Bricks have started

Finally, we've got bricks on our house.  They've been sitting on the property for 3 weeks now, pissing off the neighbours.

When I've been reading other peoples blogs they all always mention how happy they are with their brick choice and how much better they look in real life (not just a little sample), but I'd have to admit I'm a little disappointed/nervous about our choice.  We upgraded our bricks to a Cat 3 (Indulgence - Truffle).  They look really great in the samples and we drove around and looked at them on other houses, but seeing them on our house they look shit!  I know they look good, I've seen them on other houses, so I'm hoping that once they're cleaned and the mortar has dried more (i.e. lightened) then they'll look better. Really wish we had spent the extra money and upgraded the mortar too (to off-shite) Can't do much about it now :P

Anyway, photo update.

Our bricks are the darker brown ones, the light bricks will be rendered.

The left wall and around the door will be rendered, the right wall is face brick.

Front entrance

 Theatre room, looking out. Cavity sliding doors have been installed.

 

Kitchen, family, dining (plaster has been delivered - plaster photos next week!)

 

Latest cheesy selfie :)

 

Patience is starting to dwindle

Just received our weekly Wednesday update from the office.

Apparently internal lockup is due this week with the bricks and plaster to begin next week.  We've also been told for about the 4th time now, that the retaining wall is delayed.  Our neighbours have been waiting to build their fence since early September and we've had to keep putting them off whilst we wait to have our retaining wall built.

Our old SS told us that the fence can go up as the contractor building the retaining wall advised he can build around it as it's just inside our boundary apparently.  We told our neighbours to go ahead with their fence.

We've just been told today by the office that the bricks are in the way so the retaining wall is delayed another 2 weeks!!! FFS!!!! If the bricks are in the way of the retaining wall, then the bricks are in the way of the fence!!!

The standard response from Boutique?  "We're aware of the urgency of the situation and will monitor it closely".  Wtf is 'monitoring' it going to do? How about actually doing something about it?  Move the frigging bricks! You're the idiots that had them delivered too early in the first place.

Now the neighbours, who've been really patient with us throughout this whole process have lost their patience finally (and rightly so).  They've asked us to have the bricks moved as they had arranged the fence to be built last week, but had to postpone because the bricks were still in their way.  They're not happy the bricks have been sitting on their property for nearly 3 weeks now.

We've been pretty easy going and patient throughout this whole process, but they're beginning to test my patience.....*sigh*

One Site Supervisor down

Just received a call from Boutique to advise us that our SS is no longer with the company. Can't say I'm at all surprised, he wasn't the best at returning calls or giving any real answers.

I've been told that we now have their most experienced SS on our job as they feel they've let us down with progress on our house and want to get things moving along again for us.

Our old SS hadn't even arranged for a bricklayer.  Our bricks have been delivered, but apparently no bricklayer to lay them.  I've now been told that a bricklayer will be there, but not until the 23rd (which is two weeks away).

Oh well, shit happens! It's disappointing that our old SS has let us down, so hopefully the new guy is much better.

Week 7 Update

About time for an update I thought.

Progress since frame went up has felt slow, although I'm sure it hasn't been.  We now have a wrapped house, roof and most of the rough-in has been completed.

The developers are not going to do anything about raising the back fence (surprise!), they pretty much told us (and I'm paraphrasing here), they've done the bare minimum required by the council and if our house feels like it's too high, then that's our builders fault, not theirs. They also begrudgingly repaired the fence where required, but also blamed builders for the damage.

Our SS has also started to show me how unreliable he can be.  I've contacted him numerous times about when our retaining wall will be going in on the side of our property as our neighbours are keen to get the fence built.  First he told me "next week".  Then he was off sick for a week. Now he's back and tells me again "next week".....it's like that Seinfeld episode....."Ohhh, about 5-10 minutes".  Apparently the contractor building the wall said he can work around a fence if there is already one there.  That sounds to me like the retaining wall will be inside our boundary rather than directly under the fence.....not happy about that.  So I'm continuing to try and get an answer from our SS, who continues to not return texts or calls.  The neighbours have been understanding, but there's only so far you can push someone's patience.

Our weekly update from the Boutique office informs us that rough-in should be completed by early next week, with bricks delivered and bricklayer to follow (hopefully by the end of next week). We're a bit nervous about the bricks as this will be the first time we see a 'colour' choice :P

Fingers crossed we'll have some brick photos next week.



Family, Dining, Kitchen

Looking through to family



Front entry; theatre room to the right

Ensuite

Cheesy family shot :)