The Charlton is finally ours!
What a crazy few weeks it's been. We've had possession of the house for 2-3 weeks now and we have not stopped to take in the moment! We've had a lot of other personal things going on at the same time so I've had very little 'me' time to update this blog so I do apologise. I have been thinking of you all. I know a lot of blogs go quiet after the build and that really is not my intention in fact I do plan on keeping this blog going with our post handover updates, interior updates and landscaping etc.
As promised I have plenty of photos for you but for those of you who are building here's a brief run down of the day.
Preparing for Handover
The expectation for handover day is that any outstanding balance owed to Porter Davis is paid on the day in order to receive the keys. We chose to organise a bank cheque which we collected the day before handover which you then hand over to the site supervisor. Gone are the days where you need to go all the way into head office and settle the final payment there. Do keep in mind that most banks won't release final funds unless a Certificate of Occupancy has been obtained and Home Buildings Insurance has been set up.
Handover
Handover is pretty straight forward, the site supervisor walked through the agreed items that require fixing from PCI and then hands over the keys and when I say keys I mean a lot of keys. It's the same key that opens all your external doors. I don't know why you get so many?
For those of you wondering whether or not the builder can still access your home after handover they can't that's because for the duration of your build your site supervisor and your trades all have access to what is called a builders key and on handover day the keys you get provided with are designed so that on first use of the home owners key it will drop some mechanism and will lock out the builders key. I had always wondered that all works and whether we all new home owners needed to change their locks knowing how many trades have access to the house.
Well that was weird?
I've followed plenty of other home building blogs over the last year or so and was always excited to see the little house warming gift you get from the builder. It's usually a small gift and I always thought it was such a nice touch. I won't lie I was secretly anticipating something from our site supervisor so was somewhat disappointed when we didn't get anything? Anyone else building with PD and did or didn't get a little pressie at the end of their experience? I know it's petty but it would have been a really nice way to end the whole PD experience. (I think).
I should mentioned we were given a 12 month membership to RACV home assist, perhaps this has replaced that little gift you get? I think I prefer a teapot. HAHA.
Roll the camera!
So here are photos of the house I took. Some photos have flooring some without it is a bit all over the place sorry I haven't had time to get organised. Anyway I'm in the process of furnishing and decorating so will have more photos of what will be our 'home' soon. Enjoy | |||||
Front entrance
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Downstairs bathroom
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| Can't wait to try this rain shower |
Master Ensuite
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| Master Ensuite |
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| These Como Grey tiles look much better in person |
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| Our Floorboards and Tiles Turned out ok afterall. |
The kitchen
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| Technika rangehood Standard |
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| How big is that gap? It doesn't look right. I queried this with the site supervisor and whether or not this needs to be caulked and he said you can't as it would void the warranty on the rangehood. They could have at least done a better job. Geez |
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| Standard inclusion Technika dishwasher I've never owned a dishwasher before so I'm looking forward to trying this baby out. |
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| I preferred my oven in a appliance tower so got a separate cooktop instead of the standard freestanding one. |
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| Blanco appliances are an upgrade for the Advantage range of homes. |
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| View of kitchen galley (right) and pantry (left) |
The staircase
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| Our Hamptons/French Provincial staircase. PD Black Stain and White Risers I took a bit of a risk doing this as I'd never seen it in any display home before but I personally think it works. |
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| The stairs look great lit up at night. We're so glad we did it. |
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Upstairs Main Bathroom
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| Upstairs main bathroom All standard in here |
Master room
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| Master room entrance |
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| Master WIR |
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| Master room Sliding door out to front balcony |
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| View of our flat garage roof Needs a wash |
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| upstairs view from master room |
Flooring
We wasted no time as soon as we got the keys as we had booked our floorboard guy to come and start on the same day. He did a fantastic job and you can tell he is really proud of his workmanship. He took off our skirting boards which were 'tacked' on so now we still need to paint and caulk them.
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| Family Room |
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| 19mm wide oak flooring |
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| Bedroom 1 We were also quite happy with our carpet selection. Carpets are from Fowles in Clayton Ashton Twist in Pambula Beach. |
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| Bedroom 1 WIR |
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| Laundry Nice of them to give us some left over tiles. Dirty floors. |
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| Heating and Cooling Control Panels We were given a basic tutorial on how to use it but as you can tell from the control panel its pretty easy. |
Externals
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| The Sinclair Facade We're still waiting on the Juliet bar thingy to be installed on the master room window. We're stoked with our colour selections. |
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| Grand alfresco |
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| Front External Doors in Woodland Grey |
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| Despite having professional cleaners come through we still had to clean and in fact we're not even done cleaning yet. |
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| Hot water system was installed 2 days after handover |
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| Driveway Done! Really happy with the exposed aggregate. It was amazing to them wash off the top layer to 'expose' the 'aggregate' hehe. |
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| Side Gate preparation |
Until next week.....
