The Day Is Finally Here

We get our keys today! Yay! I can't believe how excited I am. I am very much struggling to be at work at the moment. We have probably packed about 75% of the unit and have a moving plan in place. We get the keys at 3pm and will have the car full of curtains, rods and blinds. Jas will start putting those up while I start doing trips moving all of the small and light items from the unit to the house. Thankfully we only live about 5 mins from the house so lots of little trips isn't an issue. We figure if we can get most of the small stuff out of the way tonight it will be easier to move the bigger stuff tomorrow.

The house was pretty much fully repainted yesterday and isn't looking so bad now. There is still some dodgy bits but at this stage any improvement will do. I am planning on fixing the paint myself when we move in. Yes I am serious that I can do a better job. Particularly on our skirting boards. Splashback gets fixed today. Electricians are finishing the kitchen powerpoints when that happens and we should be pretty good to go. 7 hrs and counting. :)

Handover Booked!

Yay! We have handover booked in for 3pm Friday. I was supposed to be in Sydney for a meeting on Friday but hoping my boss will be a little flexible considering the situation. Getting really excited now. Better get packing. :)

Keys This Week?

What a rollercoaster the past two weeks have been. So after PCI on Thursday there hasn't been much happening at the house. The driveway was poured last week which was a massive relief. However not much else has really been addressed. The painters were supposed to come in and repaint last week. Instead they patched a couple of small bits then just went through and took all of the stickers off the walls and pretended they had repainted. These painters are just disgusting. They have no care and obviously no skill. Coral really need to rethink this trade contract. The paint is horrible and they aren't doing the work they are saying they are. The cut in lines are bad enough to make you sea sick. Just wavey and dodgey.

Anyway, at PCI we were told that our contract says they have 1 month to fix anything addressed at PCI but company policy is normally 10 working days. Our SS made a big deal about how he was going to have us in, in 7. So PCI was 11.07.13. 10 working days would be this Thursday. We were also told at PCI that the final invoice would be sent out asap so we could organise a valuer and the cheque to be ready by this date. On Wednesday (nearly a week after PCI) my husband called the SS and asked why we hadn't received the final invoice yet and said he was going to call the accounts department and enquire about it. He was then told not to by the SS. He was told that the SS would call them and sort it out as we had already called. Which we hadn't. Fast forward to yesterday and still no invoice. We were getting rather concerned that the bank wouldn't be able to organise payment with such short notice. At this stage I decided to ignore our SS and call accounts myself. When I did the lovely accounts receivable lady informed me that she had only heard from our SS on Friday that the house was ready for the final invoice to be issued. She did it for me straight away and I managed to send it to our bank at around 10am. The email I received from accounts also mentioned this invoice has been issued before PCI to allow adequate time for finance. Umm think someone dropped the ball on that one.

My husband had spoken to our SS yesterday morning and asked if we were still on track for hand over on Thursday. The response was "if you can get finance organised by then." At 1pm I received a phone call from our bank saying that the cheque would be ready to pick up on Tuesday. Side note - Can't praise the Greater Rutherford Branch enough. They have been fantastic. Thank god we have one business trying to make our life easier. I let Jas know that finance was good to go and he rang the SS to let him know we were right for Thursday. Our SS was rather shocked and unprepared for us to have finance ready so quick. He then asked Jas when we would want to handover then. Jas said "Thursday as discussed." The response was "What! You want to move in this week. I don't know about that." We have issues with our current living arrangements and really need to be moving out this weekend. Jas has rung the SS back after speaking to me about this and the SS has agreed to handover this week and will just have to have things fixed around us. Things that were meant to be fixed by now.

Playing The Waiting Game

So now we are just waiting for everything that was addressed at PCI to get done. I would love to update some pics but there just hasn't been much done to show. My poor husband got up bright and early this morning to meet our concretors on site as they told us they would definately be there by 7. At 7.30 he gave up waiting for them and left. They were supposed to have the formwork done so he could check it and make any changes he wanted. Well the formwork hasn't been started so there goes our only opportunity for that to happen. When Jas rang the SS to speak to him about a different matter (we had some damage overnight) the SS said they probably weren't there because of the rain. Ummm beautiful sunny skies here mate. But apparently because it is raining on the Central Coast it must be raining here. This is starting to explain a lot.

PCI Done - Handover in 2 Weeks!

