Yep, had carpet in the bathroom in the UK. Always thought that was very unhygienic. We'll have a tiled floor in our house here. And I've always hated net curtains. Had them as a child. Never had them as an adult. Definitely no net curtains in our new house.

ACE: looks like your house is coming along nicely. Hope you can get the problem with the kitchen sink sorted. I've got an exam coming up next week. But after that's over, I might feel brave and start a thread about our house build. Have got a few pictures now.

Nice one, good luck with your exam

Mr ACE has been to see a local stone mason about sorting out the sink so we should know if it is possible to have it without replacing the bench top.

I went to site today and found that we now have kitchen cupboard doors, drawer fronts, a roof mounted digital TV antenna and front and back garage doors.

I'll be back in a couple of hours to post the latest pictures.

Pics are of the spa with the border tiles in their new position. We wouldn't have thought of putting them there but we think they look quite good. The other pics are of the kitchen cupboard doors (the sink in the picture is the builders standard sink) and the garage doors front and back.

Yes, the border tiles look really good there. Nice view from the kitchen.

Thanks mate we are really happy with them there.

look forward to you showing me around. 3 weeks and we leave for hols

See you then

Hi folks,
Not posted for a while, apart from the usual end of term madness reports, exams and moving to a new office we lost our flights to Bali which we booked through Indojetr. We were desperate to go away so I spent the last week of term desperately trying to book flights to get us out there. The cheapest flights I could find were $5500 for four of us and there was no way I was prepared to pay that to go to Bali. I decided enough was enough and I put together my own package to Phuket instead. I booked it all online on Saturday 4th July and we left on Tuesday the 7th. We had a great time and if any of you are able to go to Phuket in the near future The Hilton, Phuket is doing a special, it cost us $99 per room per night and that was for a fantastic seaview room with balcony including breakfast so we booked a room for us and an inter-connecting room for the kids-bliss. For cheeper flights I booked a Perth/Singapore return with Jetstar and then a separate Singapore/Phuket return flight with Tiger, cost for flights came it at under $3000 for 3 adults and 1 child. Flights outside the school holidays would be heaps cheeper so if you can go for it!!

Anyway back to business, before we went away our supervisor told us that the house would be ready for handover when we got back. Imagine my surprise when we went up to the house after 10 days away to find that all that has been done is that our sink (The Sink) is now fitted and the temporary kitchen upstand has been removed (along with granite top). The only problem is that the new the new one which has taken it's place looks terrible and the old one still has the granite attached to it WTF!.

Looking at the house as it is I reckon it will be at least the end of September before we get the keys.

I have some new pics chronicling the progress made before we went away so I will post those once I have unpacked and charged up the cameras.

ACE

Things have been agonisingly slow for some time as In Vogue have been busy working on their Telethon home that is finished now so our home has become a hive of activity once again.

We were informed on Friday that we are two weeks away from final inspection and just four weeks away from handover. Although so much has happened in the passed two weeks including installation of the taps, outside shower, external gas connection and the intercom system, there is still a lot to do including sink in the guest bathroom, balustrade for the stairs, sorting out the kitchen benchtops and upstand, re-rendering (inside and out) painting (inside and out), door furniture, glass for the balcony balustrade (stainless steel is there but no glass) to name but a few outstanding jobs. However, our major problem is with water there is staining on the outside wall near the front balcony, large patches of damp across the wall adjacent to the slab in the upper main living area, master bed and theater room which is below the main bed. There is also mold growing along the coving which means that they are going to have to knock into the cavity to find out what the problem is. They have reminded us that the final payment is due soon after the final inspection and that a late payments will result in a penalty but we obviously won't be paying out anymore money until the water problem is rectified.

On a positive note there are still more things that we are pleased with than there are problems so we remain optimistic that all will be good in the end. Speaking of being optimistic I booked the carpenter to come in and start laying the floors on the 14th of September and I have also booked the painter (think I might have to re- think that date)

Some pics
Air con vents, light fittings and en suite are finished, we have electricity and we now have running water, flushing loos etc.

New, ill-fitting kitchen upstand with gap at the back, untreated timber front door which we could not open due to water damage.

Kitchen sink, water staining on the wall and part of the re-rendering. It is behind the rendered area that we have a large damp patch.

Also on the 'things to do list' measuring, fabricating and fitting glass splash backs in the kitchen, installing the oven, rangehood, kitchen taps and sealing around sinks, showers, baths, tiled areas and benchtops throughout the whole house.

A lot has been done, but a few issues. I remember it well.

Totally agree that you shouldn't hand any money over after inspection if you are not happy. and they shouldn't penalise you for that.

We more or less had no choice but to accept our house as our lease finished on our rental, the owners were being funny, and my parents were visiting at the same time.

A year and a half since we moved in and there's still things outstanding

I will be phoning Impressions, and bypassing the aftersales people as they are useless! or I may just go to the CAB.

Hope you manage to get everything sorted