Ghost Town!

Yep, that's a picture of a ghost town, posted to honor how desolate, quiet and vacant the work site has become this week!

Why are we a ghost town? Great question! I'll provide some insight, but certainly not an answer.
Last week finished off with the trusses to the garage being installed. As we understood it the next parts of the house to be completed needed to happen in a certain order to get to lock up stage, and they were the following...fascia and gutters installed to the garage, roof tiles installed to the garage, theater room and alfresco area, architectural cladding installed to part of the back of the house and the start of plastering (drywall) to the interior, pretty much in that order. Additionally the bricks were to have been cleaned somewhere in the middle with the majority of this work beginning, if not being completed, this week. I was off work Friday and this past Monday for Thanksgiving and on Monday took a stroll with the family down to see what work was going on at the house. Nothing, nada, zilch, zippo! We were bummed, but figured we wouldn't worry too much about it as we had a site meeting scheduled with our Site Supervisor the next day (Tuesday) at 2:00 PM. The better half went to the site meeting, but had stopped by the house to see what was being done in the morning. Again, nothing. At the site meeting, the supervisor seemed perplexed, stating that the fascia and gutters were supposed be put on that day, with the roof tiles to follow shortly after and the insulation which had been delivered Monday morning was supposed be installed with the plaster starting that day as well! That's a lot of trades people either not showing up or dropping the ball. I'm not a builder, but I'm guessing the responsibility falls to our site supervisor to ensure that the necessary trades people are ACTUALLY showing up to do their work and if they aren't, he would find out why. We had written a number of specific questions for the visit mainly asking when the aforementioned items of work were scheduled to be done. Despite most of them originally being scheduled for this week and despite our site supervisor giving this information to our administrator and that information not being passed on, there was a LOT of "ball dropping" going on this week, which started at about marble size and has quickly become a bowling ball!

The big shocker came when the better half asked the site supervisor when he thought we'd be in by. The answer? "Ahh, well hopefully, maybe by the end of April!" Bzzzzzt. Wrong Answer! Originally it was going to be around February. This was the guess at our first site meeting shortly after frame stage was completed. Now it's um, maybe by the end of April. Our baby is due May 8th and we will absolutely need to be in at least a month before then. That prediction would mean that it would take five months from lock up (we are nearly there now) to hand over! Seems a bit long to me.

At the end of the business day, we finally got an email with an update to our questions as to when the work will be started and/or completed to get to lock up. All of it is due to start with some of it to be finished by next week, so we are hopeful (given a good experience so far) that a LOT of work will happen next week to get us back on track, otherwise the ball may start to get too big and too heavy to drop!

Getting Close To Lock-Up Stage

Greetings followers of Funding The Dream!

I know it's been a while, but I decided to hold off taking pictures of the outside by about a week because we were so close to completing the brick work and having the scaffold come down, which you can now see is complete. They just put the trusses' for the garage up and we suspect that the roof cover for the garage, theater room and alfresco will happen Monday of the coming week. We are hopeful the bricks will be cleaned shortly after that as well as work inside commencing this week too. We have a site walk-through on Tuesday at 2:00 with our site supervisor to point out a few odds and ends that may need some attention, but beyond that we're pretty pleased with both the progress and the quality of work. We'll have a better read on the scheduling of trades and perhaps a date or month that handover might occur, once we have this meeting, so stay tuned!

All Wired Up

By the end of last weekend, the bricking had begun again and electrical rough-in had been completed as well. Dan from Dr. Audio (or as he's more affectionately known, Dr. Dan) and his crew came in and wired up the house for audio and video throughout (including all the 'goodies' for the Theater Room) and the eventual intercom system. Work is happening at a pretty furious pace this week which is great to see, so check back this coming weekend for more pictures and updates. You will be AMAZED! For now, check out the wiring work!

Crazy Busy Again!

Well, since the previous post the work has been happening every single day (including Cup Day) and there is a lot scheduled over the next couple of weeks too! To quickly recap, the roof cover (tiles) were put on last week, as well as the evaporative cooling and heating system and the solar panel was installed and connected for solar hot water. Brick work has begun in earnest again and is due to be completed by the end of next week on the house with the garage to follow that. Yesterday the wiring for the alarm system was completed and the ducted vacuum system! Today the electrical fit-out was done, the remaining fascia and gutters are due to be put up tomorrow. Tomorrow also sees the company who is installing our home automation products doing their pre-wire work and the brick work will continue as well. Very exciting with more updates this weekend. Here are some midweek photo's on the action that was done up to yesterday.