24th June 2012

24^th June 2012

7:45am Sunday morning, literally thousands of bike riders with the occasional motor bike police escort have been going past our place on the Esplanade over the last hour, obviously a large event that at this stage I am unaware of. Where ever they have started from I presume they got underway in large groups to avoid total mayhem on the roads and at this point I haven’t determined yet whether it’s three or four groups just going round the block or a hell of a lot of bike riders. Having said that I haven’t noticed any repetition of riders and believe me, watching the range of various shapes and sizes, attire and bike types I think I would soon notice a repeat of certain participants, - someone please remind me never to wear lycra.

Our builder tells us we should have hand over in about six weeks time if all goes according to plan, fingers crossed. Currently the tiler is half way through his work and should be finished by the end of this coming week at which point the painters come back and complete their work, they still have some of the outside to finish and all of the inside, apparently about two and a half weeks work then it’s a matter of final fittings. In the meantime cabinet makers have finished their installations and the Caesar Stone bench tops, sinks and hand basins were then installed so it’s starting to come together well and the garage door has finally been installed so the place is definitely locked up now. As good as the builders are even the best of plans go astray, Ryan who is running our job, rang the manufacturer to complain as to why our garage door had not been installed as it was now a security issue, turns out he hadn’t placed an official order!!! Poor fellow he was quite embarrassed when trying to explain to me that the door company had been out twice to measure what was required but he hadn’t actually placed an official order for it, mind you I think a bit of common sense from the rep wouldn’t have gone astray, obviously no follow up to a potential job.  

I don’t think the sparky is going to be too impressed when he comes back to hook everything up, since the cabinet work has been installed several power points and lighting positions have been covered up by the cabinet work plus the sheeting under the front deck doesn’t have any holes for lights so I trust he can remember where he put his wires, some of the joys of building a house with various trades involved. Sparky hasn’t got a lot of hair so I guess that could be a cause.

Ryan is “Casey Jackson Homes” manager; he and Casey share the house constructions between them each being responsible for a number of builds. Casey does the quoting his wife is the company accountant, and Ryan does a lot of the design work having a degree in Drafting. Ryan has some very good ideas and he is particular about quality workmanship, we have been lucky to have him running our job his attention to detail is really good. Interesting point when a lot of builders are struggling or indeed folding, Casey Jackson Homes are flat out, they have an incredible amount of work on their books, they don’t advertise other than on their construction sites and rely on word and mouth, they only employ/engage top quality trades and only use top quality products, they believe in a bit of flexibility with some give and take, they say they are in it for the long haul and not get rich quick short lived result. Speaks volumes about their attitude and approach to a sustainable business.

 Reading that lot anyone would think I was on the payroll.

Our weather is still being quite fickle, we had a week or so of typical Qld winter weather absolutely perfect, but now it is back into gloomy, bleak and cold, would like to rain but doesn’t quite. Our fantastic, reliable winter weather that we are well known for is letting us down badly I hope it improves soon.

I’ll get some photos when the sun comes out.

Cheers

10th June 2012

9^th June 2012

Another week passed, I don’t know if that’s good because we get nearer to house completion or not so good because we are another week older.

The house progresses and they are on the downhill run, renderers came and finished off areas not previously completed due to bad weather, and the painters managed to complete the top half of the house with two coats. Scaffolding was taken down on Thursday so we can see what the house really looks like. Although rain was forecast for Thursday and Friday it held off and the painters were able to finish the bulk of the downstairs outside.

Being a long weekend here, rain was forecast for Thursday through to at least the middle of next week but so far so good, gloomy though it may be at least the rain has passed us by and even the Met forecast has been changed to “rain at times”, now where we are that will be either piddling down or nothing at all.

Early in the week cabinet makers came and started to install what they could on the ground floor, upstairs will be completed once the timber flooring is down. Wednesday, timber flooring arrived and another husband and wife team came to lay it all, that took them through until Friday pm, apparently they live at Maroochydore on the Sunshine coast, that’s normally an hour and a half’s travel time but on Friday they may have got caught up in the usual long weekend mad dash up the coast, nice after a tiring days work. The flooring looks lovely and will look fabulous once it is sanded and polished, which of course will be one of the last jobs to be done. Friday morning yet another supplier met us onsite to discuss built in cupboards such as wardrobes etc, make suggestions and find out what we wanted, with self-preservation in mind I KEPT RIGHT OUT OF IT.

Having started this earlier, the weather has now improved no end, the sun is out and it is quite warm and pleasant.

