Just before Christmas

It is now a couple of days before Christmas and the site has been cleared ready for the driveway and landscaping to commence. The kitchen is almost finished with the stone bench top going on yesterday. The white Caesarstone looks amazing, unfortunately the stonemason cut the sink hole for an over mount instead of an under mount, but the builder has reassured us that this will be rectified early next year.

The outside tiling of the back shed has been done with just the grouting left. The front stairs and pathway will be completed early January once the concreting & driveway is done. On the inside the laundry was the only room left to tile and this was done just after the laundry benches went in.

Outside, a drainage trench has been built to the side of the driveway, and some filling of the land levels has been completed with aggregate so that water drains freely from our site.

The internal painting has started with undercoats being completed for the Rumpus walls and ceilings. The plan is to have the rumpus room ready first so that we can start moving some our storage items across, so that we don’t have to pay the storage facility any further.

Looking back it felt like the build was taking forever but just over a year has passed since we started this adventure, I just can’t see the end as yet, as there is still so much to do all of which needs to wait till next year.

Are we there yet?

It is just over a year now since the house was demolished and this is where we are now at:

A lot of work has been going on, so much work in fact that I haven’t had a chance to blog about it.

Over the last 3 weeks the grouting for all 3 bathrooms was completed and all of the joinery was installed, plus all plumbing accessories. All that is now left to do for the bathrooms is install the shower screens. Below are in progress photos taken before the accessories were installed.

 

The kitchen, laundry and lounge room cabinets were all installed over a 3 day period. The staircase was installed plus the glass balustrade and it looks pretty amazing. All of the cornices are now complete, this took longer than expected as there were a couple of faulty pieces that the builder wanted to be replaced. 
 

 

 

On the outside the kitchen landing and front entrance have been tiled, plus the garage façade has been rendered ready for the painters.

We are now on the home stretch but the house definitely will not be ready until late January as there are still a number of items outstanding with the two main ones being the painting and floor polishing. Even though the internal robes were planned to be ready for installation prior to Christmas we have opted to postpone this until after the floors are polished.

On the landscaping front we have decided to do what we can with the builders assistance and then have a landscaper come in and do the work that we can’t do ourselves like building the planter retaining walls; as the overall landscaping cost estimate was far more than we anticipated.

Inside tiling complete apart from grouting

The inside tiles are done except for the grouting which is planned for this week, below are photos for the en-suite and main bathrooms. The outside tiles are next.

The garage door was installed sometime last week and I’m regretting my choice on this one. I should have gone with the original slat look to match the eaves and front door but instead went for the paneled look. Too late now. One good thing though is the colour matches the eaves perfectly. 

Even if the house was ready for us to move in prior to Christmas the internal wardrobes wouldn’t be ready for us and I’m guessing this will be the same for the blinds/shutters as everyone seems to be fully occupied till Christmas.

Tiling to start

All of the flooring is now complete as well as the remaining plasterboard that was required for the downstairs hallway. All of the arcs and skirtings have been installed plus the laundry door is in. The fireplace surround is done and waiting for the rest of the joinery. 

This week the tilers are starting to lay both the inside and outside tiles so that the bathroom fittings can be installed next week. 

I’ve lined up a couple of businesses to give quotes for internal wardrobes and blinds/shutters for the next 2 weeks with the hope that they can be installed mid December if the house is ready for us to move in, as I wasn’t really happy with the stock standard robes being provided by the builder.

Floors done

So this is what has been going on since my last post – The floorboards have been laid in all of the upstairs rooms. The Quickslide wardrobe doors have been installed for all of the built ins. The internal doors, door frames and skirting boards have also been done. The alfresco deck has been done and it is level with the inside floorboards so that we have a seamless inside/outside dining area – yipee!

The shed door has been made and installed using the same Ekowood material as the eaves and decking.

Drive by

I did a drive by and noticed that the front door and sidelight had now been installed. I’m not too sure if I like the opaque sidelight, I think I would have preferred clear glass, but this is something my partner wanted so I let this one slide. The Chippys were inside working on installing the floorboards and doors/architraves etc.

The tilers should be in next and then we’ll be on the home stretch. The viewing of the internal robes at another site has been delayed again as that home was having its floorboards polished so access was limited. Hopefully we will get to see them this Friday so that we can finalise that component.

Landscaping

We met with the landscaper and we already get the feeling that this will be an expensive exercise. We are keeping the plan simple with just continuing the existing hedging “Murraya” and “Photinia Robusta” around the perimeter of the site with a couple of feature trees here and there.

We have decided to not put in the planned external stairs instead we are creating a large planter to house a medium size blossom tree which I have wanted for some time now. The plan is also to have some flowering plum trees at the edge of the kitchen landing so that it is reflected in the kitchen splash back. I’m really hoping that this comes about as I imagined.

Another walkthrough

Since the last blog post we have met up with the builder to walkthrough the progress so far and correct/make decisions for the rest of the build. There is still so much to do, so we think it is unlikely that we will be finished this year but the builder is still optimistic. The internal plaster boarding is still progressing slowly with corners still to do, the waterproofing though for the wet rooms has now been done with the screeding due to start next week.

