Well it has been a few weeks since my last post. Not because there hasn't been any progress but more that I am finding the closer we get to the end the more stressful it has become. Most of the frustration has come from Tiling and Carpet and its no surprise 1 company is responsible for both.
When we decided to build (3 years ago!) I fell in love with the Wooden look Porcelain tiles that they have in the Display homes. So when were making our choices in May last year we decided to make them our 1 big upgrade - and let me tell you the cost was enormous. When we went for our appointment we told the (very unhelpful) woman that we wanted the tiles as they are in the Display Home and she told us 'you have to pay more for that'. Yes yes we know we have to pay more! Anyway she explained it was extra for the tiles, extra to have them laid and then extra again to have a 3mm grout line. We agreed to be quoted on that and she circled her sheet and we signed. What we didn't realise is that she was quoting on having them square set (ie laid next to each other) not offset as they are in the Display Homes (the only way you should lay them as any other way would look ridiculous). We should have paid extra, extra, extra and extra for that!!!
Well we didn't pick this up until the day before they were due to be laid when we looked through the window to see the tilers had been in and placed some down to space out. Surely they wouldn't lay them like that? I couple of frantic phone calls to the SS and a sleepless night (because he didn't call me back - it wasn't Friday after all!) and the next morning I had a message to say the tilers had been put on hold and the someone would be in touch to sort it out. Sure enough a lovely man from Norwest Tiling called and we worked it out - he also said when he saw the order he couldn't believe we wanted them laid that way and agreed they looked so much better laid offset...Argh!
Here are some photos of the tiles - they will look stunning once they are all cleaned up
The next drama we had was the carpet (same company). Again we chose everything in May last year however we received a call in December to say the carpet had been discontinued and we had to choose another. No problems. We went in January to make another selection. The new range didn't have a colour exactly the same but there was a close option which we went with. It had gone up in price of course however they did say we could have it for the original price.
Fast forward to the Saturday before the carpet is supposed to be laid 2 months later and we get a phone call to say sorry you can't have that one as there isn't enough in stock and won't be until the end of April. So back we went again but this time we were limited to whatever they had in stock that could be delivered by Friday when the carpet layers were expected to start. What a nightmare. So we have ended up with a 3rd choice carpet in a colour I'm not 100% happy with.
In hindsight my advice to anyone building with Wisdom is to have the tiles and carpet taken out of the tender and do them post handover. For the following reasons:
1. you will save a fortune as instead of going to the 'very unhelpful' Tile Company you can shop around. I have a work colleague who recently had the same tiles laid only in a grey colour and she paid half what I did for them
2. you don't have to deal with the 'very unhelpful' Tile Company. We felt like a number to them - just another Wisdom client. I'm sure any other company we would go to asking for 200m2 of carpet and 90m2 of tiles would be falling over themselves to help us.
3. You would be onsite to make sure they are laid correctly with no dramas. I can't even think of the drama if we hadn't picked up the tiling problem until it was too last
Here are a couple of photos of some more latest additions:
Bench top extended to the Alfresco - bit smaller than I would like but still looks good
Pantry shelves - I don't remember choosing this colour but I do love it!
