Deck the Halls

Work is still moving ahead.  Last week we saw the plumbing finished, the toilets and shower screens were installed, both the deck and pergola were constructed, and on Saturday the tiling was finished on the Porch.

Then earlier this week our Deck was stained, our Pergola was painted and one of piers in the Alfresco (the North-Eastern one) was rebuilt because it was about half a brick lower than the others.  Then yesterday, the yard was cleaned.

So, all that's really left to do now is to finish off the electricals, install the Kitchen splashback, clean up a bit more and then do a walk-through.  Mr. T tells us that our appliances won't be installed until after handover when we're ready.

Anyway, here are some photos of the Alfresco area.

The finished deck

Painted Pergola

Stained deck

Completed Alfresco

Paint & Hardware

We dropped in again last weekend and it looks like all the painting was completed last week.  We're very pleased with how our colour looks on the walls as its not something that's easy to visualise on a small sample swatch.


Also, last week our builder seems to have installed most of the door handles, the towel rails, the termite barrier tubing, and on Fri all our decking and pergola materials arrived.  So we hope the deck & pergola will be assembled this week.

After that its just the electricals, plumbing, clean-up, appliances, and final inspection.  So we're still hoping to get the keys by early-to-mid October.

Front Door

Future deck location

Final Stretch Now

We dropped in on the weekend to check on progress and we could see that the tiler seems to have finished his work, except for the front porch.  Also, the plasterer seems to have finished all the walls and cornices, and the carpenters seem to have finished all the architraves and skirting boards.

We got a sneak peak of the tiles about a week ago when we dropped in to select our Powder Room splashback tiles, which we'd overlooked when we did the original selection at DiLorenzo, and overall we're very pleased with the way our colours turned out.  Plus, the T the tiler did a fantastic job of laying the tiles - they're very neat, even and precise - big thumps up, a job well done.

The kitchen sink has also been installed and most of the rubbish from around the house has been removed.

So, it looks like they should be ready to start painting soon, then it'll be up to the electrician to finish off his work, the carpenters to install the deck, and lastly fit all the doors, handles & appliances.

So we're hoping we'll get the keys sometime in early-to-mid October - we'll see - finger's crossed.

Cabinetry Installed

Since my last post a couple of weeks ago, we've seen the kitchen, laundry, powder room, ensuite and bathroom cabinets installed.  Our Caesarstone tops have arrived and been fitted, along with the basins in the powder room, ensuite, bathroom and laundry.  Our bathtub has been installed and the steps around the bathtub have been bricked-up.  Also most of the skirting boards and architraves downstairs have also been fitted and the tiles had arrived.

On Monday I received a call from Mr. T about the jolly edges on our tiles.  His tiler had started work and was concerned that because of the types of tiles we had chosen he would not be able to guarantee that he could do the jolly edges without some chipping.  Instead Mr T. offered us the choice of installing aluminum edges on our corners (like the Eden Brae display homes) at no additional cost.  Mel jumped at this as we had asked about it when we did our tile selections at DiLorenzo only to be told that it would cost extra.  So she and met Mr. T on-site around lunchtime to sign the variation.  Whilst down at our house she took the opportunity to explain to Mr. T and the tiler how we wanted the grey and the white tiles to work in the bathroom, especially since it had been such a struggle to explain what we wanted to DiLorenzo and we had to go back and forth a couple of time before we thought they had it right.  It was just as well she talked them through it because for some reason they had thought we wanted the grey tiles in the shower niche, but, otherwise everything else was fine.


Anyway, here are some photos we took last weekend.

Looking from the Dining Room to Kitchen

Looking from our Island bench out towards our future deck

Our staircase

Powder Room vanity

Laundry

Bathroom

Ensuite

Lock Up

The week before last (about Thu 15 July) our builder installed all our bi-fold doors, which will eventually lead onto our deck.  By the end of the week they'd also managed to finish gyprocking most of the walls, made a start on the cornices, and had dug the trench down the right hand side of the driveway for the services (electricity, water & gas).

Then, on Mon 19 July they fitted the main front door, the internal garage door, the glass feature double-doors in the Study and the Pantry, and then they locked the house up :-(

Nevertheless, on Tue 20 July I could see they had fitted the staircase, and later last week I could smell they'd sealed the wet areas with fibreglass.  They also finished connected the water & gas services and filled in the trench.

Therefore, hopefully this upcoming week we'll see the internal doors fitted and maybe some of the kitchen or wet area cabinetry arrive.

Bi-fold doors installed

Rear of the house

Looking through the front door - can just make out the gyprock and the bi-fold door at the rear

Roof On and Gyprocking Started

Progress has been a little slow over the last few weeks, but, at the end of the week before last we saw our eaves, gutters and fascias go on, and then last week we at last saw our roof tiles go on, all the remaining bricks were cleaned and the basic electricals were installed.

In the meantime, we received our Tile quote and decided to go back to DiLorenzo Tiles at Bella Vista on Sat with 2 objectives in mind:

1. Look at other alternatives to dark grey tiles we'd selected as we thought they might be too dark in the Ensuite and Bathroom.
2. See if we can simplify a few things to reduce the price.

In the end we chose slightly lighter grey tiles with a pattern so the feature wall in the Bathroom would be a little less bland, and we reduced our costs a bit by eliminating the mosaic feature tiles in the shower niches and going back to standard grout colours instead of coloured grouts.

Bricking Completed, bring on the Roof

All our bricking was completed on Saturday afternoon and Mr. T expects that the cleaners will arrive in a couple of days time to do the bricks they can get to without removing the scaffolding.

Our gutters & fascias should arrive later in the week or early next week.  These should go up pretty quickly and Mr. T expects that we'll have our tile roof started next Fri, 2 July.