Architraves, skirting and all of the internal, laundry and front doors are now onsite ready for installation.  Electricians were onsite making the cut outs for all of the cabling/power points.

Next week we have also lined up a meeting with the landscaper to discuss what needs to be done to complete the build.

On the inside though we still need to confirm the internal robe layouts and view another build site with the robes installed.

Some progress

The outside courtyard is underway with excavation done in order to construct the planter box walls for the pre-existing hedges and new ones that will come with the landscaping.

The two sets of glass stacker doors are finally in plus the bi-folds that lead out to the seamless alfresco.

Also from what we can see most of the internal boarding has been done. So overall we are progressing slowly.

Scaffolding has come down

So two weeks have passed and the eaves are now finished and the scaffolding has come down. There doesn’t appear to have been any changes to the internal, but we do know that the Gyprock and timber floorboards should be in very soon, maybe after the glass stacker and bifold doors are installed?

On the outside our brick façade around the garage is now complete including the electrical wiring, so now it just needs the Shale Grey acrylic render.

Slat eaves are going on

The eaves have started to go on and boy do they look shmick! We decided to have all of our wood work in a composite wood (Eko wood supplied by Ekologix available at Bunnings) so as to reduce our maintenance bill. This material feels and looks like wood but it is a product of bamboo and recycled plastic.

No oiling or painting is required and it will not fade – good stuff!

Rough-in complete

We now have confirmed the air conditioning vent shapes and locations. All of the rough-in appears to now be complete, gas, air conditioning, vacuum points, electrical & plumbing. So hopefully the gyprock is next.

Below are some photos of what the current internals look like without walls:

This is the view from our dining area which is situated near the alfresco and is part of the lounge/kitchen open plan area (north side of the house).

Some serious Cat 6 data cables!

This is the southern side of the house with a view from our media room, into the laundry, main bathroom, bedroom 3, ensuite and then main bedroom.

Rough-in has begun

The skylights went in on Tuesday and we have now confirmed the internal gyprock angles for the skylights and all of the recessed niches within the bathrooms. The plumbing has also been confirmed as well as the electricals – position of tvs, data, hdmi, power and optical cables where required.

Let’s just say this house will be more wired up then an office as we have multiple data ports in every room.

Below is a photo of the internals with all of the framing completed.

Roof is on!

Well this week the roof tiles went on, with the gutters the week before. The skylights will be installed next week and then I’m assuming all of the external doors will be installed apart from the main entrance pivot door; which will get us to lock up. So this means we are still on track for completion this year. The next major steps are the internal walls – rough in and then gyprock with a targeted completion of the end of August. In the meantime we have been confirming the colour and material for our eaves, screens and decking and the colour of our garage door.

Finally our site meeting

Today is the long awaited site meeting! We went through the house room by room, ensuring taps, cupboards, doors, bulkheads and so on were as we wanted them and this took us 3 hours and we still didn’t manage to get through all rooms! We agreed to meet back again in roughly a month’s time so that we could reconfirm what we discussed and go through a couple of more items. We are so close to having a roof on now and it was stated that the next 4 weeks were critical to us having the house completed before Christmas.

We ended up changing a couple a number of things, i.e. the direction in which doors opened, bulkhead positions and so on. We also decided to change the surface of our garage façade to be acrylic render and our alfresco to be composite wood decking rather than tiles. By changing our alfresco to decking we were then able to raise this area up with minimal cost to get that seamless indoor outdoor look where the floor heights are level. Also a sample of the outdoor tile that we were planning to use was brought to the house and unfortunately it really didn’t give us the look we were after - lesson learnt to bring samples out of the show room/warehouse and onsite to see how it looks. In the end we have selected another tile that I have seen in a friend’s alfresco so I know exactly how it will look.

Roof almost done

Two weeks later and the roofing is still in progress – 90 % complete with most of the internal wall frames up. I was invited on site however to reconfirm the placement of the skylights, which was great as we realised one of them was not going to look right so we ended up changing it to more of a square looking shape rather than rectangle. Whilst I was there we ran through a couple of other changes and corrections, all of which were detailed in an email for the builder to address. The second level bricks have been cleaned and they look fantastic. 

The plan for the next 2 weeks is to finish the brickwork and then get the roof tiles up. We have finally booked in our site meeting for the 21st when everyone is available, now I need to get my list of discussion items up to date to be sure that we cover them off whilst we are onsite.

I must mention I’m pretty impressed with our builder’s attitude when fixes and issues are raised. Nothing is too hard and the cheap and easy way is never taken. If it isn’t right Rocco will acknowledge it and address it firsthand.

Quick rafters

So two weeks have passed since my last post and most of the brickwork is complete apart from the façade, shed and half wall in the alfresco, but enough to get the roof beams up. So two days ago the street was blocked off so that a crane could lift and position the roof beams on the house. Also a number of the internal room frames were lifted into position and just two days later the chippis are on site installing all of the roof frames and boy do they work fast. In the morning only a couple of rafters were up and by 3 in the afternoon it looked like a roof!

