Lock-up

And then the call on Thursday arvo - we're basically at lock-up, which was confirmed on Friday.

The site supervisor has told me he's looking to try to get someone to do the first layer of render before the Christmas break, and is also looking for a painter who's willing to work over the break so we can continue to have at least a bit of progress in those three weeks or so.

Achitraves have been installed, and of course all of the external walls are finished; small issues with the door locks also fixed. Most significantly it looks like cabinets will be installed on Monday and Tuesday right throughout.

One thing I've noticed is the glass that's on the front door - it doesn't appear to be what was ordered.  I was reluctant to have glass on the front door as because of the design of the house it would mean you could see straight down the entire length of the house - so I wanted some kind of translucent or frosted glass.  It looks like what's currently in the door is regular transparent glass, so I'll mention it in the coming week or so - it's entirely possible they already know about it and it's going to be replaced at some point... though I kinda think unlikely.  I'm not too keen on on people being able to rock up to the front door and see exactly what's going on inside.

Lastly, the camera company are still having fun with the delivery company - those cameras that were missing?  They sent a replacement package, and that package too was claimed as having been delivered but never showed up.  We've checked the security cameras here 30 minutes either side of the time the driver claimed to have delivered them, noone came in to the street, let alone near our house.  Not only that but the driver never showed at the depot that night or the next morning for more pickups.  That's gonna be a funny story to see played out.

Since it's now getting to the point where stuff is getting installed inside, I might start delaying posts by a week or two - just in case there's any opportunistic types who go "ooh, a blog telling us when everything's getting delivered that we can rock up and pinch".  Because we know how popular construction sites are for break-ins.

Anyhow, progress photos.

Oh yeah, the photos are 16:9 now because I switched away from the god-awful iPhone 4S to a Nokia Lumia 920.

More Hebel to facade

No pier yet - the small bits of Hebel that need little custom cuts are all still to be done.

No walls yet...

Dropped by after work, but there wasn't any significant done that I could notice.  Hopefully there's some Hebel walls up on Monday.
However all of the electrical cabling is done - some showing some kinda shoddy work, which I'll follow up on (and post some photos of).  I need to check on the requirements for distance between electrical and data cabling.

Plaster and Hebel delivered

I'll update with some photos later, but todays update was that both plaster and Hebel was now on-site and ready to be started.

Some color ideas

Even though it's been over three weeks signed I paid a deposit, I still haven't heard from Metricon's team for an introduction and to book times for color selection and the like.  We'll give it a while before putting too much pressure on them, but it is definitely already outside their own timeframes they give.

In the meantime I've been trying to get ideas for color selection when it comes to that stage, so spent a bit of time out at display homes today.
One thing was for certain though, the sales rep at the Metricon display I went to for these ones simply didn't want to know me at all after I told him why I was there and that I'd already made a purchase.  Even asking questions the attitude was completely "go away".

 This bathroom color selection I liked the look of, unlike some of the white top, brown base ones that were around and just didn't seem to work at all.  The small black tiles work quite well.

Here's the lounge and dining area of a Delta 24 in a much whiter style.  Obvious changes here - the very large folding door at the back of the house, and an alfresco area to the side. The 21 has a narrower and shorter lounge.

One of the tile colors I quite liked that were used in the laundry on the splashback.  They're the same tiles as the bathroom shot above, but in a nice shiny silver.

 Don't mind this wallpaper.  This was in the sitting room of a display Ascot 24, if memory serves me correctly. 

This was an interesting little modification we saw to the shower area of one display home, which I'm keen to investigate the viability of.

 Down the side of the house if you're building on a block the minimum size of what is required, this is pretty much all the space you'll have down one side of the house.

This was a nice little touch, though it merely adds cost and little in functionality.  You'll notice on this one the whole house has been rendered - oh, and if you're wondering how to tell the difference between whether a house is rendered or uses Hebel, just give it a knock with your knuckles.  If you feel like you could break a bone with a light tap, it's rendered, because right underneath that layer is prick.  If it's Hebel, it will sound slightly hollow, and you could even go as far as to say it feels lighter - it won't feel as solid.

 The Ascot 24 with a Chateau facade.  This is actually the facade I'd ideally like to have, but noone can seem to tell me what I'd be spending to do it up the way I want before committing to anything in particular.  In this case they've used large tiles instead of the deco bricks in some of the promo shots.
The colors are also somewhat similar to what I might like to consider for the render effect of the Hebel.

The hallway, study, and all bedrooms will be carpeted - I want to find out about this one we saw in one of the displays.  It's a nice patterned carpet that's not terribly thick, and being a dark colour you won't have every speck of dirt show up like someone's gone at it with a highlighter.

Lastly, tiles.  These were quite nice - some other places had glossy white tiles, and as soon as you put downlights above them you end up with spot lights reflecting off them.  Here you get a better effect and none of that glare.
The entry and living areas at base are timber look vinyl, so going to tiles would be a fair upgrade, but these might be ones to consider for the laundry and bathrooms.