We hope the rains stays away until then.

Sorry, we forgot to take photos on the weekend, but, we'll get some later this week after the bricks have been cleaned.

Rain Cleared, Scaffolding Up, Progress Slowed

In between the rainy days the brickies managed to get most of our 1st floor bricks up and the plumbers had done most of the internal plumbing.   By Saturday, 5 June, the rain had at last cleared.

In the meantime, whilst it was raining, we wrote a letter to our builder and raised our concerns about the steel column in the Dining/Family Room that was half off the slab.  A few days later I received a phone call from their Engineer who said he had been out on-site to inspect the column.  He had asked for the bricks around the base of the column to be removed so he could inspect the area and agreed that using a couple of house bricks to prop-up the overhanging column was not the best solution.  He informed me that they would be welding a steel bracket onto the base of the column that would bracket would then bolt onto the side of the slab to support the column.  From his description, this sounded like a much better solution.

On Monday, 7 June, the team arrived to put up the scaffolding, however, for the remainder of last week no more work was done.

Yesterday, Tuesday 15 June, the brickies returned and continued work on bricking up the Southern walls up to the 1st floor window ledges.  Also, for some reason they removed the dark grey Espresso feature bricks they'd put up a couple of week ago from above the Study/Lounge windows.

Today, a little more bricking was done around the base of 1st floor, and they started work on re-doing the Espresso feature bricks above the Study/Lounge windows.

Still no sign of the roof tiles.

Before the scaffolding went up

Now with added scaffolding

Full Metal Bracket

Bricking Underway

Despite the drizzling rain, our brickies started work on our Garage walls today.  They managed to get about halfway up the North and West walls before either the rain or bad light put a stop to play.

Hopefully, they'll be able to keep going tomorrow, however, the forecast doesn't look good for the next week.

Commons on the front of the Garage

Sorbettos on the rear of the Garage

Bricks and Plumbing

After a couple of days downtime because of the rain, the carpenters returned yesterday to finish off the frames and roof trusses.

Now that the carpenters have finished, our bricks arrived today and the plumbers have started work on the internal hot & cold water pipes.

 Did somebody order some bricks?

Gas outlet in our Study

The South Side with water & gas pipes

The rear with Skillion roof

The Alfresco with temporary poles until the brick piers are built

The Lounge & Dining Rooms without bracing

Windows Vista

Looks like our carpenters got bored of climbing around on the roof and decided to change tack and work on installing the windows.

Can't wait to take a closer look and get an idea of what the view's going to be like from each window.

 

Roof Trusses Go Up

 Again we don't have any photos because it was dark by the time we were in the area this evening, but, despite the sun beating us we were able to see that all our roof trusses had been installed today.  I'll update this post with some photos tomorrow morning after Mel drops the girls off at school.

In the meantime, earlier in the day I rang Mr T, as I hadn't spoken to him for a couple of weeks now.  He said the crane might arrive today for the roof trusses (looks like he was right), and if there were site access problems with the crane his carpenters would just have to lift the trusses into place by hand (I don't envy that job).  He expects the plumbing will go in soon, and we should be getting our bricks next Wed (or thereabouts).

I also took the opportunity to ask him about the steel pole in the North-West corner of our Dining Room that was half off the slab (see earlier post), and he said they probably support this with a few bricks underneath the overhanging edge.  All I can say is that I hope they're strong bricks.  I don't understand why they didn't just put the pole in the right place to start off with because the opposite end also seems to be a few cms too close to the rear of the house, which will make the Kitchen benchtop a few cms longer and our Lounge Room a few cms shorter.  Not that it really matters (as long as the first floor doesn't fall in our heads), I just don't want them to do a bodgy job in the kitchen to make up the extra few cms or charge us for extra Ceasar stone or cabinetry.

Update:  Here's some photo's I took this morning of our new roof trusses.

Looking west down the street from 2 doors up

 New house - now with added roof

A roof over our 5th Bedroom

Our master Bedroom on the left and our Sitting Room on the right

Even the dark side (aka South side) now has a roof

First Floor Frames Go Up

Sorry, we don't have any photos today as it was dark by the time we were in the area, however, in the darkness we were able to see that all our first floor frames went up today.
 
We can really see the shape of the house and the individual rooms now and its looking much more like we expected - the slab looked tiny when it was poured.

Hopefully, our builder can get a crane in within the next few days so they're able to start lifting the roof trusses into place.

Update: we took these photos of our first floor frames the following morning:

Now its a 2 storey house

Our 5th Bedroom above the Garage

 

Our house looking from the street

Roof Trusses Arrive

Our carpenters returned today to continue putting up the ground floor joists and 1st floor floorboards.  By the end of the day, most of the ground joists were installed.

The 1st floor frames have yet to be installed, and there's still a spare steel beam lying around which we thought was destined for the Garage; instead a very large wooden beam was used for the front of the Garage.

At the rear of the house,  in the North-Western corner of the Dining Room where it joins the Alfresco, we're a little concerned about the placement of one of the steel poles that holds up the rear steel beam structure - it's only half on the concrete.  We're not sure whether we should wait and see if this gets fixed or whether we should mention it to Mr. T our SM.

In the meantime, our roof trusses arrived and were stacked, ready for installation.


Late this afternoon, I received a phone call from the chap at our local Westpac branch who'd been given a mission to find out what was happening with our FHOG Boost application.  He had some very news good for us in that our Boost application had been received and processed, plus the OSR had approved our extension, which means we should receive the full amount.

Whoo-hoo!!!
 

Garage with joists and timber beam

Dining Room & Kitchen with joists

Alfresco with joists

Steel pole teetering on the edge

Roof trusses