Clean Your Act Up! (with pics)

This week brick cleaning has been completed on the upper levels as well as painting of the eaves.  I am quite happy with the colour of the Austral Metropolis Topaz bricks, and the laying quality.  The bulk of the scaffolding has been removed so I guess the rest of the cleaning and the lower level roof tiling can proceed this week.  Looking forward to this so that the internal work can get cracking.

Red bricks will be rendered and painted in Taubmans Vintage Lace

Our internal brick wall was cleaned too.  I think I made a mistake going with raked joints, they should have been flush to make it look more rustic.  Hopefully the white ceiling and floorboards will make this wall 'pop'. These bricks came from The Brick Pit at Smithfield.  The owner was very helpful and the bricks were delivered within a few days.

Recycled brick internal feature wall after cleaning

Also completed were the frames for the  kitchen and cinema bulk heads and a cavity door frame was installed for our ensuite.

Getting there...

I notice Fowler Homes have updated their website.  The plans for the Monaco have changed, there are some new house designs , and the upgrade packages have changed (including the upgraded roof tiles and stair balustrading upgrade that I negotiated into my tender).  They make mention of new processes - it sounds like they really are working to improve their service.

Bricks and Mortar, and Plumbing (with pics)

Brick laying commenced yesterday and by today they are about 2/3rds of the way around the lower level. We like the colour in general, and are a little worried about the colour variation, but it is hard to tell because the bricks are absorbing water from the mortar. As stated in the last post, Austral have agreed to tint the light ones if there is too much variation.

Plumbing rough in has also gone ahead in the past two days.  I am surprised at the spaghetti of hoses and pipes that will eventually be concealed.  You get a real sense of how internal work is very rough and that the art of building is in the concealment (bricks, skirts, architrave, gyprock, cornice, etc).

The following problems were found, and then resolved through some quick calls from the SS:

• Upgraded Main Bathroom freestanding bath only comes in 1700 mm (not 1500 mm as specified). Agreed to use the 1700 mm and reduce the long side of the shower from 1200 to 1000 mm.  This means that the Shower niche needs to be made thinner.  I am happy with this because I'd prefer the bigger bath anyway.

Free standing bath upgrade

• Flick mixers for dual shower heads in Ensuite would clash with Niche.  SS wanted to delete the long niche and make smaller ones at each end but I wasn't happy with this as they wouldn't be visible.  Alternative - Niche to be raised 200 mm. Great result.

Ensuite water supply with raised niche height (to be completed)

Very happy with the flexible and cooperative approach taken by the Fowler Homes SS.  More steady progress being made.  Driest May in Sydney on record, sorry Farmers but keep it comin'.

Australbricks Metropolis Topaz - Problem Under Control

Our SS responded straight away last night.  He really should be getting some rest rather than responding to complaints about bricks!  He rang the Austral rep first thing and arranged a meeting on site after lunch.


I showed the rep some examples of the colour range exhibited in the packs delivered.  He acceptedthat the colour range was greater than should be expected.  He compared the samples with other packs around the site and felt that the lighter sample was the outlier and felt that it may be present in small quantities (within the usual 5% allowance).  The two resolutions we agreed were:

1. He suggested that the brick layers are asked to look for lighter 
bricks and sort out where appropriate. An example was left for the brickies.
2. If the colour variation cannot be successfully sorted by the brick layers, Austral will tint any unacceptable bricks to an appropriate colour (anticipated to be within a few hundred).  Apparently you can't see the difference after the tinting process.

I am happy with this plan provided that I am given the opportunity to review the laid bricks after cleaning and agree to what needs tinting (if required). A timely and satisfactory result - can't ask for more.

Australbricks Metropolis Topaz - Problems? (pics)

Very excited to have the bricks delivered today as they are such an important feature of the facade.  I made sure I had a good look because I want them to be right.  I have found a few concerns that I will raise with the SS.  The colour variation in the bricks appears to be greater than that shown in Australbricks display centre on Wallgrove Road.  I am OK with a bit of variation so that the bricks look natural, not painted, but the fashion of the day is monochrome.  Am I being too fussy?

Australbricks Metropolis Topaz Display Wall

Range of colours in my bricks

Close-up of colour variation

 Also, some of the packs have been placed a bit rough on uneven ground and have broken apart.  Although I am happy we chose colour through bricks rather than coated ones where the body colour shows through, I still don't want them to be chipped.

 I'll see what the SS has to say.

