking towards the main entrance..our block is the 2nd one in on the left, not visible in picture.
Looking down the street, directly in front of our block.

Looking towards our block from street in above picture.
Part of the creek area that cuts through the estate. This area is on the other side of the main entrance/our block. Our side of the creek hasn't been started yet.

You can see the main entrance from this picture, and the rest of the 'undeveloped estate.

While driving back home, I managed to get the kids excited when I seen 'Herbie' driving towards us....okay maybe I got a little excited too (I loved Herbie!!) Mr13 insisted it was the same car from the movies...after all there cant be 2 'herbies' ... I am sure he got miss7 and mr10 believing him! So all in all it was excitement all around!!

"Beep beep"