Down to the house to see if any progress has been made on the house (to see if we are any closer to a move in date). Bright & early this morning, as Giorgia is away.

A miserable day today (9 degrees, and rainy). The ground around the house is waterlogged (its been raining fro 3 days). Only the back door open, the tiling downstairs is now almost finished, as I left the house the tilers arrived, so by Monday the tiling will be complete.

The staircase still needs to be stained.

The range hoods have been installed in both the kitchen and the butlers pantry, with a hole in the plaster (no hole through to the garage for the extractor vent yet).

Roller door installed in the garage (no back door yet).

They also still need to install the 2 x 5,000 litre water tanks at the back of the garage.

The Tiling has also been completed on the balcony outside of the master bedroom, just needs the balustrade to be put in place (and the sliding door made good). The sliding door does not (at the moment) slide in any way.... Will this be fixable or will it require a new door (how much time, and damage, will be done through this work)!

Bidets installed in all the bathrooms now, lets hope they haven't put it in the wrong place (too close to the wall, on the left hand side). Will take a tape measure next time.

It all seems arse backwards, they build the body to put the bath in, the bath is 'plumbed-in', the tiler come along and remove the bath to tile the box, the tilers finish and the plumber comes back to put the bath in and has to knock chunks out of the box/body for the bath.

How will the strength of the box be maintained/re-established now :-?

And then the tilers have to come back and replace the tiles..... It all seems crazy!

As the tiling downstairs is almost complete (I guess another 60 tiles needed maximum), 6 tiles per box (only 10 boxes needed), there are 27 boxes of floor tiles and 5 boxes of outside tiles).

Have contacted Porter Davis to ask when I can get the unused tiles. We paid enough for the tiles that I want all of them that are not used!

A week has passed and we have been told that within the month (by the end of September) the house should be complete and will be handed over to us.

The mirrors have been installed in all the bathrooms as have the shower cubical's, the bathrooms are complete.

In the mud room the ethernet cables from each bed room the study and TV points all come back to this point. Now I need a patch panel, and a 16 way switch, that way everything we have digitally (music photos, video's etc) can be seen from any TV and computer in the house. As well as each computer having a wired connection.

The staircase as it should be not painted green, just wood the way we intended it to be.

The space under the stairs will be utilised as extra storage space (suitcases, vacuum cleaner etc). We will need to get a carpenter to put the door in for us when they have replaced the plaster work.

Waiting for the stain on the stairs (Nordic Teak)

Some vague running repairs on the plasterwork and walls and retouching the paintwork.

I know it looks kinda strange, a photo of the toilet, but notice the seat is neither up nor down. Both the seat and the lid are soft closing so there will be no banging of the toilet seat/lid during the night !

One more of the outside with the back garden just to show the sun shining in Melbourne.

Now we (me) have to start thinking of drainage pipes in the back garden as the soil is quite heavy clay, without digging pipes into the soil to help drain garden it will just be a boggy mess. As its too late this year to plant the garden up I will spend a lot of the time digging a lot of organic material, gypsum, bone&blood into the soil to get it ready for the 2012 season.

A beautiful sunny day in Melbourne, Spring has finally sprung, another trip to the house

to see what progress has been made since last week..

The ground is nice and dry, we will need to think what driveway we want/need to install.

Every time we arrive more 'crap' is added to the ground to allow the trucks/vans onto the site

for deliveries and work men.

Most of the ground floor is now tiled, they have left, the study, downstairs toilet and near

the staircase still need to be done. This (we guess) will be done when the staircase is replaced.

The grout that has been chosen by the tilers looks fine. Its hard to see on this photo but the electrical work is now complete, lights, sockets and air conditioning vents (alongside TV, Internet & Phone points).

Here is the kitchen with the splash-back in-place, still waiting for the oven, extractor hood & hob still missing. You can see on the right of the picture where the tiles are missing.

The beautiful tap we have on the island bench, with the under-mounted double sink.

The pantry, just off the kitchen, the shelves have now been put in. Just waiting for the hob and range hood to be installed (they still need to cut a hole in the wall, for the hood to vent into the garage). Will send another e-mail to the people from Porter Davis and ask when they will do this, they have been promising to do this for a couple of months now.

One of the walk in robes in the master bedroom (there are two in the master, his and hers).

plenty of space for all my clothes (in fact I'll need to buy a whole heap more if I am to try and fill it.

The shower in one of the en-suits tiling complete, just awaiting the shower screens.

But after that whats left to do ?

Toilet installed, just the bidet and the bathrooms done.

And finally a view from the top of the stairs

All the lights appear to be working, we tried to switch them all on and off.

