The Kitchen Dilema

The kitchen :) Where the Heart is. :) We will be having a red metallic splash back for the kitchen and lights under the overhead cupboards. Also we will be changing our doors to Polytec ones at a later stage. I like the glossy look ;p The builder wanted $6800 for that! so we thought we better wait and have them ordered separately and fitted in. That should save us heaps!

The corian bench is not what we thought we had asked for. We looked through the design and realised its our fault that we did not pick up 2 different terms being used for 2 ends of the island bench. We wanted a waterfall edge on 2 sides of the bench. instead the gave us one side 'corian slab' and another 'corian back'. Seems unfair how are we suppose to know the 'terms' used? We told our sales guy we wanted a waterfall drop. But hey how can we prove that? theres nothing but the design to look at :( but no worries! we will be getting someone to come in pull out the corian back and join it with the bench top to give us the waterfall look we are after! No point stressing too much. Just extra costs :(

One sided waterfall edge (Corian slab)

Love my tiles but not laid evenly??

It was so disappointing to see my beautiful tiles not laid the way we were expecting it to be laid. Its not even. even the grout distance is shocking to me. I was so excited about it but here it is! We have a meeting with the SS on Friday, hopefully we can highlight this and they might do something for us. he said that she is an experienced tiler but looking at the work...am not too sure. The main bath was done really nicely and you cant really notice because its 200x200 ceramic tiles. but with the 300x300 in the ensuite, an experienced tiler should have been called. here are the pics, you can clearly see that it is not even. I am not sure if i could hurt myself as the corners are sharp. Am I asking for too much?? When I had my meeting with the tiler, I asked her to mitre the tiles and she said no, she can't do it and that we have to order the tiles mitred. So i thought fine. But then everyone I speak to says thats crap and she should have the tools to mitre the tiles :( Anyways lesson learnt, i need to make sure this is all documented during pre-start!

see the tile ? this can be found in a few places...

Isn't the distance between the tile too far? Even the distance between the grout and tile for all sides are different...did she use a spacer? am not too sure?

I paid extra labour cost because it is more difficult to lay porcealin.....

Crooked .....

We've got tiles!!!

We had a meeting with the tiler on Thursday morning to explain the design we wanted for the ensuite and the main bath. Everything went well. On Thursday evening we had a look at her work and we were happy. :) however on Friday, she had done the hob for the ensuite shower and it doesnt seem right? the hob seems to be tilted. Not sure if this is suppose to be but it doesn't look right. Not too happy about it. The tiles for the main bath turned out great! :)) Here are some photos.

Ensuite Vanity ;p


Ensuite - Left side shower


The hob... it doesn't look right..?


Ensuite


Main bath vanity ;p


Main Bath - Shower ;p


Main bath- shower



Main bath - bathtub :)

It's delivered!!! Part2

Living area...

Vanity top delivered!

Vanity cupboards delivered!

Bathtub delivered!

Towel rails....

Sinks delivered!

Linen shelves fitted!

Laundry Sink delivered!

Kitchen cupboards delivered!

Its all delivered!! Part 1

Work has been progressing quickly after the Christmas break :) Here are some updates!!

Home theater all plastered :)

Entry way ...

Kitchen...

Tiles have been delivered :))

Front door fixed!

Ceilings and Cornice

Sorry for not updating this blog for sometime... ;p I shouldn't give excuses..so I won't.

Our ceilings and cornices have been fitted in! The rendering guys will be back next Monday to complete the wall and ceiling plastering as well as to render the outside of the house. :) yaaay! We had some drama with the cornices. We were told if we were tiling to the top in the bathrooms, we should put the cornice only after the tiling is done. Since we are not doing the tiling to the top with the builder, we can only do the tiling to the top after handover. They builder will not handover the house without the cornice fitted. I tried asking if they could just pack out the cornice so that i would not have to rip it off after handover just for the tiles.

Unfortunately my 'heaven sent' supervisor said no. :( I must say that I was quite stressed out. At the same time the tile shop called me to say they didnt have enough of the tiles we ordered and we had to change our tile...buttttt the tile she recommended in replacement was a tile I was eyeing on before... :)))) I immediately told her yes! then i realised..gosh its more costly than the previous tile. She said she would give it to us for the same price :))) which is great! :) I express my concern with her about the cornice and she said that we have nothing to worry about. She has done her bathroom woth the cornices already fitted and then she did her tiling to the top. she said she is a fussy person and she could hardly notice it.

We are very happy with how the coffered ceiling looks. It gives an identity to our home. The same goes for the bulkhead in the kitchen. Below are some photographs from today:

The Nook looking into Laundry and bedroom3

Living looking out to the alfresco

Entry - Coffered ceiling

Kitchen

Meals and coffered ceiling in the living area

Lounge

Building Inspector ....

We managed to get a building inspectors contact through a friend of ours. He went through the bricks, roof and a bit of render inspection. He gave us some pointers. One of the things we did not realise when we signed our contract was that the builder was giving us metal beads (corners for the walls) to only 45 degree angle walls! Firstly, we do not have even have one 45 degree angle wall. Secondly, the administrator lady did not bother to explain to us that it is important to have these on most of your walls, especially the traffic-able areas. The building inspector explained to us that if we do not have these beads placed on the corners of the walls, in the future if we knock into the corners (which will happen), a chunk of the corner will get chipped off. We could render it back, but it will look really bad. *I panicked.* The render guys have finished quite a few walls. The metal beads should be placed before the render is done. I called my 'heaven sent' senior site supervisor, and he agreed that I could add it on immediately. If only the adminsitrator lady told us earlier we would have just included it in, some things are just essential. We dont want to be penny wise and pound foolish.

The building inspector gave us a few more pointers on our roof frames and tiles. He charged us $350.

I will be sending the report to the office to get things fixed. Hopefully I have no dramas. :)