And we are in!

Against all reasonable expectations we have handed over the rest of the cash and the builder has handed over the keys. It's not quite finished -- rather it is at 'practical completion'. This reminds me that software usually spends most of its life at the 95% finished stage. Anyway, we have decided to give Coneheads the benefit of the doubt (that they will in fact come back to complete the few outstanding matters) and handover. The biggest single thing that is not complete is the meter box upgrade. They will have to disconnect the meter, remove the old meter box and put in the new meters. That's about $700 worth, according to the variation they sent me. Maybe I shouldn't have paid them the full amount, but then they probably wouldn't have settled. Only time will tell if we made the right decision there.

As you can see the arched moulding above the bay window has been done now -- but not painted. It was due to be painted yesterday but, unbelievably for Adelaide at this time of year, it bucketed with rain yesterday (turning the parched soil into sticky mud) so they delayed painting. Last night we got takeaway Pizza and had a sleepover in the new house while Mrs Rewind and I tried to clean up a bit more (swept and mopped and wiped out cupboards). The kids were excited and didn't sleep very well, it rained on and off all night, and we all got muddy shoes and cold feet. It was a lot like camping.

The shower screens are in, robes are in (hate the colour -- bad choice there), and kitchen appliances are in and the bench fixed up, a bit.

One thing I wanted to do was make a list of the 'variations' that Coneheads have charged us for, the most recent of which was $1556 for "additional cost incurred by our electrical contractor. Specialised machinery and equipment was required to bore under concrete stormwater drain in order to access the power pole connection". They discovered a 1m x 1m stormwater drain buried just beneath the footpath and running the length of the street that they needed to dig under. They also happened to dig to the wrong pole the first time, and I wonder if that's what they are really charging me for.
I'll post the entire list of variations later.