End in sight?

Or is that end in Site. :)

Well, we've completed the landscaping for 90% of the area of our lot; basically 3 of the 4 sides of the house are done.  All 3 are just pending the completion of the fence after the grass has had a chance to settle and take root.

The last remaining side is a different beast.  We'll be putting in a retaining wall to protect/support the concrete apron and then after the apron is in, it'll be time to drill extra depth holes - due to the lot next door cutting their site right to the boundary.  Their retaining wall is 200mm off the boundary and 600mm high, so a standard fence post depth wouldn't have a hope in hell of standing up against the wind and would just be pushed over in a few days or weeks.  That fence will also only be 1.8m from the natural lay of the land, unlike it's northern counterpart which is extra height - I think the difference between the tops of the two fences will be around a meter.  Doesn't really bother us, as we're on the high side of the fence and the owner next door is happy with us having +-1.4m of fence height against our house height.

Anyway, if all goes according to plan, in a month all the landscaping/fencing will be done.  Finally.  Hopefully never to be worried about again.

Once that is complete I promise I'll post photos of the before and after. :)

And we thought building the house was the stressful part...

Well... it wasn't.  Sure, it go a bit frustrating with the builder, but they built our house in the end, and I still smile at the little things we did differently with them.

Right now though, it's the outside of the house that I never prepared myself mentally for.  Oh sure, I planned financially, mostly...but there are always things you don't think of, and the budget got blown a while ago...

We're trying to get 2/3 of the fence done, and the whole of the front of the house... and boy is it stressful.  Also going to be around 2 months before the shutters are in...

Living each day without TV, or 'real' (i.e. FTTH) internet has proven interesting.  We basically try stream recorded programs from the likes of 7...and on the dodgy 3G tethering, it stops working all the time...

But... look to the future and in 2 months it'll all be behind us.  The pics will come...in time. :)

Soon, we might actually get some furniture for the theater room! 

Almost every pair of shoes I have has mud on them...

Trying to settle in

Well, it's been crazy.  We finally handed over our rental property today, with a tremendous amount of work by my wife to get it sorted.

We're now in the 'setting up the home' stage... which means, concrete, driveway, landscaping, fencing, windows, furniture... oh boy...

I'll post pictures once everything is sorted out... I must say, the guys from New Look Concrete are doing an amazing job of landscaping and concreting... with some additional drainage to boot.  I can't wait to see how well they'll do our front retaining wall.  A lot of hard work, but they're doing great.

We can't fence or concrete the south side of the house as it's not safe to do so yet until that house has its garage wall up.  Hoping there's enough space for their drainage and the fence on the boundary.

The north side is where NLC are doing lots of work putting in a retaining wall to help level out the ground for the fence and drainage.

Watch this space for the finished products and in about 8 weeks, the inside of the house once the plantation shutters are in.

Time Blurred.

Last Sunday morning I woke up feeling ill.  Physically ill.  I had not slept well (baby sick, so up half the night) and had woken before 06H00 concerned about the house.

We then made the decision to contact both PODS and our removalists to see if they come move the dates forward.  In the mean time, we went into overdrive and started packing the PODS in the off chance that they could.

They could.

Monday was a blur at work and at home and on Tuesday morning the PODS guy came to pick up the PODS and drop it off at the house.  Then it was a made dash back to the rental property to pack as much stuff as we possibly could for the movers that were now coming 10 days early.

Wednesday started with me finding our eldest child had left her car door open the night before (my car) and the battery was dead enough to stop the car starting... then finding out that when I had added my (second) car to my RACV portfolio, nobody had gone about asking if I wanted roadside assist on that vehicle (too).  So I took out roadside assist over the phone and waited the 90 minutes for the guy to arrive (he got there early as was there for like 2 minutes...).

We then found out that the booking alteration hadn't been 'locked in' with the removalists...and we started to...worry.  They said they were putting together a team and they'd be there about 4 hours late.  Eep.

Well... what a pleasure.  The team lead from Metro Movers was damn good.   I've moved house well over 30 times in my life... and it is not often that I've seen a guy go that little bit further in service.  Sorting out the balance of the fridge... holding the sideboard up so that my wife could fit protection to the base - after actually asking us if we wanted to put something on it to protect the wooden floors!  They put down blankets everywhere and did a good job.

So now we're in... trying to survive without taps in half the house.  We finally got a quote from UEH on Friday for the damage and stolen items, but now we have to get approval from the group insurer before UEH will do the work... so even more delays.

And then there's the fencing saga...but I'll leave that for another day.

This week has us deal with Telstra and FTTH...

Day 1... ruined.

So we did handover on Friday afternoon, and before we'd even had a chance to move a thing in, someone had relieved us of several fittings.  Fittings that had been on site for several weeks...

Anyway... police, locksmith, insurance...all been done or being processed.

I'll post some photos once everything is repaired and in...

The monetary 'loss' is irrelevant really.  But the irony of moving to Australia to avoid crime...well... I'm sure it has many people in South Africa chuckling.

Not quite...

Hmm.  Apprehension was well founded.  I have my doubts that AL Windows could have performed the below poor quality of ... work?

Herewith a set of photos taken a week apart (sorry for the layout...), during which time it was claimed an AL Windows technician had repaired ALL the windows.  

In Summary, the person that worked on some of the windows:

1) Didn't protect the glass and has sprayed the windows in several places;
2) Didn't sand down the cuts;
3) Sprayed so much paint (guessing in an attempt to fill the cuts?) that the matt finish is now gloss in those areas and the paint has run in several spots.

The Before photos:

 

  

The After photos:

 
 

 

End in sight?

Late on Friday afternoon I received a phone call from the site supervisor and he confirmed with me that:

a) AL Windows had sent a technician out to repair all the windows. 
b) The palm-sized chip out of the front patio has been repaired.
c) The last damaged kitchen panel has been replaced.
d) We can do our final inspection next Friday.

I have mixed feelings of joy and apprehension on everything being fixed.

-G