Progress internally is going well. Tiling of the downstairs wet areas and floors is almost complete. Painters have started. The only setback is that some of the internal doors have a manufacturing defect which has meant that Comdain have had to send quite a few back. This will probably set us back a week.
Attention has turned to the outside with the brickies erecting the brick pillars for our fence. The top of the pillars were supposed to be finished with bricks set at 90 degrees (horizontally) to the orientation in the pillar. The design looked great on paper but in reality, as the pillars are rectangular rather than square, it would mean large mortar gaps between the bricks making it look a bit odd. This was explained to us and we have elected to finish the top with some (custom-made) concrete tops. An extra cost to us but hopefully this won't delay handover.
Something we hadn't anticipated were landscaping issues. House plans look great but they don't show you the reality of soil levels. We've had to start thinking about where we will need garden steps and because our front door is relatively close to the street, whether there is enough room for the garden gate to swing back as we'll as having steps to get one from street level to the front door. Soil levels and slopes have also become as issue because we would like to install another gate at the back of the fence. Time to call in the landscaper.
We too face some future landscaping issues as the cut into our block was more severe than I imagined. We'll need to get a lanscaper in as well to deall with the odd levels throughout our block. Initially I thought this would be just a bit of home handyman. But in some cases the soil rises up around 800mm or so. Watching what you do with great interest.
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