Knockdown and rebuild new Ashford custom home: March 2012

Finally our brickie started. When I say brickie I mean just the one guy. We first met him on wet Saturday afternoon working on the alfresco wall which was the only place undercover. The bricks are all going along nicely and will hopefully be finished by mid-late next week. I need to drop off a box of beer for my neighbour who allowed the brickie to use his water for a day or two while Ashford sorted out an issue with our meter tap. Bit of a communication issue between the SS and the trades by the sound of it, once alerted it seems to have been corrected nice and quickly.

The insulation has now mostly been installed and the cabling is all complete ready for plastering. We had New Home Inspections out again for a pre-plaster inspection. Theo found a few minor issues again which should be all corrected by the time the bricks are complete. Then it will be a week of tidying up and sorting out some loose ends, lock the doors and start plastering. If all goes well we should be completed plastering by the end of the month. We are still mostly looking on track.

The only major issue we've encountered so far is an oversight by Ashford in not contacting TTI about our granite bench tops. I had a call from TTI asking what was going on, have called Elisha at Ashford and hoping it will all be sorted. It seems that most people now go for Caesar stone and so they don't really know what to do when confronted with natural stone. Ashford seem to always come through for us with a bit of probing so hopefully this issue will be no different. I've been reading a few blogs of people building with Metricon and we don't seem to be having any of the issues they are, I think its probably a combination of having a stable SS who is on the ball and also having the independent inspections.