Light at the End of the tunnel

A view from the right front side of our house, the cladding has been completed, the painters come in next week and they spend 4-5 days inside and then they come out and paint the cladding which should take a couple of days. We went to the house today after they completed a site clean up, all the broken roof tiles, bricks etc were all cleaned up. We gathered all the brick that we wanted to keep and put them onto a pallet. The date for completion may be around the start to mid November fingers crossed.A view from the left side of the house, our front veranda with our front door set back in the middle, we still have a green film covering the windows for protection. This photo is at the back of house, Brick work and cladding has been completed. Our garage door has even been fitted. I met Jared our builder at the house and i was able to go inside and take some snaps, I think it has been 3 weeks since we were inside and you can definitely see the changes, I am looking through a wall cavity that we will get a plantation shutter put in, this will be the separation between the rumpus and family room. looking out our french doors into the back yard, having now the big block and seeing the house in position, we can now see the boys playing in the back yard with no restrictions for space, cricket and footy shouldn't be an issue. I took a photo in this same location when the frame went up and you could see across to the golf course, the view is the same you can just look at it in any weather now that we are closed in. Th e view from the kitchen bench looking across to the family room, plenty of light. Plenty of light was coming through the windows on the left hand side of the house, the afternoon sun will come through this way. Our Ensuite has double basin's in the square design, we have laminate tops in the ensuite , bathroom and Laundry. This is our Kitchen , The up top cupboards are a chocolate color with the pot drawers below are a cream color, the gap between the up top cupboards is for the range hood and below for the stove. The middle section is to be tiled. Our island bench has our double sink cut in, our kitchen bench tops are Ceaser stone that hasn't been delivered as yet. Our base cupboards are a light color with the chocolate brown being the back surround. Our Laundry Trough is in place, all our cabinetry has been matched together to keep the same look throughout the house. Our Master Bedroom doors, our walk in robe to the left of the photo.

Night Visits

I have been doing some night time drive by's this week after work, I first drove by on Monday and went again tonight, fitted with my trustee black diamond head torch i go in and wander around looking through windows and looking around the outside. Progress this week has been made inside and out, The skirting and architraves have been completed(from what I can see), brick work is almost complete and the cladding just needs to be finished at the front of the house. I recall Jared saying that the painter was coming in on Thursday and starting there prep work inside. I am going to drop by on Friday morning and see if I can meet Jared there to get some shots inside the house.

Another Week Closer

Another week has passed and our home gets closer to completion, in this photo you can see our brick work and how our cladding will look(not painted yet), our bricks are a dark brownish color, all our colors will come together once the cladding is done and the windows are clean of tape etc; our gutters and windows are the same color and the fascia is similar to the color of the cladding, next week should see the finish of the brickwork and cladding. Down the offside of the house we are using brick because this side will be hidden with the side fence etc; we will have the clotheslines down this wall as well.the end is where the garage steps out passed the edge of the house. The back garage is taking shape with the brickwork nearly complete, there is a big Steele beam at the front of the house that goes in front of the wood to support the bricks above the door, you can see the cladding running down towards the house(not painted yet) This photo was taken looking through our rumpus room window through to the dining room and in the distance you can see the toilet door. All the doors in the house have been hung, and you can see that holes have been cut in for the electrician to come back in and finish off the power points. Our kitchen has been installed(no appliances yet) the island bench is a chocolate color as is the wall cupboards, we have 2 sets of pot drawers which are a cream color, all the wood on the floor is our skirting and architraves, you can see all the cornices are complete also. Once again looking through the windows this is the master bedroom, we have wooded doors with glass as our main doors, these will be stained a dark color, you can just see the vanity cupboards.

SSSHHH we might be doing xmas

I have been asking if we are going to be in before xmas since we started building, I think they are getting sick of me asking and are now telling me that that is the plan! I am more than happy to wait if quality is to be compromised to speed up the process, however our inspector told us all was well. Today I had 3 calls from Metricon staff, Jared rang and told me what was happening, Cynthia rang and asked how we are feeling about the progress and Max rang the Building manager and asked if we were happy with the progress and if we were happy with Jared our Site Supervisor. A lot has happened this week at the house, Cladding is nearly done, brickwork is nearly done, plaster is finished, internal doors have been hung, Kitchen benches and cupboards have been installed, laundry trough and cabinet installed, bathroom and ensuite vanity's installed,electrical points cut out of plaster. Coming up next week , Skirting and architrave's put in, Painters coming in, brickies finished, cladding finished.

The Roof is complete

Our roof is now complete as you can see the rails have been removed, the carpenter has started and the brickie has also started laying bricks, the inside has seen the plaster go up with only the cornices to go. Next on the agenda is plastering finishes on Monday, carpenter starts to clad and the brickie should be finished by the end of the week. The kitchen gets delivered on Tuesday and the other cabinets get delivered Wednesday. All going very well at the moment, touch wood (the carpenter can touch as much wood as he likes, the more he touches the closer we are to finishing). We can now see the rooms inside from a size perspective and can start to look at furnishings.

