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.

Weather Obsession

Is it just me or does anyone else building in Winter have the BOM website as a Favorite?

Bricks

A week after the slab was poured the bricks were delivered, unlike our initial impressions about the slab where both Rayleen and I thought it was smaller than we expected, both of us thought that we had enough bricks for two homes delivered to our site.

Since then I have spoken to the brickie who estimated that there were about 17,000 bricks to be laid.


From here it looks rather bare, but then if you will turn left you will see the 'Great Wall of Harrisdale';


I am not so sure our neighbours to be appreciated the new 'attraction' at their front door.

The obligatory portaloo shot;


A word from our sponsor. Apparently these are called partition bricks and are used to give the wall the 'stepped' look - noticable at the top of the wall, the same effect is achieved at the bottom by using 25mm moulding - or so it says on the plan.


One last look over the top of the car towards the slab.

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.

Tech Specs

Further to a post below, here are a couple of pdf files about my newest toys.

Onkyo Receiver - HERE
Wharfedale speakers - HERE

The internet being what it is, these links may become 'dead' after a while. Will check and try to keep them current.

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!)

(I Am) Spoilt!

We went shopping yesterday, nothing we really wanted to buy, just to get out of the house mainly.

Didn't stop us, okay me actually, from bringing home one of these:

It's an Onkyo TX-SR876 7.1 AV Receiver for the Home Theatre (I was about to type 'my Home Theatre' but I think Rayleen has plans for the man-cave)

And also a set of these:
Wharfedale 5.1 speaker system. They look really stylish and from the audition (they were hooked up to another Onkyo 876 at the showroom) they sound just as good as they look.

On the downside - I'm not allowed to set it all up until we move into the new home, so for now they are all sitting in their respective boxes on the lounge room floor.

I will look around and see if I can find the specs for the more technical minded.