Housearama

I had the site supervisor from hell and all I got was these two bottles of wine (needed!!) and this labelled wine carrier to remind me of how much I hate them.

Free to good home (minus the wine)

So yesterday we had our PCI meeting. In attendance was my most favourite person in the whole wide world (our Site Supervisor), and independent inspector, Alyssa, Chris and myself.

It started off with a bit of a slanging match between the SS and myself (who woulda seen THAT coming, right?). There were some rather nasty holes in the wall that the inspector was asking about. The SS decided to tell the story that the clients had requested a bayonet gas point that needed venting, then changed their mind, and out of the goodness of his heart he had decided to fix it. I piped in and mentioned that the bayonet point was NEVER on the agenda as it would not fit the correct heater that the clients had ALWAYS told Longridge was planned for the area. We had always requested a capped gas point. They got it wrong. Out of the goodness of his heart indeed.

So we continued in this way for some time. There were no major flaws with the house. The SS expected us to take handover then and there, and we told him no way. Not until the major things on our list were fixed – such as the holes in the walls, internal and external. He mentioned that the external walls weren’t done yet as there hadn’t been appropriate weather. I told him he’d been aware that it needed fixing since January and he couldn’t tell me that no appropriate weather had been available since then. I mentioned at this time that he was NOT getting handover today because we had completely lost faith in him as a site supervisor, and Longridge as a builder, and had no faith that the fixes would be done once he had our money as he doesn’t seem capable of fixing ANYTHING in any form of decent timing.

That led to discussions of timing. The SS mentioned that this build had been done in a completely reasonable timeframe, and a house of this size SHOULD take 36 weeks from site scrape to completion. I reminded him that site scrape was actually 50 weeks ago (so where did the extra 14 weeks come from?). The look on his face was priceless.

So that was fun.

Today we went to see if any of the repairs had been started. ALL holes have now been repaired!! The render on the outside has been patched in several places, and there are no more stupid rough finishes. Given that this covers the majority of our list, we called Longridge and told them that we would accept handover and they can continue repair work as per their schedule – it must ALL be completed within 2 weeks of the meeting yesterday.

So, yes… Handover. We take possession of the house on Monday next week. 9am. I’m still not feeling excited, though.

Today the ducts and controller for the aircon went in, and the plumber was finishing up with installation of vanity basins and taps. The electrician was also finishing up some odds and ends. Some pics:

The ensuite

The main bathroom vanity area

The dining and lounge ducts

There are still lots of patchups required both inside and out, and many other jobs, both small and large (mostly small), to be done prior to handover. Given that they want to do handover during PCI, and PCI is booked for three days from now, guess who isn’t holding out ANY hope that they will actually have it ready?

No expectations, no disappointment.

Personally, I’m much more excited about my two beautiful girls than this flippin’ house…

The leopard

The grrrrrrrrl

As much as anything is generally a good reason to party, I just couldn’t being myself to do the fancy cake or celebration of our “100 days over” milestone. Considering we are now 101 days past the “absolutely, positively LAST day it would EVER be, and only then if everything went to hell in a handbasket”, and are actually about 6 months past our original expected completion timeframe, just not much in the mood to celebrate…

Instead we spent the night in excellent company on the other side of town eating pizza, drinking wine and me generally trying to forget that the damned house even exists.

Happy 101 days overdue. Yay

I’m considering making a cake to celebrate our 100 days overdue milestone this Saturday. What do you think?

Anyways… Herewith our beautiful splashback! The right one this time =)

When we originally ordered the commercial wok burner for our kitchen, we went through a catering equipment company called based here in Adelaide. I’ve been dealing with the owner/director throughout the process, and he has been incredibly helpful to me.

More recently, I was very upset when he told me that he had sold the floor stock of my wok burner and was unable to obtain any more. At this time he offered me either a full refund of the deposit or said he could hold onto the moneys while we seek alternative arrangements and use it as a deposit for the new wok burner. I told him (stupidly) to hang on to the money until such a time as we knew what we were doing. He suggested that I could contact Cookon direct and see if they would or could give me any new information or help me out in any other way. It was during this time that Cookon offered to make my wok burner for me directly as a complete custom job.

Once we had this worked out with Cookon I called the local company to inform him that we had made alternative arrangements and would be getting our wok burner custom made to fit. He immediately stated that he would refund the deposit in full, was SO sorry for the run around that we had received (as he should have been, would not have been a problem at all if he didn’t sell the stock he had for me!!), took my credit card details and promised a full refund either by credit card immediately, or would issue a cheque in the coming days.

Today we received:

“Good Morning,

Re your telephone call on 28/7/10 regarding your purchase from our company of One (1) only Cookon WS-1 Wok -

You explained to me that you spoke to *company owner/director* from Cookon who is now fabricating a Wok for you and will supply you direct. As the appointed Cookon dealer, this new arrangement should have been conducted through our company.