The biggest difference in this last week has been the plastering, we could only take pictures through the windows but they came up like we were inside, all the cornices are on the floor cut to length and ready to go up. This photo is looking across the lounge room towards the kitchen dining room. The whole in the wall to the left is through to the rumpus room (we are getting a wooden blind to go in this cavity). The doorway ahead leads to the kids bedrooms and Babysitters room and the back wall area is for the kitchen and the black pipe coming up out of the ground is for our island bench. Looking through the dining room window straight to the front door, all the cornice's are on the floor ion this photo cut and ready to go up. We have a feature door going on the pantry door that is frosted glass with stained wood (same style of doors on the master bedroom). This photo shows a couple of different things, left side door is to the passage ways and bedrooms, the light that can be seen is in Bayley's room, the cavity with the bulkhead is where the kitchen cupboards and stove go, the door straight ahead is the pantry. this photo was taken through the dining room french door. Another picture taken through the window, the door on the left is the ensuite and the wir is on the right, there is also a bulk head in the master that has been discussed in earlier blogs.You can see they used different plaster in the ensuite for wet area's. The Carpenter has been, getting his timbers in place ready for the cladding to be put in place. The next row of bricks are turned on there side and are put in longways, similar to under windows in normal brick houses, The carpenter will fit the cladding first with the brickie to brick up to the cladding which should give a better finish (less gaps) The eaves have also been started from the carpenter, this picture is just in front of bayley's bedroom window. The front of our house is coming together, the brick work comes up the window with cladding going up the rest of the way. Our front door gets painted the same as the window frames. A view from the rear fence of our house, looking at the roof now that the roof rail is now down and the roof tiles are now complete, you can also see the plaster up in the garage. All the bricks have been broken down off the pallets and spread around the house.

Not Seen, Not Heard, until now.

We haven't been to the house since last Saturday and we haven't heard anything from Jared our Site Supervisor until today. When I was last there plaster had been delivered, cladding had been delivered and the bricks also had been delivered. Jared told me that the brickies had a full day of laying today and were going along nicely at the moment, The carpenter has been held up at other jobs and should be at our house on Monday if weather is permitting, the big news is that the plasterer should be finished on Monday, I can hear you say WoW, I said some other things that I can't repeat and that the Kitchen is due in on Tuesday and that other cabinets are due in on Wednesday, Now that is WoW. We are going tomorrow and hope to have some photo's. We also got a call during the week saying that we are having to change the way our Mortar finish will look, we were having a raked finish now it will be a flush finish, I think we wanted this at the start anyway. There is no charge for this because it was a change in the Eynesbury design change. Anyway we will post some pictures tomorrow.

Time for a different view, our house is appearing through the trees. Plenty of work has been completed since our last report both inside and out. roof done, doors on, plumbing in, wiring complete and much more. Looking closer to being our Xmas present for this year if all goes well, however we can wait so that things aren't rushed.

A picture through the fork in the tree, progress has been made.In this photo you can see that the strapping has been cut which is not good from a structural point of view, the plumbers cut it to put the taps in for the bathroom. The pink paint has been put there by our independent inspector which came through our house on Wednesday, he found a couple of things that need looking at but overall he was pleased with the work so far. He he was pleased, Mel is pleased then i am pleased. The front roof tiles are all in place, in this photo the capping still needs to be secured with concrete, i can now say, that has been completed. You can see that our front door has been installed, it doesn't remain that color. A view from the back of the house when we dropped in on Thursday for a look see, roof guards still in place. We have had our hot water solar panel fitted to the roof on Wednesday, it is at the back of the house which is north facing, should heat the water quick. Our pipes are in, the plumber was in on Wednesday and finished off this stage of the plumbing work to all our internal taps , baths and showers, the bath goes to the right hand side of the photo, the top piece gets cut to fit it in, the vanity pipes are in the centre of the bathroom and the shower is to the right. We are having installed Telstra smart community high velocity fibre optics, what that means is we won't have a tv antenna. It also means that everything comes into our house via fibre optic cables and then gets fed to data or tv points around the house, apparently we can download a movie from our computer in the rumpus room and watch the movie in our sitting room, pay tv will also come via this box. the whole estate is on this program. All the external walls have had insulation put between the studs, this picture is of our sitting room and just beyond the wall is our linen closest which is the size of a small bedroom, maybe not but it is a big room for storage. Hopefully the next lot of Photo's will show our plaster up, all the sheets have been put in our Kitchen dining area, the black pipe coming out the ground is for our kitchen sink which is part of the island bench.