The fence came down.

We no longer live at the end of the road. The fence, which separated Stages 3 & 4 from the rest of Stonecutters Ridge, officially came down as of 4pm yesterday. Our road, which was once a poorly constructed round-a-bout, is now the lifeline to the soon-to-open Stonecutters Ridge clubhouse, and countless new homesites that will quickly become cherished family homes.

It’s fun to see the community grow. Walking around the newest area of the neighbourhood last night, you could already sense the changes that are on the horizon. The vibe, the community, the neighbourhood – it’s all changing. For the better. For those of you that will soon see your new home rise from the ground, congratulations – it’s all starting to happen!

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. Changes to Stonecutters Ridge Master Plan
2. Living in a Golf Community
3. We’ve got neighbours!

Council’s requirements to get our permanent occupancy certificate were, all in all, pretty reasonable. Fire protection measures needed to be in place, BASIX provisions needed to be in order, and downlights needed to be installed in an acceptable manner. What didnt’ make sense, was the dog door needed to be screened. Yep, the dog door was a fire hazard – despite having a metal cover that closed it off when we weren’t home. Apparently metal isn’t bushfire compliant. Who knew.

A few certificates were required from our builder stating that all bushfire prevention measures had been completed, and all necessary building inspections had been completed. It seemed pretty straightforward from here. Would you believe it wasn’t?

We had 30 days to complete what was requested by Council. The 30 days have come and gone, and we’ve had to file for an extension. While accomodating our request, we weren’t sure what was taking so long – until we spoke to Metricon.

To ensure the bushfire prevention measures were completed, Metricon sent out an inspector to have a look through the house. What he discovered was that a portion of our roof space did not have the proper sarking underneath the Colorbond. Very little information has been communicated to us since, but it must be a big deal, as the NSW State Building Inspector for Metricon is meeting with Council directly next week. We don’t know what’s being discussed, but it can’t be good. It never has.

Until next week…

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. Council Approval Issues, Part Deux
2. Follow up on the 90 day inspection
3. Council Approval issues

So how did it go? To be honest, I’m not sure. He wrote a bunch of stuff down as he meandered through the house – making the occasional comment to Megan and I. Then, he asked about our bushfire protection measures.

“Are these Merbau?”
“Do you have aluminium screens?”
“Are these doors weather sealed?”

I was having flashbacks to our troubles with Council previously and, looking across the room at Megan, I could see her head about to explode. Really? We’re going there again?

Sifting through loads of paperwork, we had to find the receipts and documentation that the bushfire protection measures were completed to spec. Even the gutter guards, which can easily be seen from the front veranda, required documentation. Simply walking out on the veranda, or peering through open windows would suffice. We were even told that our dog door was a fire hazard, as it defeats the purpose of weather-stripping the door. On the side of the house. That doesn’t face the bush. No, seriously.

We were even told that our dog door was a fire hazard, as it defeats the purpose of weather-stripping the door.

A few more comments were made around how our lighting in the bathrooms wasn’t energy-efficient (I don’t have time to wait for lights to warm up in the morning when getting ready for work), and he was gone – out the door without even letting us know what ‘ the next steps’ would be.

Did we pass? Are we good? Hello?

I didn’t expect this would be an enjoyable experience, but it was a necessary evil – one of the last steps to having official sign off on the house and putting the build process behind us. We’re close, but are we done? Your guess is as good as mine.

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. Council Approval Issues, Part Deux
2. Council Inspection
3. Yes! Oh sorry, I meant no…

This won’t be the first time they’ve pushed back the opening date for the golf course. When we originally bought land at Stonecutters Ridge, we were told early 2011. Then late 2011. Then a sign finally went up and we had it in writing – Early 2012. Well, I suppose it shouldn’t be rushed, we’ve waited this long – what’s another three months? After all, we need to be able to actually get to the clubhouse. The road isn’t even in yet (though it IS close). During the major thunderstorm on February 19, half of the road in front of our house was covered in muddy water. Rocks the size of tennis balls were rolling down the road. It’s still pretty messy. But it’s all in the name of progress. I have to keep telling myself that. Dirty, muddy, loud progress.

