Plumbing and Carpet

What a weekend! And also what a past week! We are currently a couple of weeks away from lock up :) and Doug has come home in time to check it out before then!
All electrical has been completed along with plumbing. We decided to head up the coast for a bit of time together on his first weekend home. The weather was awful so instead of the planned lying on the each all weekend we found ourselves in the shopping centre, where a rug in sale caught our attention. It was beautiful, white, thick and soft - perfect for under the family room couch. During chats with the sale guy we mention were building, we are then sitting down measuring up our plans and selecting carpets. Before you know it we have selected the carpets for our house - a compromise if soft, sink your feet in warmth for the bedrooms to keep me happy, and short haired, patterned texture for the living areas for Doug. We needed a breather so stepped our to think before we placed the deposit and walked into beacon lighting. Bad decision. After walking out with a great light for over the dining room table we sucked it up and placed a deposit on our carpet. A busy weekend and my little beetle probably breathed a sigh of relief after we pulled the huge rug out of the back of it!

Oh hello sarking - so I was a bit premature

Turns out there was nothing to worry about. Procedure these days is to pre cut the batons and "rest" them on the roof in preparation of sarking and tile installation. So when I called our SS this morning the response was "it's going on as we speak". It sounded like he got that call a lot!
Roof should be finished tomorrow. Dad drove past tonight and says all of the sarking is complete and the front few tiles are done. No photos though - I need to convince Dad to start taking photos when he goes past!

Roof tiles are here ... But where's the sarking?

The Clarendon team have been straight back into it after their Christmas break by hey haven't wasted time in getting the gutters up and now our roof tiles have been delivered. I'm told these will be laid Monday and Tuesday next week. We are LOVING seeing the colours come together for the exterior and I must say we're pretty chuffed with ourselves right now, and have breathed a sigh of relief to see that the new bricks are in keeping with our colour combinations. Now just to wait for the render to be painted and the garage door to go on to see the while effect.

Our big concern at the moment is that while the roof tiles have been delivered and it looks like the batons are in place, there is no sarking anywhere to be seen. Doug asked me to double check that our SS had this under control a week ago but I decided I could trust them. Now all Doug's saying is "I told you so!" Text has been sent to the SS on Saturday morning and tomorrow will be a quick phone call to find out what's going on

Gutters installed

Roof tiles delivered and acrylic render attached

Roof Batons

Bricks Complete

As an early Christmas present our bricks have been completed this week! The brickies worked hard through sweltering conditions (we hit a high of 36C on Thursday and the rest of the week had been certainly heading this way!) and after only 4 days they were completed in time for their holiday break.
We couldn't be happier. After the sudden change in bricks we have nervously waiting for this section to be completed. We love the smoother texture and the shade they are. They seem to be not too dark and not too light all at the same time. It will be exciting to see the roof go on, the facade completed and the garage door added to finally be able to see it all together and not just in little tiny pieces. (On a side not I really wish Clarendon would use a simulation program so that you could see what your choices would look like and not really on the owners imagination)

Main bricks delivered

Bricks to be covered by acrylic render

Work in progress - first few rows complete

The bricks that didn't make the cut

Brickwork complete

We have plumbing & slab cut for alfresco doors

After the chaos of the brick choices this morning I was happy to see that internal plumbing has been done. It looks completed to me, but who knows to my untrained eye!

The most exciting part was seeing that the concrete has been cut for where the alfresco doors will go. Very happy this has happened. That should mean these doors should be up soon and I'll start to get a better feel of how things will flow.

Bricks Issue

Today we found out what the "bricks issue" our SS was contemplating on Thursday was. And to be honest perhaps this is what I was expecting (after all the two story next door has been at a stand still for weeks & the single two doors down is angry because his builder has now said his bricks are not available).

And it turns out neither are ours - by a week. Only a week. In normal times of the year I don't think this would have been an issue at all, but with the Christmas deadline approaching our SS has made it clear if we do not change our bricks we will not have them done before Christmas.

The choice is an upgrade of brick - something Doug and I did not want to do (we decided to spend our money through the interior instead). When I mentioned this to the SS he assured me the change would be at the expense of the supplier.

So today was a day on the phone, speaking to our CSA and back to the colourist. She had selected a brick that was the same tones but a smoother brick (and actually the same brick range we had looked at for our "wish" list). She was nice enough to let me borrow the sample to consider but could not confirm if the change would be free or at a charge.

Such a shock of a conversation for Doug to have when he rang and he was quickly on his emails to see the photos I had taken to see if he was happy with the change. We started to prepare our "we're not paying" conversation (I'm a bit weak at these as Doug has always been the negotiator between us).

UPDATE:
9am Tuesday morning I received a phone call from the colourist confirming the change would be free, that the brick was in stock (ah phew, thought this would have been checked first!) and explaining the next steps.
Bricks will be ordered today and an email would be sent to The Ponds Design Board and Blacktown Council explaining the change and getting new paperwork completed (since now our construction certificate is out of date). I have been told bricks will be delivered on Monday.
Now lets hope the organisation process will be correct and the bricks will go up straight away because it would be really frustrating if we could have his had our original brick.

In street news, both the two story and house across the road have had their bricks finally delivered. Still no word on the house two down

Original brick: Austral Everyday Life "Leisure"
New brick: Austral Metropolis "Marcastie"

Old brick on bottom, new brick on top

Old brick on left, new brick on right

Thieving bastards

The little thieving bastards! Come on how much copper are you really going to get out of a small length of electrical coil?

Hope they get the shock they deserve sometime soon.