Monday, March 7, 2011

Issues Management...how much more is there to manage? Will I manage to manage it?

Ok so I have, or I should say had, calmed down from last weeks situation, but a new one has arisen and I am back to stressed out brain again...boo to me.
I'll back track to last week's issues first and let you know the out come.
I received the call from our CSC, K, she was so calm and helped me to feel a lot calmer just by talking to her. 
In my plans, I have two copies of them. The first set, the contract drawings, which were the original ones we signed off on and agreed too had the facade fully rendered. Leaving us with pretty much no argument, because we signed off on them. Also appearing on those is the moulding. In the second set, post contract variation drawings, the moulding disappears. When I asked why, K went back to her emails from the developer and discovered that the mouldings were not approved by them and she concluded that the guys who do the drawings had just taken them off. There was no notification to us that this was happening, it just happened. 
So by the end of our phone conversation we each had a task. I was to write to the developer and ask about why the moulding was not approved and removed and if we could have a different type of moulding on the house if any. K's task was to speak to our SS and see if there was any way at all possible to not have the second story rendered. 
I got to writing and drafted an email to the Design people at our estate. They called me back within a couple of days and I asked them to forward on their thoughts to K via email and cc me in also.
This is their response:

Hello K


Re: Lot 85 C Dve - Front Facade


We received a request from your client Amy to add a moulding to the Front Façade between the Ground and First Floor rendered sections, per the image attached. The DAP approves this moulding on condition that it has a simple, rectangular profile.


We would also accept (encourage) one section of face brick and one of render per the image, to better reduce the dominance of a single material (render) to the façade.


I have CC’d Amy (at her request) and K D on this email.
(all names have been removed for privacy)

And there you have it. We can have it!  I was told that the design guys from the developers HAD told PD that we COULD most definitely have the moulding, provided it was a rectangular shape (otherwise it makes the house look like a "period" home) or they could just remove it, so without consultation PD just removed it. We drove around the estate that night, because we had sworn we had seen other houses with the moulding on them, we were right. We found two houses with moulding on them, one of which looked like a "period" home. How interesting?

After finally getting hold of K, who had been in training sessions all week, she let me know that there was no way we could not render the second story. That the brickwork had been done for render and there was no way to change it, but they were putting the moulding back on and it was in drawings as we spoke being fixed. Joy! I also asked if we would have to pay for this moulding, she could not answer as she was not sure, but I plan to hold fast on the fact that I have already paid for that and will not be paying for it a second time.
Since all this has come to light, Derek and I have decided to change the colour of the render and moulding, PD are letting us do so which is great (as they should really).  So this weekend we trudged back down to Bunnings to re-look at Dulux colour selections again. We decided on a similar colour for the render, but decided to go a lighter colour on the moulding than we had originally chosen. Also, with the render we decided to just stay with the one colour all over.
So we are OK with it all now. Phew, thankfully that is pretty much sorted and dealt with.

Onto the issue of this week!

Whilst down at the house yesterday we discovered our kitchen cabinetry has been delivered! Yay I was so so so excited, so was Derek, but I am pretty sure I was way more excited than him!
So we get in to have a closer look at them. 
I am opening and closing drawers and cupboards, then realise that they aren't exactly what we thought they would be. They did not have the soft closing mechanism on them. WTF?
I could not believe it! We had specifically asked for this! We had had issues about it way back when, when we had had that little snot face colour chick telling us we had to do them at tender and she was not able to help us with it (which was complete BS according to our CSC).
Grrrr..
This morning I get in bright and early to work to check through my contracts and variation on contract docs. Whaddya know? Its not bloody in there!!! WTF?
So I go through my emails back and forward with K and find that we had discussed it before our contract meeting and it was supposed to be put in our contract, it wasn't. Although, we are fairly sure that at our contract meeting we discussed it again, because I had printed off that email and we had gone through it at the appointment. 
Somewhere along the way it has fallen off the list and we all have missed it.
So this morning poor K has copped another call from me. Lets hope this one can be fixed and have a happy ending like the last one.
Again with the fingers crossed peeps...

On a brighter note, our stairs have been installed and so has some of the skirting boards and architrave's. The doors have also started to be hung, although  Dels aren't as well hung.....in his theatre room that is! (Ha ha I could not help myself!) They have a great big gap in the middle, hopefully this will be fixed up. 

Anyway, I am off to try and not eat some chocolate and try not to think too much till I hear more..
House with scaff removed

From the front

Skirting and Architrave's

Stairs

Del at the top of the stairs

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