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. Stonecutters Ridge Community gets some attention
2. Making Stonecutters Ridge a community
3. An Australian Sunset

We raised the issue around scratched glass in our windows and doors and, as of yesterday, all windows and doors have been replaced. All of these were the result of the cleaners that Metricon hired, using dull razors to scrape away the dark oak stain from the glass – something that ended up costing Metricon a pretty penny.  It appears that this is a common issue in new homes too – a neighbour of ours who also built with Metricon had similar issues. He too had to fight to get these replaced. Frustrating, but a worthy battle to fight. We’ve even had a home here at Stonecutters Ridge that had to have ALL their tapware replaced, after the cleaners used an acidic cleaning solution that caused it all to rust.

So with warranty issues more or less behind us, we can start to look at other projects around the house. We’ve recently had retaining walls built in our front yard built (pictures forthcoming), and had plans drawn up for a veranda. There’s a lot to look forward to now!

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. Metricon warranty issues: resolved (sort of)
2. Outstanding warranty issues: Update
3. Metricon’s lack of communication

Over a month later, we still have a lot of the issues we brought up with Metricon outstanding. The Christmas holidays brought things to a screeching halt, and all the rain that Sydney has been getting caused numerous delays. Even a bit of bad luck delayed the replacement of our ensuite mirror (On their way here, the driver went over a speed bump too fast and the mirror broke!). But with that said, a few items have been addressed.

Things ARE moving ahead. I have to credit Metricon with their attentiveness. Ever since their State Building Manager got involved, we’ve received consistent updates from the head office, regardless of the actual progress around the home. We’ve had a few of the creaks in the floor boards upstairs fixed, the scratched glass in the front door replaced, and a few odds and ends around the house repaired, repainted, and redone. We even got the refund check to cover the extra cost of the CAT6 cabling that was made redundant due to the “street-to-hub” cabling be installed as CAT5. Unfortunately, we had to send it back, as Metricon spelled both of our names wrong, and even used Megan’s maiden name instead of mine (we’ve been married since before we even started building).

While we’ve been a little frustrated about the slower than expected speeds, Metricon’s approach to the remaining warranty issues has been more proactive than usual. The tradesmen that were replacing the scratched glass in the front door inspected our bifold doors in the rear of the house, and noticed additional scratches that we’d missed. An unusual experience, but nevertheless welcomed!

So, it continues. We’re closer to the finish line and, while it IS slow going at best, at least the lines of communication are well and truly open with Metricon.

Finally.

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. Metricon warranty issues: resolved (sort of)
2. Metricon’s lack of communication
3. Council Approval Issues, Part Deux

Metricon’s Building Manager showed up early on a Tuesday morning and quickly got down to business, sympathetically addressing our concerns in a way we hadn’t seen from their office staff yet. Systematically moving through our outstanding issues, we explained why we believed these issues needed to be fixed, and how each affected our view on Metricon’s quality control. The entire inspection took about twenty minutes, and by the end, we felt oddly comfortable that our concerns were, at the very least, finally being acknowledged by Metricon. Were they, or were we being lured into a false sense of security?

A week later, we received an email from Metricon’s head office. All of the outstanding issues we addressed with the NSW Building Manager were going to be fixed. Well, all but one – the upgraded Ethernet wiring (CAT5 -> CAT6 for you tech-heads) can’t be fixed, so we’ll be receiving a refund for the amount we initially paid.

So finally, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, as Metricon’s office staff has come through and agreed to fix the outstanding issues. These included scratched doors (scratched during the initial clean by the builder), squeaking floorboards, and corroded mirrors (among others).

It may be almost a year late, but our persistance has paid off. Despite being told by the initial 90 day building inspector that some issues (like the scratches on the door) wouldn’t be covered, we will soon be able to confidently say that we’re happy with our home. I guess it just goes to show that social media channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, or blogs like this one help “motivate” the builder to address issues that may otherwise get clogged up in the red tape of office “guidelines”.

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. Metricon’s lack of communication
2. Outstanding warranty issues: Update
3. One year on…

In a nutshell, one year on, and we’re still waiting for over half of our concerns from our 90 day inspection to be addressed. What’s worse, is that we haven’t heard from Metricon in over a month, despite regular emails and calls to the head office.

It hardly feels like we’ve been in the house for a year. We’ve done a lot in year – painted a number of feature walls, moved over 30 tons of soil, laid turf and planted dozens of plants in our backyard. We even added to the family just recently! Welcoming Bryce into the home made the house feel more like a home than everything else combined, but I suppose that’s to be expected. We love this home that we’ve created.

But there’s a dark cloud that seems to hang over the whole experience, and that cloud is starting to become much more prominent. 365 days later, items that should have been resolved 275 days ago are still withstanding.