I have emailed Cookon to explain our position.

We are unable to return the deposit without being compensated by Cookon in full.

I await their reply and will be in touch again with you by phone, email or letter.”

So. I called him this afternoon to discuss. He now denies that he had the floor stock available and sold it, denies suggesting that I should talk to cookon directly, denies ever having offered me a refund of my deposit, accused me of changing MY story on each occasion that I speak to him (what story, I’m trying to buy a flippin’ wok burner, you had one in stock, you sold it, you offered me my money back as you had admitted to screwing up. that has never changed). I told him that absolutely NOTHING has changed since the last time that I spoke with him on the telephone, and he was aware that I was having a custom made wok burner fabricated for me prior to offering me my full refund. I don’t even mind if he wants to keep an admin component for the phone calls and running around that he did in order to attempt to secure my wok burner, but $660 for this is NOT reasonable.

I’m ashamed of myself, but I ended up yelling that he was a fucking idiot, hung up the phone and threw it across the room. He has been informed that we will be going through consumer affairs.

Anyone looking for commercial catering equipment here in Adelaide, please feel free to contact me about who NOT to go through. Would be more than happy to not send any business his way. I hope he’s happy with his $660 for however long he gets to keep it – well worth it, I’m sure.

It’s not so much the fact that he’s refusing the money that has me worked up. It’s the going back on his word, then trying to make ME look like the liar out of it. We already walked away from a $2000 deposit on floor tiles that we couldn’t use because we knew it was OUR fault that we had to walk away, and the business owner didn’t deserve to be stuffed around by us. It was a fair deal. This isn’t. Especially given that he HAD our wok burner in stock and decided to sell it without checking that he could replace it. This is ENTIRELY his fault that this has occurred!

Pissed off much? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The Inspectorator

One of the two shower heads in the ensuite shower

Kitchen mixer with veg spray

Bath taps with diverter between bath spout and retractable shower

Bathroom shower. The second shower in the ensuite is the same as this one.

So, I think we ALL know that things with this build couldn’t possibly go *that* good for too long. Cue next DRAMA here…

We’ll start with this photo from April this year:

The girl. Modelling the drop in bench height where the commercial wok burner is to be installed. There is a concealed under-cabinet rangehood above this, and the kitchen was designed around said wok burner and the space was created to fit it. Perfectly. We ordered the wok burner MONTHS ago and paid our deposit and were told that one was in stock for us and awaiting our build completion. Yay! Right?

No. It couldn’t POSSIBLY be that easy.

Because we “didn’t need it immediately” the store sold the floor stock with intentions of buying a new one from their suppliers for us. When I called three weeks ago to tell them I want to pick it up they told me they will need a couple of weeks to get the new stock in. Grrrr. Not happy, but not much I can do about it.

I wait two weeks and call him back. Apparently there IS no new stock and they’re waiting on a new production run and will be in contact soon to discuss. I wait another week and then decide to just call the manufacturer myself and find out what is going on.

THE PRODUCT HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED WITH NO INTENTION OF EVER MAKING ANOTHER ONE THAT WILL FIT OUR KITCHEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now frantically trying to find out how much more it could possibly cost to have them do a one off run of one single wok burner, which will probably up the price by an order of magnitude. I am SO angry! The amount that we spent on upgrading this kitchen and getting it right, and then this. I have a dropped bench and range hood looking ridiculous in my kitchen and making my house look completely unfinished until I get this flippin’ wok burner, and I don’t know until next week if I even can, and we had already secured one in stock that then got onsold without even asking us!!! I would have just paid for it and picked it up earlier if I knew they were so desperate to move the stock. ARGH!!!!!!!!

’nuff said. I need a hug! *sigh*

Toilet roll holder

Hand towel holders

Main bathroom shower screen!!

Ensuite shower screen

Towel ladder for ensuite

The awesome painters <3<3 (they make my little heart happy!!)

Painted fascias and downpipes!!

The house! Painted fascias and downpipes AND pile of rubble GONE! YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Excited much? LOL

At this point there is very little left to happen before we can have handover. There are a few touch ups and things yet to happen, but as for new work we’re really only waiting on things like mirrors, plumbing fittings, appliances and electrical final fit out.

My project at work is promising to be insanely busy between now and the 20th of August, and we should DEFINITELY have the house handed over by then, and hopefully have the tiler hard at work making it livable =) I’ll be taking time of work to begin building in the built in book cases and desks (probably just the bases for now so that the tiles can be cut to them properly), then get cracking on the decking. I’m really looking forward to some time off work, and some play time with a new compound mitre saw!! Now my only problem is that we’ve lost our babysitter for about 2 months starting at this exact time – free Alyssa to anyone who wants one