We now need to order our Sydney Pressed Common Recycled Bricks for the Meals Room feature wall. I am seeing these used all over the place and they look great.  Very happy that they will be laid soon.  Shopping tomorrow.

The Colours Appointment (Pics galore)

The Colours appointment went pretty well.  The room at Fowler Homes HO is pretty well stocked with most options so the session went pretty smoothly. The Fowler Homes Colour Consultant was useful and helped to guide decisions that she thought were important, she got back to us with a number of option prices the next day and committed to a date to deliver other prices still outstanding. Overall the standard inclusions appear to be quite reasonable with only a few exceptions. We need to book an appointment with Vaccaro Electrical to do the electrical plan, and Abruzzo to select tiles separately.  A few annoyances with the process were:

• Fowler Homes are currently using Taubmans paints. Had we been told this prior we could have chosen from their charts, so in this case we had to choose the best alternative from colours we had chosen from others.
• The Consultant did not have the prices for some of the simple options like taps and bathroom accessories - we could have given a yes or no straight away.
• We have included a free standing bath in the main bathroom.  we are now told that we need to spend more on a free standing bath spout because the standard one won't reach from the wall.  This really should have been included in the tender.
• We got a quote on square set cornice which was almost three times greater than what the Sales Rep told us it would be.

The Colour Consultant helped a fair bit with the facade, and we chose Austral Metropolis Topaz bricks with ironed off-white mortar , Bristile Classic Gunmetal concrete roof tiles.  The windows are Trend Anodic Natural Matt (Silver), gutters, fascia and downpipes are Colorbond Monument, Gliderol Tuscan Panel-lift garage door in Caoba Dawn, Corinthian Infinity 8G 2340 x 1200 front door with Oblong satin chrome pull handle and Jarrah stain, the rendered section is Taubman's Vintage Lace and the driveway is LivingConcrete Bluestone in 8' Quarry Stone pattern.

Facade

The kitchen is polyurethane as part of Fowler Homes' Aspire upgrade package.  We chose Crisp White for the bottom cupboards and Taubmans Zelda (charcoal grey) for the overhead cupboards.  The back of the island bench will also be Zelda. We are waiting on a price for stainless steel kick panels but will probably end up with painted Silver Pearl.  For the bench tops we can take Ceasarstone Ice Snow as standard but are waiting on a price for Nougat (pictured).  We are also waiting on a price to thicken the island bench top from 20  to 40 mm and have no handles on the overhead cupboards.  The lower cupboards will have the larger oblong handles on the handles pic, and then we are using the middle sized ones on the vanities, both part of standard offer.

Caesarstone Nougat and Ice Snow

Large oblong handles for kitchen, middle size for vanities

We will be upgrading the kitchen sink at some cost but it was too good looking to knock back.

Abey Berazza kitchen sink

For the bathrooms we also get standard Caesarstone benchtops in Snow and we have chosen Belgian Chocolate as the poly cupboard colour.  For the Powder Room we have gone with Walnut benchtop and Crisp White cupboard doors.  Tile selection is to be done at Abruzzo Wetherill Park and it is suggested that we wait until the roof tiles are on to ensure availability of the tiles.  We got a free alternative vanity sink mixer. We upgraded the bathroom accessories to Alder Metza with double towel rails instead of single - the upgrade price was quite reasonable.

Standard bathroom accessories

Metza accessories

We had included Alder Alto tapware (see Euro showerhead) but got prices on some upgrades - square ones for the ensuite, hose style for the main bathroom.  These are expensive so we may unfortunately go back to the Euro.

Euro showerhead

Ensuite option

Main shower option

We are also upgrading the toilets to ones that are flush with the wall - cost was a bit but reduced when we took all three.

Imperialware Zeto Toilet

The standard carpet we have chosen is Ice Breaker 650.  We have gotten a price on Floating Timber Floors for the main living areas in Jarrah and Kempas.  The price was ridiculous, >100% mark up, so we are considering doing this ourselves.  I would be interested to hear from anyone who has done this and whether it proved to be a hassle with their Builder?

Ice Breaker 650 carpet

The bulk of the internal walls will be painted in Taubman's China Doll (white) but we are getting the whole Theatre Room and a wall in the Study done in Taubman's Gravel (blue-ish charcoal grey).  Fowler's price on this was very reasonable.

That covers just about everything.  We are still a bit anxious about the costs yet to be determined on the kitchen, floorboards, tiles and electrical but at least we are moving towards knowing that we will have a very beautiful home.