Yesterday (Friday), We had the Toyota’s steering pump overhauled, for some time now the power steering has been groaning worse than me especially when the oil was cold. In an earlier post (29^th May) I mentioned about it and how air was getting into the system, I went to a lot of trouble to fit better hose clips all round but unfortunately it didn’t do the trick so next thing was to have the pump overhauled and resealed. It wasn’t until I picked the car up after repairs that I realised just how noisy it had been, the difference is amazing (and just another $540+ !!! Grows on trees doesn’t it? Apparently the guys couldn’t believe how dirty the steering oil was and said it was full of red dust, well it’s been over 12 months since we were on any dirt roads. For future protection they completely flushed the system and installed an inline filter containing a magnet that should not only keep the oil clean but remove any minute particles of metal that may occur through normal wear, it appears they have done a good job and their work comes with a two-year warranty. Interestingly the vehicle mileage is 164,000 kls. A couple of months ago at 160,000 kls the vehicle spent 2 days in a Toyota dealers workshop to carry out the substantial 160,000kls service and I asked them to check the steering because of the groaning noise then, when I picked the car up they told me the steering was ok, obviously never looked at it. So where do you go for a service with the confidence that it will be carried out satisfactorily?

This has run over into Sunday and guess what – it is piddling down, cold and bleak.

The house appearing as the scaffolding comes down.

Getting there

Amazing the amount of scaffolding that was used

Premium Blackbutt

A good coating of fibreglass waterproofing over the front deck area 

3rd June 2012

My God it's June already.

In an old Post of the 31^st March I mentioned the weather had improved and the El’Nino effect officially declared finished, I also cynically said something like, it probably won’t rain again until the painters were ready to paint the house. I forgot about the renderers, about two and a half weeks ago they started and had 7 days work ahead of them before any external painting could be done and sure enough intermittent showers dogged them so their job is still not finished. Last week it rained most of the week, the painters came and had a look, stood around for a while scratching their bums and final gave up. Later in the week they came back and managed to do a bit of prep work but it really was a lost cause and abandoned it again. Early in the week a husband and wife team came to sand smooth all the places where plasterboard had been filled such as joins, corners and nailing points (what a job), another chap and his daughter (usually husband and wife team) were busy for several days waterproofing all of the wet areas as a pre-cursor to tiling and cabinet work installation, that’s bathrooms, toilet and laundry. For those of you that don’t know the process, using a fibreglass tape they tape up all corners joins and seams then apply several coats of fibreglass impregnated paint to the complete area so the whole wet are is completely sealed. In the meantime the Chippies continued to hang doors and once the plasterboard sanding was completed started fitting internal trim work and skirting boards where they could. During the week tradesmen came and prepared appropriate areas for glass balustrade installation and during a lull in the inclement weather managed to get the balcony glass mounted. Sam the plaster man who fits cornices was expected Wednesday once the plasterboard sanding had been completed, he turned up Friday sometime to suss the joint out and came back Saturday to do his bit, I guess he doesn’t like anyone getting in his way when he is working, but I don’t know if it is holding up internal painting or not. Sam is a slightly built little man who must be close to retirement age, he comes from some European country I suspect and with his rather gaunt appearance, thick tussle of greyed hair, wire rimmed glasses that sit well down his nose and a monstrous dark bushy moustache he looks like someone out of the early nineteen hundreds. I bet he‘s a good tradesman from the old school.

Rained heavily all day Saturday and bucketed down during the night, all night. With ours and trade vehicle movements in and out of this place, it has turned into a bog around here, I don’t know how we are going to restore it for the owner, I’m hoping the builder will help us.

It’s Sunday morning and still raining but not as heavily and at least the sun is (read was) trying to break through so that’s promising although the official forecast doesn’t have it clearing until Tuesday when things turn really cold, well I can put up with that. We are scheduled for a few days of fine weather and then rain starts again in time for the weekend. El’Nino finished? I don’t think so.

I’ve just been to have a look at Sam’s handiwork and to my horror I discovered water ingress, what is it with us first water in the caravan now in the new house. Someone was up on the roof on Thursday or Friday doing some work and I wouldn’t mind betting they have inadvertently created a problem by either doing or not doing something they should or shouldn’t have. The builder is not going to be happy Jan, water has come inside somewhere and run down the inside of the new plasterboard into the lounge, plasterboard is like blotting paper and on a scale of one to ten for water resistance it’s about minus 3. On the other hand Sam is obviously a craftsman (old school) and the waterproofing is a pretty blue and looks impressive, may have to get him on the roof.  

Just as well Goop is protecting the windows

Rendering is good but it's messy

Did someone pee in the corner, I don't think so.

OK so some twit left the door open

At least this is waterproof

Sam, what an artist!

Houston we have a problem

Not Happy Jan - this is the lounge