Week 22: PCI date advised, house nearly finished

Mon 27 Jan 2014 - Sun 2 Feb 2014

Tuesday: Over the weekend we were advised on the date for informal walkthrough. The date is Fri, 14 Feb 2014. SS didn't mention the term PCI, he only mentioned informal walkthrough. Go figure. At least nearly finished.

We also decided to get an independent inspection organised before then as they would know what to inspect that we'd probably missed. We are very happy with the work from Wisdom Homes so far.

Some pics:
Stove exhaust

powerpoint and network point underneath the kitchen island

We were thinking or adding a timber slats divider near our living area. I was researching on this and not many information in this forum. Does anyone know anything about this. This is the picture that we're thinking of.

Week 21: SS is back, PCI date to be advised soon

Mon 20 Jan 2014 - Sun 26 Jan 2014

Monday: Finally spoke with our Site Supervisor to get an update for our build after the Christmas and New Year industry shutdown. Finally SS advises us that he will give us the date of PCI and possible handover date this coming friday.

SS mentioned that this week will be the final coat from the painters, roof rails taken down, down pipes to be connected to main drainage and few internal bits and pieces.

SS also don't mind for us to arrange for the NBN installation prior the handover. We'll just have to advise him the installation date so he will arrange to open the gate.

Thursday:
We found out that it is important to know your landscape design and the position of the house/slab level early during the landscape design planning. We also found out the important of this quite recently when we have to fill in quite a lot to make our backyard in level condition. This requires two sets of retaining wall because ThePonds requirements only allows max 600mm high retaining wall. If the slab/house level was placed lower, we would not need the second retaining wall. One retaining wall costs us close to $10K. So our solution at the moment is to use one single retaining wall but let the backyard a bit of a slope. We're a bit lucky that we can have a bit of a slope but just in case that your situation may be different.

Anyway, you have to have an opportunity to liaise with a landscape designer, either via WH landscape or external contact, to come up with landscape plan to be submitted to the council for a DA approval. It might be useful to check with the landscape designer the best way for the slab to sit in a particular level with your choice of landscape design.

I think you have to worry about this right after you have the first drawing after they survey the land. Then when you gave the drawing to the landscape designer you can worry and ask if you need a retaining wall and probably adjust the proposed slab level to be adjusted with the landscape design so you have a nice and level backyard.

On other note. We've heard from Wisdom Landscape that our driveway can be installed in about 1.5 week from today. So it's great. That means we're very close with our handover. :-)

Friday:

Finally at least we can share some pics from this week. 

Front piers in moroka finally painted. 

Moroka for side window also painted all the way now 

Linen shelf installed

Designer front door handle

Kitchen splash back installed

Week 20: First Week for the year

Mon 13 Jan 2014 - Sun 19 Jan 2014

Monday:
Happy New Year everyone. It seems that the tiler visited to finish the tile in the laundry last week. Today we saw the Painters there to paint the house for the next 2 days. One of them mentioned that SS will be back next week. At the same time we finalised the landscape plan for driveway and right side retaining wall with Wisdom Landscape. We've also engaged with external landscaper for the rest of the landscape to find out our options.