Problems... need to vent

We have been busy shopping for lights,  planning our landscaping and trying to organise someone to build our fence. The landscaping guy has taken ages to build his retaining walls (for the path and driveway) and blames a lack of materials... grrr

We have been getting our lighting and audio/visual stuff done for the last week or two and I will be VERY happy when that is finished! At the moment, it is driving me to the drink. 

I'm getting frustrated with Carlisle now. I rang a week ago about the spa not working. We tried it again on the weekend, just in case it was working, and no bubbles! I emailed them early this week and have heard nothing. I just hope we don't have to wait until the end of our warranty period to get it fixed. That's not on! The gas cooker is playing up too. 3/4 of the time it lights fine, but the rest of the time I can't get any of the burners to light. I have to leave it for 5 mins and then when I try again it usually works. The plumber called me about this, I explained the problem, and haven't heard anything since. 

Yesterday, when I had my shower I had the mixer turned completely to hot and my shower was just warm... not happy! 

The guy doing our lights reckons the electrician who did the house did a lousy job. According to him it was done on the cheap and probably by apprentices.... Not really what I want to hear, and I just hope it's his extremely high standard of work that he is comparing it to... ha ha.... Even the people employed by Carlisle have told me that aspects of the job aren't done as well as they should be... GREAT!

Apparently they are coming to fix the bifolds today (they were put on around the wrong way). That will be great, it's been a pain having them around the wrong way. 

Yes, I am annoyed... Yes, I am frustrated... Yes, I still love the house, it's great. I just want to get things fixed and working properly. 

Impressive!

We have been in our house for almost 2 weeks now and I am so pleased with the way Carlisle have dealt with all of our issues (except the driveway, see below). I have heard so many stories from people about how once that final cheque is handed over, then you can't get them to do anything... but that couldn't be further from the truth with these people... they really have been wonderful.

Things are coming along. We have several quotes for the electrical work (ouch) and we have bought a... fitting lots of eco downlights and pendants, as well as the audio-visual stuff. The curtains have been ordered and will be here in 2-3 weeks hopefully. We are still fenceless, but hopefully that will be done in the next few weeks. They have excavated along the side for the path and retaining wall and have started on the driveway. The driveway has caused us a bit of stress because the builder, or builder's plumber have put a pipe right through where the driveway would obviously go, and very close to the surface. Our landscaper has crashed into it and its broken. It should not have been there in the first place. If the builder had been responsible for building the driveway, they would have put it somewhere else. Now we have to pay to have it moved and we aren't too happy about that.  

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! 

In Like Flynn....

We picked up our keys this morning and we're in!! I think we had the World's worst removalists and only have half our stuff here... hopefully we will get the rest tomorrow. House is fantastic, albeit it filthy inside and out... but WE ARE IN!! 

Another Delay.

So much for painting over the weekend. We have postponed our painters until Easter which is a pity. We are busy packing at the moment and awaiting the removalists tomorrow morning. I think things could be a bit messy if we get delayed again!! 

We went past the house on Saturday arvo, and someone had left it unlocked! Luckily no one got in and trashed the place... unlikely I know,  but not really a risk I want taken at this stage. Yesterday when we went past there was someone there painting.... the facade looks fantastic now (see below). We had a nice walk around the block and got a real feel for the place. Gee we have a lot of hard work ahead of us! If only we could find someone to do the fences, it would be a good start. 

The view from the back corner:

From the street: 

I have been trying to organise quotes for the curtains. Someone from Kresta came out about a week and a half ago, and I still don't have a quote from them.. on the other hand, someone from Vista came out on Thursday came out and we got a quote the next day..... it's a no brainer really. Kresta are obviously too busy and don't need our business. I'm not sold on Vista though, they really don't have much of a range. So, it will be sheets up for a while for us while we investigate a few more options. 

I Believe In Miracles....

Having received the bad news phone call last Thursday, I had started to make arrangements for the next few weeks... begging our real estate for an extension of our lease, possible kenneling for the animals, storage for our stuff etc.... but then yesterday, out of the blue I received a phone call that would change everything!
"So you are going to settle on Friday?' or words to that effect. To which I replied *laugh* "ha ha, I wish, no we're meeting for our formal walk through appointment on Friday". Then she said " oh well your site supervisor is around there today and he thinks that everything will be done by Friday, you can go and meet him there at 12 if you like"
I did everything I could to not get too excited in case there was a mistake. When we got to the house there were cars and people everywhere. Stuff had been done, stuff was being done!
Sure enough, with a couple of people working flat out for a week or so, every thing has been finished off and we will be settling on Friday! I'm still trying to get my head around things, and I am so pleased that they managed to get all of their workers on site for a very busy week to get everything finished off for us so we don't have to be homeless!! I know they have a lot of other homes that are very nearly finished too, so its awesome that we got to get ours finished straight away. When our site supervisor said he'd do everything he could to get us in before the long weekend, he certainly meant it and we are most thankful.
So hopefully, if everything goes to plan, we will sign the papers and pick up the keys on Friday. Mum arrives on Saturday to help with the move. We have arranged family to come up to paint the feature walls over the long weekend, and removalists on Tuesday. This time next week, we should be waking up after the first night in our wonderful new home!

I Feel Like Being Sick!

I haven't written for a while, because to be honest, not a lot has been happening. Two weeks ago we came up with a list of items, that would supposedly take a week or so to fix and make things much faster come out walk through appointment. So tomorrow is supposed to be our walk through appointment. Even though not a lot has been happening, I have given them the benefit of the doubt, because in theory they have until the appointment to get the house ready to present to us. Anyway, I just had a phone call saying that it will be another week before our walk-through presentation (and up to two weeks after that before we move in).... 

I was told that this appointment was originally booked for 11th Feb, so adding two weeks onto that for touch-ups etc takes us to about now... I added on another week for things going wrong/ delays etc and stupidly assumed we'd be moving around the Labor Day weekend. Mum's taken a week off work to help with the move. I've booked her flights. Got furniture on order to be delivered (no sorry, we can't store it here.....) and plus removalists, cleaners etc.

That's the least of our worries really... our lease is up in 2 weeks time. So now I am considering packing up, putting things in storage and staying in a hotel for a week, or possibly with family on the other side of the state. Right now that seems to be the best option because I am so upset about it that i don't even want to see the house... I don't want to drive past every day as I have been and see that there is nobody there. 

Of course they are very apologetic and the site supervisor said that I have no idea how bad he feels about it. Well I am sorry if I have made him feel bad, but we are the paying clients that are waiting for a job that keeps dragging on and on. It's his job to manage the project and deal with the shit when things go wrong. It's great that they care so much about quality control, but I'd like to see people there doing something about it, rather than just talking about it. 

I haven't been sleeping because I have been so worried and now I just feel sick thinking about the house. Up to this point everything has been wonderful. It's turning into a nightmare. 

I guess what happens in the next 2-3 weeks and how this situation is handled will determine whether or not I recommend Carlisle to my friends who are looking at building.