Splashback Disappointment with a capital D

I am sure everyone who has been building looks forward to the day they see their splashback installed........well it's in, and I am quite disappointed :'-( to say the least! I know it will be ok, but I was really hoping for one of those stunning splashbacks that you see. We wanted a light spearmint colour, and the lady at M said that because the glass has a green tinge to go with a vivid white background and it will bring out the green in the glass.....well it hasn't....at all :'''-(  I am so sad!! And we paid a few hundred extra for metallic glass and you can't even notice unless you are right up close and looking for it :''(  The only thing I can really do is put a strip of coloured  LED lights across the top of it and have them on green, and maybe brighten it up with a fruit bowl or something I don't know! Argh!! It would be waaayyy expensive to remove it and replace it, if anyone knows approximately how much please tell me but I am pretty sure it is about $1500-2k :-( I know it will look a bit better when the covers are off and you can see the cupboards and benchtops etc but definitely not excited like I thought I would be. It's ok you don't need to be polite with your comments, I know it looks bland :-(

As for the paint, we are just going to leave it as is, it is too costly to change it now and will hold our build up even more. It doesn't look quite so yellow when it isn't in the sunlight and the extra coats are on. So we will see how we go and just paint it ourselves after handover if it doesn't grow on us completely.

Apparently there should be a fair bit of action next week when the painting is all finished, shower screens, toilets, baths etc. Our SS has said we are on-track for a last week in July, first week in August finish :-D

Paint too yellow?

Back to building! 

Since my last update; the benchtops and sinks have been installed, a couple of bits of missing gyprock have been fixed, walls sanded and today the first coat of paint went on! Only thing is, the paint looks quite yellow?? We chose Dulux Grand Piano Half, which is supposed to look like this: Dulux Grand Piano Half but on the walls it looks a bit yellow??? I am going to go in the morning and speak to the painters first thing and see if they can do anything about it? They asked this afternoon if we liked it (which I hastily said yes being polite) but we hadn't really had a good look at it and in photos it comes up quite yellow! I just have phone photos but even on the 2 different phones they both look yellow, and they are a bit yellow to the naked eye, what do you think? 

We would have loved the waterfall edged benchtops but the budget just didn't stretch that far unfortunately! It is funny, I know the kitchen sinks without the drying section are popular, but I am not a fan, I mean they look great but we still do dishes the old fashioned way (in the sink, not the dishwasher) so decided to go with the standard Metricon sink. 

Seems such a waste to put tiles behind the mirror. 

I don't understand why the bench wasn't put hard up against the wall? The power-point is going to be a bit odd? It's only the guest bathroom though so no biggie.

I'll update over the weekend what happens with the paint colour.

a very sad event

This is a really hard post to write, but our beautiful cat, our baby girl of 15 years, passed away suddenly on Wednesday night. We have planted some trees and some daises that should grow in full sun and laid her to rest at the new house. We are devastated that she won't get to enjoy sunning herself on the new deck, and having the room to properly play chasey running up and down the stairs and hide and seek up and down the hallway like we had planned.  And just enjoying the peace and quiet from the neighbours barking dogs and sirens from the main road. It is hard being at either house, where we are everything reminds us of her and the little habits we had formed without realising, and when we are at the new house we don't want to leave. 

 I will continue blogging about our build but it may be a bit more haphazard than a weekly update. 

Tiling has commenced - week ending 10/06/2012

More progress this week, sooo glad to finally be moving forward at a steady pace! I haven't had a chance to bring up the leaky door with the SS yet, though I think it may be a design flaw given that the gutter appears to be doing it's thing correctly, so I have no-idea what they will come up with to rectify it!  Or maybe it is just because there is no lip thing at the bottom of the door?

We are quite happy with the job the tilers have done so far, someone from QA has been through and green stickered a few things throughout the house including a couple of spots on the tiles but we cannot figure out what on earth could be wrong, but anyway good to see the quality control continues. I also briefly met a QA person who had come out very early in the morning to check the work in the kitchen, and left his report on the cupboard so I took a quick squiz and all was good so that is nice to know.

Apparently the painting starts on Tuesday and continues for the next couple of weeks. So fingers crossed our paint turns out Ok! It is a beige type colour, Dulux Grand Piano half, it is one of those things I am second guessing and given that it is on every wall of the house, I am really hoping it looks good!

 We have received our fixing invoice from Metricon, so there can't be too many invoices left after that surely, as there is hardly much left to pay in the contract! The main floor tiles won't be done for awhile to save them getting scratched.

I haven't asked for a completion date yet, but will ask this week if I can remember, as everyone keeps asking us. I am working on the theory of it will be done, when it's done.....ideally the last week in July... but that is just based on the CM's previous comments, but things can change so who really knows.

We were invited to our new next door neighbours house warming on the weekend and had a great time! It is sooo nice to have great neighbours, considering the horrible ones we have where we are now, absolutely can't wait to move out.

And now for some piccies 

This is the main floor tile 500x500 throughout the house - upstairs is carpet though

Powder room taking shape, the wrap around mirrors are not in yet

ensuite shower

close up of shower niche - will definitely clear glaze this and maybe even put a glass cover over it to help keep it clean

ensuite - it seems so odd to me that they put tiles where you wont see them anyway  due to the mirror

ensuite bath

laundry

ensuite again - the lighting is a bit odd in this one

ensuite shower before the grout was done

main/guest bathroom

'smart' tiles

Progress a plenty & Pic overload week ending 03/06/2012

Hi everyone, I am feeling a bit under the weather so will let the pictures do all the talking this week. What a week though! Very happy with how much things have come along this week!! Tiles have all been delivered and we are meeting the tiler tomorrow morning to confirm everything, but I have peeked through the plastic and they are what we have chosen which is a great start. Small downer this week is that we have noticed when it rains water is coming in the garage back door, but have only just seen this so will take it up with the SS during the week. The other major thing is we have been locked out! Arrrghhh, I am reeeallly hoping they don't check all the windows at closing time and leave me one I can climb through!

ensuite all waterproofed :-)

tiles

ensuite shower

sinks

main bathroom

powder room

(not the taps pictured)

main bathroom

upstairs hall

ensuite

WIR

haven't done the rest of the clear glaze yet