Float Coat

Soon after the roof tiling had been completed, the tradesmen to do the initial render on the internal walls (float coat) arrived and worked their magic. It has become really exciting now, not that it was boring before, with the new girl really taking shape. I can't wait for the finishing touches - then it's time for painting, flooring, finishing the electrics (we are gettting our own sparky to install downlights) and window treatments.

Looking through the al fresco area into the dining room kitchen to be. Bet you can't guess this is my favourite spot! :)

From the entry looking past the kitchen / dining / family rooms. The double doors lead to my our home theatre. The big gap to the right of the photo is a double sliding doors to the alfresco.

From the home theatre doors back towards the entry.

The entire house is looking bigger and bigger, which is good because you need a lot of room for two adults and a cat! :)

On the Tiles

Well, under them actually.

The roof carpenters came and did their thing, then the plumber and then the electricians tried to undo all the carpenters work. And then, finally, the tiles were deliverd, approximately 4,500 of them.

Bristile 'Truffle' in the Vienna profile.

So, the roof went from looking like this 'bad hair day';

To this, tiles laid but ridge capping needs to be installed and cemented in;

To the practically completed version which looks like this:

Rayleen and I have a few issues with the tiles over the main bedroom having a lot of chips and contact points showing - making them look second-hand to be honest. But an email to SPH has assured me that representatives from Bristile will inspect the roof closer to completion, replace chipped or cracked tiles, apply what is known as a 'cold glaze' and we will have new tiles that look like new!

Roof - Part 2

It's finished :)

Had a walkthrough on Friday after work and the roof carpenters have finished the job. The plumber had run all the channels for the gas and water pipes through the brickwork and had started fitting gas lines. So it's all go at the new girl!

The view from the road, it's starting to look less like a construction site and more like a home.

The view from the back corner of the block through the al fresco towards the front entry / study area.

Taking Shape

The house is really starting to take shape right now, there is a little more work to do with the exterior but most of the internal walls are finished. At the front of the house the bricklayers have yet to finish (or even start) the portico, so things look a little 'flat' there.


There used to be external bricks where that pole is, was about 12 courses high. A couple of the bricks were a little wonky, nothing that anybody else would notice, but it would just bug me because I knew the brickwork wasn't right. I was not going to bother calling SPH and ask for it to fixed, it was only minor and besides, two wonky bricks out of around seventeen thousand is not a bad effort. Well, the bricklayers forgot to put this pole in and the existing work had to be removed. So, in a way I had the problem fixed without even having to ask. :)


The view across what will become the al fresco area into the Dining Room / Kitchen. Or, the other side of the pole :)


Looking into the powder room. Yes, that is the door in question. As you can see from the picture, the door will open into the middle of the room. Not something that would make getting to the toilet easy.


The view from my 'computer room'. The gap on the left is the passage leading to the entry, the door fram is for the linen cupboard, which is where I will be keeping a lot of my IT and network gear. The door right in front leads into Bedroom 4. On the right are the doorways for the Bathroom and Bedroom 3.


The ensuite begins to look more the way it should. This is where the vanity will go, the bath is opposite this, to the right of the photo.

Bricklaying - Part I

The bricklaying started early July, although it has been hampered by the rains we have had this Winter. These shots were taken on the 5th of July.

Standing at the front of where the garage will be looking throught the house to the main bedroom.

At the front door (that's it laying on the concrete in the foreground) looking towards the rear of the house.

Details of how we have decorated the Master Bedroom - we are trying to get the 'under construction' look, and I think it's worked.

The south wall, the frames are (from the front) window for the bathroom, sliding door for the laundry, window for Bedroom 2, dresser window, window for the wc (not installed in this pic), window over the bath and then around the corner to the frame for the sliding doors in the Main Bedroom.

Slab Down

On the 6th of June the slab was poured and the whole process became 'real'.

Rayleen's first impression was that the grano workers had left a couple of rooms off as she was sure the house was never going to fit!

It was exciting to finally see something other than another form to sign, I think I must have just wandered over the slab half a dozen times, smiling inanely.

A Look at the Display Home

I have been organising my pictures today, trying to get some sort of system going, and have been amazed at;

1. Some of the odd things I have taken photographs of. A close up of the silliest things. They must have meant something to me at the time, but what was I thinking when I took a close-up of the water meter?
2. The number of times I have photographed the same thing on different occasions. I am sure there must be six different photographs of the same wall on my hard drive.

Anyway, I thought I would post a small sample of photgraphs I have taken of the display home.

The Front Elevation.
Our home is going to look like this, except that we have chosen different colours for the render, and we have changed the number and style of outside lights. We thought that five lights on the front of the house is a little overkill, so have reduced the number to two, one either side of the garage entry.

The Kitchen
We have removed the 'feature' from the end of the island bench, but that aside, the kitchen layout isd exactly the same. The rangehood has been upgraded since the photo was taken and the model included with the house has a nice curved glass canopy and looks rather swish actually. The pendants are similar to the ones we have purchased for over the bench.

The Ensuite
This is (one of) my extravagances. For some reason I just 'had' to have this bath included in the ensuite. It's almost big enough to be used as a lap pool. It's adds a little 'wow' to the ensuite, and that's always good!


Change the square basins to round and you have an idea of what the vanity in the ensuite will look like.


