It's Been A Long Time

It was a shock to the system when I realised that my last post was over a year ago.

As you can imagine, so much has happened during this time, things I had hoped for never eventuated, things that I never realised we were going to get were purchased, installed and used and items I knew we were getting were installed and look great - although self praise is no recommendation.

It's late and I am not at home, so no pictures to post today - but I promise to get back into the groove and get everything up-to-date over the next few weeks.

Phase One (of five)

Lights

Rayleen and I spent a lot of time on the lighting. It seemed simple enough but the more I read on H1 the more I became confused and then I spoke to some of the sales assistants at the lighting shops and that just made things worse. But we had to have some sort of lights and Rayleen nixed my idea of Maglite torches hung from the ceiling in each room, so we gritted our teeth and went for it ...

 For the living areas we wanted downlights, but wanted simple downlights and to step back from the trend we noticed in display homes of the downlights being a 'feature' in their own right, they also had to be energy efficient. We ended up purchasing around 40 Espar GU10 13w compact fluoro globes and the same number of downlight cages in white (I think that is what they are called) and had them installed in the living areas, passage ways, kitchen, ensuite and main bedroom. Apparently there is a formula I was meant to use to determine exactly how many lights I would need for each room, but to be honest I just estimated (okay guessed) how many I thought would be needed.

 The effect we were after was one of the lights being mostly unnoticed, unless you were looking for them, oh, and if they were turned on, obviously :)


And this is a sample of what it looks like:

Not saying we wanted all the lights to be 'feature-less', we went with these pendant lights for over the kitchen bench.

There is another pendant light in the entry, but it hasn't been fully assembled yet and just looks sad. So I wasn't allowed to take a picture of it.


Obviously for the man-cave (Home Theatre) something as understated as that just wouldn't cut the mustard. For this room I went recessed halogens - the energy saving aspect of this room wasn't an issue as the lights should be turned off most of the time I am in it. I coupled these to a push button dimmer - no real reason, just thought it would be 'cool' is all. :)


This awkward looking pic is the HT room, the projector is going between the two single pot lights at the back of the room.

Keeping to the 'man' theme for the moment, this is where I will be keeping all my data and networking gear. It may look like the top shelf of Rayleen's linen cupboard now, but soon it will be home to my movie and mp3 collections. The little box to the right is a thermostat, it's connected to the exhaust fan. When the temperature goes above the temp set on the thermostat, the exhaust fan kicks in until it cools down. Just trying to stop everything from overheating.

For the ensuite we wanted a little mood lighting, looks very effective in the display homes we had visited.


We thought that those little star lights would look nice and give the ensuite just the right atmosphere. We had twelve installed, three in the bulkhead on one switch and nine above the bath on a second switch.

 Over the vanity basins:

And over the bath:

They certainly do set the mood .. that is if being struck in the eyes with laser light is the mood you are after! They would have to be the brightest little suckers. We will have to get dimmers installed on these later ... hey, push button dimmers would be cool!

This is the al fresco, these lights are also compact fluoros, but they are dust and waterproof. Probably never going to need that feature, but better safe than sorry, and it's all about 'peace of mind'.

For the lights either side of the garage entry, we went with these:

That's about it for the lights. We did have guards installed around all the lights, some electricians will say that it's not needed, but, again, it's a 'peace of mind' thing. If any of you are buying lights at the moment, I can recommend a little store south of the river, which should be able to give you a good deal.

Hope I haven't bored you all ... air con installed Tuesday :)

PS Rather proud of myself .. my guess on the number of lights for each room was spot on - the lighting works fine at night.

Waiting

Just biding time until SPH call to make a PCI appointment. It must be coming any day now!

Was able to get into the house on Melbourne Cup day and took a few quick pics before I got in the tradie's way. Here are some of them ...

The Powder Room:

Bathroom:

The Ensuite & WC:

The Kitchen:

Since these were taken, cleaners have visited and the inside has been swept, stickers and plastic film removed and the place tidied. Silastic sealant has been applied to all joins that need it and I am impatiently waiting for that call :)

Small things ...

... amuse small minds.

Still playing with the collage creation software, having a lot of fun with it.

Here's one of my Heron Park photos I took early September.

I won't post any more collages ... promise.

Tap Where?

The plumbers are part way through installing the tap ware and toilet cisterns. No pics though, couldn't get in ... but the ensuite does look very posh! Will take some pictures as soon as I can 'break in'.

But, I found this nifty piece of software which will take a number of images and create a collage with them.

Here is my 'tiling collage'.

Tiling Pics

The tiler has finished, except for the extra space behind the rangehood, so here are some pics.

Kitchen

Ensuite:

Will post the other rooms later in the week.

Six Weeks!

Quote:

"If the house isn't finished by the end of November then something is wrong."

YAE!!!!

Inside ... again!

Wandered around the house peering through the windows to see what had been delivered and what had been newly installed. Not expecting to get in .. but then an unexpected bonus! The door to the laundry had been left open, so, as someone famous probably once said .. "when an opportunity presents itself, take it!"

So here are some pics of the nearly completed kitchen fit out and some other things.

The fitout is almost complete, kickboards to all cupboards need to be added and the wine rack needs to be fitted; it's going at the top of the fridge recess. The plasterers underestimated the width of the recess, so they will need to return to complete the job. Am sure there will be plenty of other jobs to be done, so not worried just yet. Just one more thing to mention on Wednesday.