To say it’s frustrating would be wrong – we’re way beyond that.

Items such as warped doors, creaky floorboards, corroding mirrors and scratched window panes still remained unaddressed, despite numerous promises by Metricon’s head office that they will be fixed. We’ve been told doors will be delivered on certain days and we try to make ourselves available only to have no one show up all day long. But that’s only when the office team respond to our emails and calls. Admittedly, they’ve been very good about not disturbing Bryce when he’s sleeping.

It’s easy to sleep when nothing is happening.

So one year on, and we’ll continue trying to have the remaining issues fixed. Our one single home may not be as important to Metricon as the seemingly hundreds of others being built around Sydney at the moment, or the ones that are about to be build – after all, they already have our money. But that shouldn’t matter. This is our home. It’s the home in which Bryce was born into and we became a family.

It’s important to us.

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. Council Issues? Resolved!
2. Three great Australian home build blogs
3. We’re In!

This winter was, by all accounts, an unusually cold winter. Our neighbour counted 21 frosty mornings this year (at one point 5 consecutive days!), compared to 6 the year prior. While cozy when sitting by the fire, it’s not ideal for the garden. But with that said, our plants did surprisingly well considering the requirements for a tropical garden. The casualties can be counted on just one hand.

To preface this landscape postmortem, we planted our garden last year between late January and March, halfway through the initial growing season. Things got cold quickly – we had our first subzero night in early May. It was a cold snap that lasted almost an entire week that took both us and the garden by surprise. After all, the week before it was a balmy 25c. And without further ado, a list of plants that did not survive the cold weather.

1. Mango tree - No real surprise here. We planted a variety of different plants in various areas of the garden to see what might do better than others, to give us an idea of what we should be planting this spring. Sadly, our hopes were shattered when our Mango tree succumb to the cold quite quickly. Admittedly, I don’t think it liked the clay heavy soil we have here in Western Sydney, so it didn’t do much growing even when it was warm outside.

2. Frangipani - Our much loved frangipani, which we had for a few years growing in a pot, did not make it. Frost burnt and perhaps a bit of root rot brought this plant to it’s knees. We had high hopes for the frangipani, as they’re know to be quite resilient, but we don’t see this one pulling through. It’s worth noting though, that our evergreen frangipani (plumeria obtusa) is doing quite well. A dwarf variety, it was planted up against the house and, with the amount of heat bricks radiate during the night hours, it was somewhat sheltered from the cold winter temperatures. It even had a bit of new growth over the winter in areas that were covered in mulch.

3. Hibiscus - We have three hibiscus plants in the backyard. Well, now two. The two up against the back of the house did just fine, however the one in the far corner of the yard didn’t fair as well. Admittedly, it was the final plant to go in last summer/fall, so it didn’t get a whole lot of time to settle in.

4. Kiwi Cordyline – We have (had) three of these planted around a palm (which survived, but barely) towards the far fence in the garden. They took the frost particularly hard, but two of the three are finally starting to show new growth. These are some of my favourite in the garden, so I’m glad they are surviving, at least somewhat.

We had a few surprises this year as well! Our ginger just wouldn’t quit, and continued to grow over winter, covering much of the corner of the yard. With the addition of a large pot (to cover access to the storm drain), this area of the yard was somewhat protected, and didn’t appear to have been affected by the frosts nearly as much as areas further from the house.

Remember the canna lilies that were so quick to show damage from the heavy frosts we had? These plants bounced back better than ever. All of our canna lilies died completely back – there was literally nothing but mulch in areas where these plants were planted. But like all plants with a rhyzome root system, they flourished underneath the cover of mulch and, when the soil temperatures broke above 15c, they started to grow. As you can see in the photos above, they quickly grew bigger than they were by the end of last summer. We were even able to divide up the plants and replant cuttings in different areas of the yard.

We’re pretty happy with how the yard held up, considering. We look forward to being able to take advantage of an early season planting, and should have some pretty good results by the end of this summer. Here’s hoping!

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. April 2011: Landscaping progress
2. Our Landscaping Progress
3. Drought tolerant, tropical landscaping

As you can imagine, he has become our newest project – one that will persist for years to come. We like our projects. First it was moving to Australia, then getting engaged and subsequently married, followed by building our house. But this project – this beautiful boy, will be my favourite yet.

Still interested? Here's a few more posts you may find interesting:

1. How safe is Sydney?