So, that's a small sample of what the house will look like, obviously the colours will be different. I am afraid that will have to wait until tiles and cupboards/drawers/ benches are installed so I can take pictures for you all. (It's a boy thing!)

Lighting

Lights .. I have to admit that trying to get the lighting right has been one of the bigger headaches of the build so far. We want to use energy efficient globes (i.e. compact fluoro) not just for the environment but also for the sake of our bank balance as electricity tariffs here in the west are set to rise significantly over the next two years. We have decided that we will use the lighting from the display home as a guide but where SPH have used halogen downlights, we will install a compact fluoro downlight. So as part of our electrics plan discussed at pre-start, we had the batten fixings removed from the living / family rooms, study, Bedroom 1, ensuite and Home Theatre rooms and replaced with a junction box placed in the ceiling.

For the other rooms I am going to fit a DIY batten fixture and a CFL globe.

In what we thought was a step away from the 'mainstream' (but which we now find is common in some of the more recently built display homes) we have decided to use downlights with white surrounds instead of the brushed chrome that seems popular. The reason being is that they are, after all, just lights and not everything in a room has to be a 'feature'. So, the downlights will look like this;

For the al fresco and portico, we are using Fozz 'Opera' because of it's water and dustproof capabilities.

The one bit of lighting bling in the family / kitchen / dining area will be three pendant lights over the island bench.

It's not all CFL though, for the Home Theatre we are usig halogens, (I am having a HPM SuperDimmer as the switch and it only works with halogen lights) but am also trying to go for a cinema feel for the room and are using these;

With the exception of a ceiling fan for the al fresco area and one for the Main Bedroom, that's about it.

Flawed?

No - actually floored.

The timber that we are going to use for the floor in the living area is going to be marri. It's a WA hardwood and should look great. We are carpeting all the other rooms, except the wet areas, obviously.


This is just an example of what it will look like - can't wait to see it for real!

Apparently it takes two to three weeks to install as it has to be left to acclimatise to it's new location, glued to the concrete, then sanded, sealed, polished etc. There's a lot more to flooring than I had considered.

Pre-start

Tile selections - check
Electrics plan - check
List of questions - check
Plans - check
Wishlist - check

Okay, we have everything, let's go!

And so it was, 'armed to the teeth' with plans plastered with post-it notes, pages of points-to-mention and cuttings of various bits and pieces we thought we'd ask about; Rayleen and I made our way to Balcatta for the pre-start consultation.

We had heard horror stories of seven hour meetings and cost blow outs, so we were a little nervous about what may happen and what the final balance may look like! Arriving promptly at 8.30 we waited for the consultant to invite us into her office ("Come into my parlour." said the spider to the fly.) And the consultation began;

To be honest it was not as difficult as I thought it may be. Just as expensive, maybe even more so, but the planning we did paid off as it was over by 12.00.

The main extras were;

1. The electrics plan. We installed extra powerpoints in the majority of rooms and I had conduit and blank face plates added to the rooms I wanted to run data cabling to.
2. Upgrade the front doors. This was more than I thought it should be, seemed as if I wasn't getting credit for the doors I was replacing.
3. The garage door. Upgraded to a cedar look finish.

These were in addition to the upgrades we had made with the sales consultant; raised ceiling to the living area, double drop bulkhead to the kitchen, the upgraded bath in the ensuite, upgraded shower heads in the main bathroom and the ensuite, replacing the single window in the Home Theatre room with three awning windows, to name a few of the changes.

All in all we added about an extra 15% to the base price. But, I think it was money well spent.

Ikea

Took my parents to Ikea today, they are looking for ideas to renovate the bathroom, laundry and kitchen in their rental property - after the last tenants left the place uninhabitable.

Had a look around and have a confession to make ..... I actually enjoyed it. Until I went downstairs and had to make my way through the maze, passing every single product Ikea made just so that I could get to the checkout.

But the top section was cool, I especially liked the little display cubicles (Okay, 22, 35 and 65 square metres are a little bigger than most cubicles) which incorporated, kitchen, laundry, bed and living areas. I am not sure that it would be suitable for anyone but a single person ... even a cat may take up too much room. But as exercises on what can be done in a small area they were very interesting. Which is probably a bit rich coming from someone who is building a 315 square metre home.

Got some ideas for the study and my computer room; I am not using the designated study as my computer room - I make too much mess and by migrating to Bedroom 2 I can always shut the door if I don't want anyone to see how untidy my desk, room, bookcase, cupboards are!

Was an interesting day, not so sure I want to go back in a hurry though :)

Signs of Life

I have been stalking the letter box for the last week or two, probably longer than that to be truthful. Waiting for 'the plans'!

Received a letter from SPH today ..... yippee!

..... your preliminary plans and other relevant documentation have now been completed ..... yae!

..... take approximately two weeks ..... d'oh

..... provisional sums will be adjusted accordingly ..... hmm

So, basically SPH sent Rayleen and I a letter saying that they're not finished yet and that we have to wait another two weeks. Oh well, I have been told that this is the boring part of the build process, just hope the adjustment to the provisional sums isn't too drastic!

The House in Question

Rayleen and I have decided upon a design called "The Sovereign" by Scott Park Homes, a West Australian builder. A company who incidently built the home we are in at the moment and built my nephew's and his wife's current home for them. So, from what we have learnt, it should be a good build - but will keep my fingers crossed.



The dotted areas are where we have up-specced to high ceilings, 31 course instead of the usual 28 (I think)