Handover went a lot better than I was expecting. We arrived to see the concretors working on the driveway. They are hoping to pour it either Tuesday or Wednesday. When we arrived the house was red with dots. We met our SS and he immediately said we have the house repainted. Which is a massive relief. It is the only thing we were completely disapointed with. The rest of the trades have done a pretty good job. While we were there the guy came to cut out holes in the stone for the outdoor sink. Yes our sink has reappeared on site. Apparently the plumber was told it would be a good idea for him to take it with him so it didn't go missing. The plumber didn't do this but his apprentice did. But his apprentice didn't tell anyone and stuck it in a back cupboard in their workshop. So when the SS rang the plumber he knew nothing of it. Anyway, crisis over, we have a sink. Makes a lot more sense than someone stealing a sink. Everything we had concerns about is being fixed. And we are a lot happier now. I am even starting to think that if we had met our new SS weeks ago in person we would have had a very different few weeks. It is very hard to trust someone with your house when you haven't met them face to face. And phone calls are very difficult to understand. I don't know how people with other builders do it. I know a lot of building companies don't even give you the SS number. Let alone a key so you can see the progress yourself. I think I would have had a nervous break down dealing with those kind of companies. Bring on 2 weeks!

Ever Felt Like You Are Being Lied To

At this point our SS well and truly has his pants on fire. We were told when this new guy first took over that our driveway would be poured last Thursday at the latest. Granted we had a few days of rain two weeks ago. Last week was blue skies and sunny weather. When it got to the weekend and still no sign of our driveway my husband called the SS to find out what was happening. He told us that the driveway was booked in for Tuesday, if we would like a path we should meet the concretors on site. We contemplated wether or not we could afford to take the time off work to meet with them and decided not to. Lucky because we had showers throughout the day and there was no sign the concretors had been out there at all. We understand rain delays. Not a problem. However, when we have had a full week of beautiful weather and not a single thing has been touched on the site it gets rather irritating. But our biggest issue is that we believe there is no intention to have concretors out there at all this week. This is mainly due to the fact that we have a full construction bin where the driveway is going. Either the SS is an idiot, has never been to look at the house or he is just plain lying to us and has never booked the concretors.

We have figured out that in the past five weeks the only things that have happened on the house are things that were organised by our past SS before he left. This new SS hasn't organised a single thing for our house. Coral have just completely forgotten about our house. It seems now we have paid them a majority of the money they couldn't care les when they actually finish it. We were hopeful to be in by the end of June. Now the end of August is looking like more of a reality. Although for that to happen something would actually need to be done at all. In the past 5 weeks we have had 4 days worth of work completed on the house. That is being generous. So 5 working days a week (although most tradies work Saturdays) that is a 16% work rate. I don't know what kind of lack of management is going on here because if I just forgot about a project of mine for this long I would be sacked.

At this point I just want Coral to walk away and we can have the house finished in much less time than this guy. We are supposed to being having PCI tomorrow afternoon. We have both taken time off work for it. At this point the house is no where near finished. If we take this time off to see an incomplete house our next PCI will need to be on a weekend. At this point when anyone asks me about the house I am fighting back tears. Not giving Coral a great reputation around here. Both my husband and I are getting sick from the stress. If I wasn't in EOFY I would be taking time off work because I just can't function anymore. The stress is killing me. I am trying not to cry all the time. It is just so heart breaking to be so excited that you are so close to finished and then have your house come to a complete stop. I'm gutted and can't believe that a company can think this is acceptable. We are at the point of trying to figure out what our next step is. Every time we contact the SS we just get another set of lies. We have tried contacting the construction manager in the area. He called us back 4 working days later and just left a message saying "yes your site supervisor has left this is your new one. He said you rang him." Doesn't give me a whole lot of confidence that we are going to get anywhere with him either. If we haven't heard back from either of them today I am going to try calling the head office and see who I can contact above these two.

Bring On The Sunshine

The rain is finally clearing around here. Hopefully this means we can have our driveway poured and be pretty much ready to go. The sunshine has brought with it a bit of work and some communication from our builders. Looks like they are starting to remember the standard of communication and construction we were used to. We went out at about 5.30 yesterday and our carpet layer was still working. The poor fellow said he had about an hour to go. But good news for us is that he was going to have it finished last night. It was looking good and makes the house so much more homely than the concrete. Our water tank has arrived on site. It isn't hooked up yet but at least it is there. That is a start. We also had a quick look for our missing sink in the bin, as we are fairly certain it went missing when the cleaners came in. We are thinking because it would have been light and was in a pile of mess in the garage it might have been thrown out. Seems more plausible than someone stealing a sink anyway. Everything in the bin was a soggy mess so we gave up pretty quick. Our antenna friend will either be out today or tomorrow to put the wall plates in. So that will finish off pretty much every room except the kitchen. The new site supervisor was hopeful to have the glass splashback in at the end of this week but he didn't sound confident. If we could get that in and the driveway this week it will just be the little bits and pieces to finish off next week before PCI. Fingers crossed.