We need confirmation as to the completion date:

One thing we find strange, is the painting was done before a lot of the 'dirty' work

was undertaken.

The walls now have a lot of marks on them, something else to chase them up about.

1 week on and look at the difference. Turned up at the house Saturday morning (did not think there would be any tradies on site only to find 3 young guys there laying tiles.

Giorgia scared the life out of one of them by telling them they where the wrong colour tiles !

She had her sun glasses on, so the tiles looked too dark, once she removed her glasses everything was fine.

So here is the view through the lounge, the tiling has been done almost to the front wall and to the stairs on the right of the picture. We are happy with the colour across the house floor downstairs.

Here is the view through the house from the back door, the colour we selected for the kitchen does actually go with the tiles (choosing all the colours at different times and places over a year ago, you kind'a forget what you picked).

The tradies where still on site on Sunday as we had to go back and pick the grout (the grout we had originally chosen would 'dry-patchy' and would look bad). At least the tilers phoned to tell us (and not just do the job with something that would look bad) and finding a replacement grout so quickly.

The tiles for the bathroom.... I know black ! We wanted something that would contrast with the rest of the house colours, so black it was. We think it looks good. What we are surprised about is the fact they did not get to the ceiling (its only another 10cm) and also next to the window, a small piece of tile and then nothing!! We have spare tiles so perhaps when the building is finished we can get that done.

And here is an example of the en-suits in the other bedrooms.

What we are thinking about know is ... What is left to do. Shower screens, toilets and

all the electrical points and lights... Why will this work take another 6 weeks to finish ?

Another e-mail to Porter Davis now to let them know about the

i) Broken window

ii) Not double glazed windows in the corners

iii) Window frames not sealed against the outside world (gaps at all the corners)

iv) Missing window in the master bathroom

v) Garage not weather tight

Anything else ? Not that I can remember at the moment, but I am sure there is.

Its been a couple of weeks since we last posted anything, as we have been waiting to hear what Porter Davis would do regarding the painted staircase (people where on holiday, and waiting to hear from their bosses etc ....). To cut to the chase, they will replace the whole staircase (we will inform them not to paint or stain any part of the staircase.

We turned up at the house expecting to see the tiling complete (as we had spoken with the site supervisor on Monday, who was with the tiler at the time). No tiling has been done :-? Is this because the staircase will be replaced or the wrong tiles have been delivered, only time will tell.

Onto the 'problems' they all fall into the same problem : sealing against the weather!

The seals between the brickwork have not been fitted in here (on the step at the front door here).

The same thing with the garage join to the house and over the garage door. Its hard to see on this photo, but the next you can see light through the wall.

Here we are inside the garage: There should be a seal in between the brickwork here.

Its a little strange that they have not sealed the garage against the weather when they have plastered the roof area (including cornicing)! All it will need is heavy driven rain and they will be replacing the plaster roof.......

We have to assume the builders know what they are doing and that there wont be any rain blown in.

The next two photos show another 'rain related' problem. There are two down pipes to take the rain from the roof and then into the storm water drainage system. Unfortunately there is no drain anywhere near the downpipes, so we can only guess that more digging will be needed to put the drainage system in. Also on the back of the house I am not sure there is a downpipe on the house plans, time to check the plans once again.

The fact that these two downpipes do not lead into a drain is concerning: we had to pay extra for a specific slab 'upgrade' one of the details of the slab is the ground has to slope away from the foundations as water straight onto the slab will be a problem (will have to check the details and "ask" if the water pouring onto/under the slab will be a problem (if its not, is it because its not the slab we paid for)....

The bench top has now been installed in the kitchen, pantry, and bathrooms.

The paintwork has now been finished (there are a few places where they will

need to get scaffold into reach the areas) and obviously when they take the

stairs out they will need to paint around that area again.

The pantry sink has now been installed. we are still wondering when they will start to get some of the electrical work done ! It seems to be the hard way to do this, everything nicely painted now they have to cut holes through the plasterwork (ceilings and walls) to find the electrical cables?

Laundry : As stated above, the plaster work and painting has been finished

and now they have had to cut quite big holes in the plaster to find the pipes

(slightly larger objects to find than a speaker wire), we will be checking on

the holes they cut out to fit the electrical components.

Tiles have arrived (are they the correct tiles)? are they still packed

as the tiler does not want to start until the staircase is finished ?

Next week we will have to see, the staircase will take approx. 3 weeks

to deliver ....... Delays ?

To confirm they will have trouble locating pipes and electrical work, look at the size of the hole they have cut through the shower wall to get to the pipe work, lets hope they do some repair work on this hole, paint the repair with the 'blu sealant' before the tiling.

