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.

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.

Busy Bunny Left Us a Slab (with pics)

The concretors delivered the goods on Thursday and finished the slab, just in time for Easter.  Now we really get a true picture of how much yard space is left and it looks pretty good for a nice flat space at the back and quite a large side yard because of our 20+ m frontage.  Now we are up for our first big progress payment :(.

Fowler Homes got in touch with us this week about removing the excess dirt.  They offered to do it at $550/12 tonne load.  I found another contractor to do it for $300/load, starting first thing Tuesday morning.  They will also move some up the back to use later in levelling the yard.

Fowler Homes Site Supervisor told me that the external plumbing should be completed next Thursday (1 week for slab curing) and then the frame should be delivered within the week following that.  We also confirmed the mortar and joint type for our internal recycled press brick wall in the Meals Room - off white with a raked joint. Nice, nice, nice...

Although I'd love it to be quicker, progress has been reasonable so far.  Fingers crossed it stays that way.

From Sign On to Drawings - Delays, Delays, Delays...

To finalise the Fowler Homes tender in order to make it accurate for the drawings took a couple of iterations despite me giving clear instructions each time.  After this we paid the first deposit of $5,000, negotiated down from $10,000 - Wisdom Homes only wanted $2,300 at this stage.

I had to ask what the next steps were as no information was offered.  I was told that the drawings would take about 4 weeks.  I follow up at 3.5 weeks and then again at 4.5 weeks and finally get them that night.
There are some minor errors and a few things I would like changed. It takes 4 days to get a variation detailing the amendments and changes.  I sign and return within 30 minutes.  I follow up 5 days later to find that the Rep did not realise I had returned it and she orders the drawings then.  A week and a half  later I finally complain about all of the delays and I get revisions that night with a promise for the Contract within 3 days.
I again follow up 4 days later to be told the boss is ill and it will come tomorrow.

As I had anticipated during the negotiations phase I have to chase every time in order to make progress.  I am hoping to be in by Easter 2012.  I think it is realistic but I also won't be surprised to be disappointed...

Have been pricing Solicitors to review the Contract.  Ranges from $500 to $2,500 so worth shopping around.  I will read it first to decide whether I think it is necessary or not.

In the meantime we have investigated a few variations:

• Bowral Dry Pressed Gertrudis Brown and plain Bowral Brown Dry Pressed brick upgrades were super expensive and we will not be going there.
• Austral Brick are having trouble supplying the Whitsunday range and are offering Metropolis in lieu.  Austral emailed me a spreadsheet of jobs completed in the Metropolis range and I have done some drive-bys.  It looks like we might go with Topaz.
• We had Bristile Classic concrete tiles thrown in free.  Thought about Birch and Beach but all of the light coloured roofs I see around the place are covered in dirt.  We are thinking Gunmetal now.
• We are going ahead with an internal brick wall in the Meals area done in recycled brick from the Recycled Brick Yard at Canterbury. Check out Google streetview of 46 Evans St Rozelle to see the effect.  Should look hot.

I am surprised that the Contract comes before the Colours and Electrical - doesn't make sense to me.  I have tried to estimate the likely variations for my budget. I hope that we don't get too many ugly surprises.

I will keep you posted.