Getting Settled and Having a Whinge.

We have been in the new house for nearly a week now and we are starting to feel a little settled. The house has a great feel to it... the layout is fantastic and it really works for us. We are grateful that they managed to get everything finished so that we could move in before our lease expired, but there are so many things that need fixing or things that have just been done poorly (paining mainly) and probably won't get fixed. It's been a week and we still don't have heating/cooling. For the most part, that doesn't matter, but when I'm up at 4am with the kids and it's freezing cold, it does matter. We were told late last week that we need to call them to arrange for them to come out and set it up for us, and then when I called they said they couldn't come for a week. It would have been nice to have been told this before we moved in so that we could arrange for it to be done when we moved in. The bifold doors are on the wrong way around. The single door part is mostly behind our bench, so luckily we are thin enough to fit through the tiny gap. We found this out a couple of days before handover. The guys working here at the time said it would be fixed. When the window person came out on Saturday to fit the fly screens he said he had heard nothing about it and he couldn't fix it. He said it was a major job. He also said that they'd done a poor job fitting the windows. 4 locks were broken already... I hope they fix the bifolds soon. 

We aren't happy with the plumbing. It takes forever to get any hot water and I feel guilty whenever I turn on the hot tap. I am going to have to get buckets for all the sinks, showers etc. According to the guy doing our landscaping they have put a pipe in a really, really stupid place which stops us putting in a driveway... genius. Anyway, we have to pay to get that moved and we are annoyed to say the least!

I know I'm having a whinge, but its so disappointing to get to this point and have things not to the standard we would expect. When I came to the house for handover, I actually asked if it had been cleaned (it had apparently). It was absolutely disgusting, and that's putting it politely. I will be too embarrassed to have people come and visit until I can get things cleaned up a bit. The few family members that have been love the house, but can't get over the state it was in when we got it.... and then there's the apparent site clean.... again, how disappointing! I could tell you what the builders have been eating/drinking for the last few weeks and what brand of ciggies they smoke. There's wire, tiles mounds of concrete etc everywhere... needless to say, the kids won't be going out to play until it's cleaned up.

A few more things... the light in the powder room doesn't work. We bought a new globe, still doesn't work. There are no handles on the wardrobe in the guest room and the door on the powder room can't be unlocked from inside. They have dropped off a replacement, but it looks different to all the other door handles throughout the house! The painting is terrible. There's one bit where they have tried to cover up a mark on the wall and  it looks worse! In our ensuite there are little holes all over the wall in the paint. Oh and I saw a spark from one of the powerpoints. 

The CLE has been fantastic, calling to make sure everything is ok, and sounding willing to fix the things that aren't right. I know we should have picked up a lot of these things when we had our walk through appointment, but we never really had it, and that's partly our doing. 

On a more positive note, a guy turned up this morning around 6.45 am to fix the missing silicone in the showers, so at least we can have a shower now without damaging the walls!! Well in 24 hours from now, because that's how long it will take to dry! He didn't fix the problem with the silicone above the splashback, because he couldn't tell if it was deliberately left that way or not... he did agree that it looked shocking though! 

I think once a few of these problems get sorted out, I will be feeling a lot more positive about things and I will post some photos then. It really is a beautiful house and I just want it to be perfect!