The last problem one of the floor boards upstairs needs to be replaced as it is broken you can feel it move/bend when you stand on it.

Another cold wet Melbourne winter weekend, and we traveled up the Monash Highway to visit our new house (and check on what progress has been made during the week) only 1 way into the house still.

The easy thing to spot, the correct front door has been put in place (not too) close examination

shows the door is damaged and will need to be replaced (first problem we noticed today). The skirting boards (or walls) are not straight, this will need to be fixed (sooner rather than later I guess).

At least the guys doing the kitchen appear to be communicating with the other tradies leaving little notes about what they need to do to install the splashback. Still need to check on the position of the outside vent (height). We don't want the vent to be under the covered area so the smell of cooking gets trapped in the outside space. Lets hope they can drill the glass without breaking the splashback !

Hard to see in this photo, but somehow they have managed to break one of the double glazing units in the back bed room (another repair they need to make, sooner rather than later). But it wasn't broken on Tuesday when we where there with the site supervisor.

The wet areas are starting to be sealed, this blue colour has been painted around all the shower areas (and in the master bedroom) the bathtub (which is still a mess) hopefully not another problem they will need to fix if its all scratched up, they will have to take it out and replace it.

Not sure if the pump has been installed under the bath, lets hope so.

Corner unit window put in, does this look double glazed to you ? No it didn't look double glazed to us either. One more thing they are going to have to replace, ALL of our windows are to be double glazed, it is possible to have a corner unit which is double glazed (even in Australia). By the look of it they will have to get the scaffold out again.

This was the F-up that we noticed on Tuesday with the site supervisor they have painted the wooden stairs ? The banisters the treads (as though carpet would go up the middle) and the posts. Even if all of our documents show it should be stained :-? The only part of the stairs that should be painted according to the documents is the part that they have left as wood !!!! New staircase please.

Here you can see the true majesty of the painted staircase, that will cause some dameage when its taken out and the new staircase put in. But we wont be accepting (or paying for) a painted staircase, as it wont be possible to remove the paint.

This is sealed to the environment ? There needs to be some kind of seal in these gaps around the garage, how many mistakes are we upto now ? What ever the number, they need to be fixed/repaired before the final payment will be made.

Our tree outside the house looks dead, this could be due to the run off from the plaster board that has been around the tree almost since its been planted. A new tree from Porter Davis too (the soil will need to be removed and replaced too, as nothing will grow in it).

E-mail to the site supervisor later tonight, to let him know that at 2pm 3 'guys turned up at the house to do the plastering' when I asked them what they wanted, they spoke very little English and said they had to leave.... Real or looking to steal from the house ? Only time will tell.

But at least the supervisor should know if Tradie's should have been on site today or not.

We missed the chance to get down to the house on the weekend (I was working Saturday and Sunday we spent with friends. We had a meeting arranged with our site supervisor Lenny.

The garage now has a roof, and the door into the house has been painted, no back door has been installed as yet, and obviously the garage roller door is not on-site yet. Its a rainy day and the roof appears to be nicely sealed with no rain coming in through the sides.

We appear to be getting a porch over the front entrance, which will be covered in colour bond steel. everything is looking great so far (we should have known better). Lenny was still talking with the painter at this time.

Walls, skirting boards and door surrounds are now all painted. The ceiling appears to have been painted and many of the walls (although not yet finished off) as the painting is only i the middle of the walls (not yet to the ceiling or floor).

Rainy Pakenham day, the garage roof needs a bit more rain to clean all the crap off it (before it all get washed into the storm drain and that gets blocked with soil/silt.

The master bedroom has almost all been painted. We convinced the builders not to put the skirting on properly. This will make it easier for the guy laying the floor to remove the skirting

lay the floor and put the skirting back on with minimal fuss.

The bath in the master bedroom , again I hope they clean the bath and don't just wash the soil down into the pipes, thats going to cause us grief in the long run. Still no window in the bathroom, even if they are painting the walls! Kind of weird that they get all the plastering and painting done before the building is really sealed from the outside world.

Our main problem is .............

They have decided (on there own) to paint the wooden staircase the same colour as the walls. looking through all the documentation we can not find any notification that the solid wood staircase would be painted.

This may cause some delay as they will have to put a new staircase in (if they mess up, they have to fix it). If this causes them grief and they wont do it, then we will dig our feet in over the overhanging bricks (the only fix for this is pour extra slab that has to be tied into the existing slab).

Mails sent to the correct people, lets wait until tomorrow and see the replies......

Watch this space