blog

There's Humour Somewhere

Posted: 08-05-10

Kitchen. Decorating. Shelving. Money stuff-ups. Communication.

Remember that I remarked last time, or it could've been the time before, that things seem to be progressing rather glacially of late? I know it's all normal at this stage of a build but the excitement we used to feel up until a month ago has now all but abated and the jobs we need to complete before the various tradesman can do theirs, are now all in full effect.

Last weekend we had John, Shelly and myself all going hard-out slapping on prepcoat all over the plasterboard. Using a roller with this gloopy stuff is harder work than you might think. Especially if your name is Tasia and your job was to slap the stuff on the 3m high ceiling, but slap she did and as of today, the prepcoat and 2 top coats are on in the ceiling of kitchen/dining area and the top coats (i.e. the colour) will commence tomorrow.

It is this area, the laundry and both bathrooms that all need priority painting so that they are water-resistant before anything else is installed like sinks and bogs. It is required mainly so that code-compliance can be issued by the council and we can move in, even if the rest of the interior won't yet be finished.

It was my job today to paint the 3rd coat on the radiators (technically the 4th if you include primer) and if I had my life over again, I would have gotten over the cost issue and simply had them all powder coated. If you've seen these types of radiator before (see our radiator pics - sandblasted, prior to painting or the gallery on The Old Radiator Company's Website) you'll realise that poking a strategically bent artists paintbrush in between 4 columns 4 times for 6 radiators is..well let's just say I can think of things that might be rather more fun.

I have read folks' prefer the hand-painted look over the rather factory-looking powder coated finish, and while I agree - this lasts only as long as my sanity will allow.

Now don't get me wrong - the builders have been in doing some stuff: The plinth for the Rayburn has been poured. They were waiting till the kitchen had been fitted so they knew the height to pour the concrete. This I find rather odd though and I'd wager you might agree. If, as I suspect, builders use straight edges, rules and tape-measures then utlising these readings and some elementary mathematics would have yielded them their data. But like the Rayburn itself and the radiators, they required the kitchen to be installed to ensure a proper fit before they installed the Rayburn. So imagine this on a larger scale - say the Burj_Khalifa in Dubai and the engineers waiting for the lifts to arrive before constructing the lift-shafts - it just seems a little odd to me, that's all.

They have also put the shelving into cupboards, wardrobes and the magnificent walk-in-wardrobe - which I recall having remarked to someone just the other day, had some rental potential in its own right if times got tough.

Tasia is in charge of money. She set the top-dollar for building with, she has done an excellent job of mediating between the bank, valuer and builders and everything had been going so well (apart from "that" valuation) until the end of last week. We were due to pay our last progress payment when we found that the builders liability insurance had run out. Given that the bank has registered itself as an interested party in the insurance, it was they that let us know and refused to pay out until the insurance was sorted - er, how embarrassing..

You've no doubt heard the saying: "The Right hand doesn't know what the Left hand's doing"? Well in our case, the builder's have scant awareness that there exists another appendage, and that it has been receiving instructions all along from the other and ourselves. We had assumed at the outset we might be assigned a project manager, and it would be they that would mediate between us, and the various trades like electricians, plumbers and plasterers.

To date however Tasia and I have directly passed instruction to: The electrician, the plumber and his employees, the foreman, his apprentices, the Solar System Provider, the kitchen supplier and the plasterers. These were all very nice people and we do of course realise that ours is not a standard build and even that some of the services and systems are supplied outside of the builder's normal collection of trades. However, for the client to be required to liaise directly with the sub-trades and worse, for the builder not to know about some elements of the sub-trade's decision-making, which we have found several times, is, well, not good. I can imagine some poor folk of a lesser interest in the whole process than ourselves, having got a lot more stressed and upset than fortunately we have been.

So this all led to my coming up with a joke to cheer us all up:

Q: "How many builders does it take to change a light bulb?"
A: "2. One to hold the bulb and the other to ask the client if the sparky has connected the power up yet"

Well I thought it was funny...

But hey, if you are a builder, indeed if you are our builder, take heart in this: Unless you've had your own home built for you by someone else, you're likely unaware until way after completion-date of how pleased the client has been with the realisation of their dream.