We are finally in our new house, 7 months after paying the deposit! My wife has cancelled her killing spree, and I have managed to obtain a full refund for my one-way ticket to Tahiti.

The keys were released at 2 pm on Friday afternoon, after the appropriate money had been transferred and the oven had been fitted only 30 minutes earlier. So it was a close call for them to complete the house on time, but all credit to Bloor homes – they really had done an incredible amount of work in the 4 days after my inspection. All the major snags have been resolved – the kitchen appliances are fitted, damaged kitchen panels have been replaced, the alarm is fitted, and the en-suite shower is in place. All walls have been given another coat of paint too, so things really are so much better.

I have been around to do my own snagging survey, working from Norman Marsh’s New Build Inspections survey and the original snag list from Bloor. At a rough guess around 50% of the identified snags have been resolved, but they are the most important 50% so I really do not mind that much. We now submit our own list within the next 5 days and I have so far generated a list of 224 snags for the interior alone. This is more than the original lists because the blanket snag ‘All walls need repainting’ has been replaced by very specific comments about marks on walls in certain places and so on. The most significant remaining snags include: the fridge freezer is the incorrect model; there is paint on the carpet in the en-suite; the floor tiles in the cloakroom don’t extend all the way to the door frame; there is a large scratch on the kitchen worktop; and one radiator has been mounted at an angle. The most common snag is that every single door hinge (there are over 30 in the house) has paint on it.

After we moved in, my cordless drill trigger finger was itching to penetrate some virgin walls, so it wasn’t long before we had the house number mounted on the outside wall and a couple of curtain poles up in the bedrooms. We stayed in the house on Friday night (camping on sleeping bags) and returned to our temporary flat on Saturday. We are spending Sunday packing up our things and buying a few bits and pieces for the new house. Removal men are due on Monday morning and they will deliver everything first thing on Tuesday morning. We can’t wait to get the house set up with all our things!