A close up of the kitchen, from roughly the same spot as the previous pic.

The camera doesn't really give a good feel for the colours so I have managed to 'steal' these swatches from the respective websites;

Burnished wood:

Flaxon:

The usual disclaimers about the colours on your monitor not necessarily reflecting the true colour etc :)

One view of the tiles for the wet areas (Ensuite, WC, Powder Room, Laundry and Bathroom), there are more hiding behind these. I didn't realise there would be so many, it's going to take the tiler a while to do the job properly.

The feature tile for the Ensuite, Bathroom and Powder Room. The camera hasn't got the colour right, but it's a hint. The feature tile for the kitchen was in unopened boxes, so I didn't want to touch them.

So, that's my unexpected entry for today.

Inside!

Managed to get inside the house again and took a few more pics. It was getting on towards dark so the quality isn't that great, but here goes;

The kitchen island bench. Avonite 'Arctica' bench and Formica 'Flaxon' cupboards and drawers.

On the other side of the kitchen - unfinished. Again, Avonite 'Arctica' benchtiop, Formica 'Flaxon' pot drawers and Laminex 'Burnished Wood' cupboards.

The ensuite vanity. Laminex 'Stipple Cocoa' benchtop over Laminex 'Espresso' cupboard doors.

A two part pic of the robe fit-out in the dresser. Worth every penny.

The main bathroom. Laminex 'Stipple Seal' benchtop over Laminex 'Espresso' cupboard doors.

The Powder Room and the Laundry benches and cupboards use the same colour scheme as the bathroom.

Fixed!

The door frame to the Powder Room has been altered ... YAE!

Obviously it needs a coat of paint but the finish is as smooth as the proverbial. Now there's the little matters of the powerpoints and the roof tiles!

Much better, nothing a coat of paint won't fix.

Maybe they do know what they are doing after all :)

Tiling

Have our tiling meeting at the house booked for next Wednesday at 7.00 in the morning. Will;

1. Definitely take the camera!
2. Most definitely get the Powder Room door fixed!!

Cabinets!

"Where there's a will, there's a way."

I spoke too soon, there is most definitely a desire to get into the house and check out all the work that has been done, but unfortunately my arms aren't skinny enough or long enough to reach around and unlcok a window ... or two. So all the pics have been taken through a gap in the window.

The garage floor has been concreted, which is an unexpected bonus. I had always thought that it would have been done a lot later in the build, when the house is almost complete.

The first of the cabinets have been installed!

The ensuite:
The vanity in the cabinet has been fitted and looks great. Needs to have the kickboard fitted and then tiled,

Was able to get a glimpse into the dresser and it looks as if the wardrobe fit-out has been done. Was able to get a pic of the two baths to be installed. The one on the left is the standard .. the one on the right is the upgraded version that forever will be know as 'my bath'! :) Just a little bigger than normal bath!

Two views of the kitchen. There are cupboards to be installed against the wall in the space to the right of the drawers behind the island bench and overheads along the wall. (My description was really bad, sorry) Expect that to be done tomorrow, so will head over for more pics.

Can't help but be very pleased with how well the colours work together - it's always hard to know if you made the right decision based on the little swatches.

The laundry bench has also been installed, but the pic of that is awful - so I won't subject you to that!

Happy Anniversary

To us!

It was this long weekend last year that sent Rayleen and I on the home building adventure. We're off to celebrate with an ice cream.

Thanks to www.sugardoodle.net for unknowingly letting me use their graphic.

Security Issues

Went and visited the house this morning and decided to determine the 'security vulnerabilities'. Actually I broke in because I wanted to see what had been done! Is it still called 'breaking in' even though I never broke anything to get in?

I was a little disappointed when walking around the outside of the house, the window sills were still leaning against the walls like they were on Thursday, bits of unused shelving were still on the floor and everything looked like it had last time I broke in (umm ... I mean 'visited'). So, wind out one of the rear windows as far as they can go and shimmy my way through, thank goodness I lost a heap of weight a couple of years back or I'd still be trying to get through the window!

As I thought - nothing.

Except a funny smell ... paint?  But where? Nothing seemed like it had been touched, doors still off white, walls weren't being painted by SPH, so obviously it wasn't any of them. (This is where you, dear reader, yell 'Look up you fool' at the monitor)

All the ceilings have been painted, doors and door frames primed and frames for the baths bricked :)

Standing in the entry looking down towards the home theatre (Have just realised, I only use pics taken from 4 or 5 positions and just keep repeating them .. oh well!)

From the other direction; standing in the HT doorway looking towards the entry. Love the look of the bulkhead over what will become the kitchen. No white plaster in that area as it's all going to be cupboards and tiles.

A little bit more detail of the 'wall of windows'. Bit chilly in Perth this morning, have discovered where the cat will be sitting when it gets cold!

The bath frame, this is for the bath in the ensuite. I was wondering how the bath was going to be installed - thought it may have been a wooden frame. Made me realise that it's probably best if I leave building homes to people who know what they are doing.

The laundry shelving, doors need to be fitted. The coffee and sunglasses are mine.

That may be the last of the pics if the tradies lock the house up properly .. although where there's a will, there's a way!