So hopefully next week the roof tiles will be on and we can finally have our site meeting!

More bricks

More scaffolding was installed with the intention to finish the brick laying of the upper floor during the first week of June. Unfortunately the rain returned and a couple of days were lost. So the last two weeks didn’t go to schedule as only the south facing wall was completed and alfresco pillars. All of the external door frames on the upper level have been positioned waiting to be secured by the brickwork. With any luck the brickwork will be completed next week and the roof rafters then can be positioned.

Whilst the progress on the house has been slow, we have managed to agree on and purchase the pendant lights for our hallway and living/dining area. We are still debating however whether to place pendant lights above the dining table or over the kitchen island. I think we will leave this decision for later once we have the kitchen area/skylight put in to get a better idea as to how this will look.

Brick laying continues

More scaffolding has been set up and the bricking of the next level has really taken off. Weather permitting it should be finished next week. Much progress was achieved last week with roughly 70% of the brickwork done, even the brickwork for the outdoor shed was half done. Most of the windows were installed and two were bricked into place with sills. Below are a couple of progress photos.

This photo shows the new left side of the house, as the front door has now been moved to the corner street.

 Above is the new garage and front entry of the house.

The last photo shows the view from the right side of the block (our backyard).

Four months gone already

So four months have passed and we are now bricking up the next level. The scaffolds have been set up and the windows and glass doors were finally delivered. The power pole has also now been installed. An additional set of bricks will be delivered next week as all of the bricks have now been used on the start of the brickwork for the upper level. The weather has been great (just rain at night) and the forecast is for more blue skies till the end of next week so let’s hope we get the walls up pronto.

Boundary retaining wall completed

The retaining/boundary wall of the property has now been completed with the pour of the concrete occurring during the Easter/Anzac week. The builder asked me to come past to have a look at the boundary wall to confirm that it was as planned, before the concrete was poured. Unfortunately he had been working from an out of date version of the plan and not the council approved one, so some minor adjustments were required, which he did on the spot. Council made us lower one of the boundary walls and step in the retaining wall so that it would not be as high up on the street/nature strip as a final change prior to approval. 

So apart from this everything is moving extremely slowly due to the poor weather conditions that we have been having during the working week, let’s hope we can catch up real soon!

Bad Weather

The floors for the upper level were completed last week but unfortunately not much more has happened due to the bad weather. The window delivery had to be put off twice as the site was deemed too difficult to work with, hopefully this delivery will occur soon, along with the scaffolding placement required to brick up the next level. Doesn’t look like a site visit will happen this side of Easter though.

Upper level floor coming next

We just received another update from the builder and they should have the floor joists/beams for the upper level in place by the end of next week after which they can continue bricking up the next level. Once this is done we should be able to have our first site inspection – can’t wait!

While the weather is still good they plan to get the boundary retaining wall completed as well.

Rocco the builder also managed to drop off some wood colour samples for the front and laundry Corinthian doors so that they match the Colorbond “cedar” colour garage door – very impressed with the colour match.

Fast brick laying

After just one week of brick laying we are pretty happy with the results so far:

Can’t wait to see the true brick colour en masse once they are cleaned. The off-white mortar will lighten up once it dries so that it will be a really nice contrast to the dark bricks.

A number of days however were lost due to the rain so the ground level brick laying is still continuing, with a slow but steady progress.

The brick laying has started

The drainage was installed the week after the slab went down and a number of deliveries were received with all of the materials needed to start the build. The first lot of bricks were laid yesterday and today we were excited to see some brick walls taking shape.

We have decided upon a double brick construction, using PGH Blue Steel Flash bricks as the face bricks, with flush off-white mortar. Our downpipes, gutters and windows will all be in Colorbond “Shale Grey” and our Monier roof tiles will be in Barramundi (charcoal colour).

 

Slab is Down – Let the Games Begin

The Slab was delayed due to the delay in steelworks needed for the formwork, but fortunately for us it was poured the day before the rains returned at the beginning of this week. So now this is where the fun begins and the clock starts ticking. If all goes to schedule we are hoping to be in our new home by November this year.

So apart from re-requesting our electricity connection for the 2nd time with Origin who strangely lost our first request 2 months prior we have been re-reviewing the inclusion and joinery plans so that the ordering can commence. We are really looking forward to see how this all comes together!

Back to Work

I can happily report that we are making progress. Work restarted early in the new year with all of the excavation now totally complete and two truckloads of additional soil also being removed from the site. Extra digging for the electrical pit has also been done.

The concreter went to work digging all of the holes required for the footing and piers and the first pour of concrete was completed just before the week of rain hit. So the slab will now have to wait till the following week (fingers crossed for no more rain).

During the week we also met with the builder to re-select and confirm the tiles both indoor and outdoor. “Rocco” the builder also suggested that we hold off on requesting landscaping quotes until we can see clearly what the land levels will be once the house walls have gone up to avoid any quotation issues. Sounds like a plan!