A place to store some stuff

Friday night we headed down to the estate to collect Sarah and thought we should pop in to visit the house and see what had been done.

As we entered the house, I could see the edge of the kitchen bench just poking out ..... I think my heart rate went up significantly due to excitement. Is it wrong to be this excited about this project?? I hope not :-)). It's so exciting for me because it is my first house ever (always been in rental places) and it is OUR house (mine and John's) ... the house that will see us through the next 20 or 30 years as I nag him about making sure everything stays nice and clean!!

We entered the master bedroom first and then into the ensuite ... I think I even clapped excitedly like a moron as I saw it actually looking like a bathroom!! We admired the joinery for a few minutes and then progressed into the kitchen.

Well ..... we both just stood there and looked at the kitchen, so pleased with how it turned out. After the roof tile fiasco, I have been really concerned about our colour choices on everything, and the kitchen cupboards and benchtop was no exception.

The cupboards are a lot 'creamier' than I had imagined, but we think it looks fantastic. It is a very warm colour and against the black benchtop, it looks like a kitchen we are going to enjoy for many years.

And wow .... it's big!! In comparison to the tiny kitchen we have now (which has served us very well mind you) this thing is massive. Even Sarah made some sarcastic comment about the bench top and 'did we think we could get it any bigger??'. God bless her :-)

We've got loads of cupboard space (for all the nice new things I'm going to buy ... - notice there I say 'I' rather than 'we') and we even tested out the drawers and cupboards to see how they worked!

The laundry looks great too with the extra bit of bench space we had built.

Peter tells us that 'fixing stage' will be completed by the end of this week. When we told dad his comment was 'yep, that sounds about right .. you'll be in there before you know it'.

We'll probably head down on Thursday night to check on their progress for the week.

We continue to be really impressed with the quality of the work ... we have heard people say that you can't possibly build a quality home in this amount of time, but to date, we have no complaints at all with how it is going. I think we have been extremely fortunate to have a supervisor that takes pride in his work and the labourers that he hires.

Definitely a few cases will be heading his way once the job is over!!

Mortgage is about to go up .... again

The week has been pretty hectic for both John and I so last night after work we decided to check out the progress of the house to give us a good vibe to get us through the rest of the week.

Work done since last post is as follows:

- Brickwork under windows finished
- Kitchen, laundry & bathroom cupboards delivered
- Doors, skirtings and other bits delivered
- Front window 'dressing' (don't know what else to call it) fitted
- Downpipes fitted

Little things throughout the house continue to be done and I still get amazed at how much interest you take in the little things when you are building a house of your own. Never before have I been so interested in the way a powerpoint hole has been cut in the plaster, or how they have raked the mortar in brickwork!!

Only downer of this work being done is that we now expect an invoice in the mail tonight asking for the next instalment to be paid. Aaaah ... so the mortgage goes up ... again!

White walls everywhere

15 March 2007

Well Sunday night we edited a post on here (waiting to download photos from the camera) but never got around to doing it.

Last night we visited the house and there has been a lot of work done - thought I'd leave the earlier post on here anyway so you can get an indication of the work that has been done over the last 3 days.

It's looking fantastic and the plasterer has done a great job (well, it looks like it anyway).

I have also posted a photo to show the difference between a wall of bricks that have been cleaned and one that is still skanky. The difference is remarkable. The clean bricks look really fantastic.

12 March 2007

After dropping Sarah off home on Sunday night, we took a drive past the house to see the progress since Thursday night.

Brickwork - window ledge bricks to be done.

Plaster - the back room still needs to be finished, but it appears that almost everything else is done, even the garage.

Looks really great! Can't wait to see the skirting and architraves go up.

These lads must drink strong coffee

Daily trip to the house last night to finish off some insulation in the laundry had us continually exclaim 'awesome' .... 'aweseome' .... 'bloody awesome'.

Either the boys working on the house are on some pretty strong legal stimulants or just unbelievably fast workers!

Looks like almost all of the brickwork is completed and the plasterer has done over half of his work too. I imagine that by the end of today it will all be done!

We did notice however a couple of things left off the electrical plan so we'll put a call into the supervisor and see if they can get fixed before too much time passes and it's hard work to do.

I think packing a few more boxes over the long weekend is called for!

Good on ya' Brickies

The brickies started yesterday, just as Peter said they would. We are extremely pleased with how Peter is running the job and the workmanship thus far is definitely of a good standard.

Really happy with how the bricks look. Definitely the best looking house in the street :-) (totally unbiased opinion of course).

Go Pete and go brickies!!

What goes on behind closed doors

Yesterday we spent the day at the house finishing off the pre-wiring for the data, speaker and alarm cables.

No bricks up as yet but when we got into the house (good thing the laundry door was unlocked) we saw that the little oompa-loompas had been hard at work during the week.

Work completed last week:

1. Ducted heating
2. Insulation
3. Some plastering (ie. part of the entry, top of fridge area and entry into the kitchen)
4. Bricks laid out around the house - hopefully ready to start today (Monday)

This week should see some big changes with the bricks and plaster going up. There are a few things we need to speak to the supervisor about so we'll do that today and head back down tonight to finish off the last piece of cabling (we ran out yesterday).

Also worked out a small problem with the TV in the main bedroom (which is going to be mounted on the wall). The powerpoint is down the bottom of the wall and we really need it to sit behind the TV so we don't have a cable running down the wall. John will speak to the supervisor today and see if we can move it to the right place -not the builder's fault, we should have specified the height we wanted the powerpoint.

Will post photos tomorrow and more at the end of the week.

A present from the builders

All we need is a big red bow!! The house is wrapped up ready to be bricked.

It's looking great and well on truly on track. The weather has been exceptionally kind which has enabled the tradies to get out there and get everything done on time or ahead of schedule.

All of the electricity has been done (ahead of schedule) and we are heading down tonight with Dad to pre wire for data and alarm system .... and our good mate Tony is coming down from Stawell on Sunday to finish off the cabling ready for the plasterer on Monday. Good on ya' Tone!

Blink and you'll miss it

2:00pm ... having a moment of madness at work so I decided to hop in the car and go down to the house. According to Peter's schedule, the roof tiling was due to commence tomorrow so my plan was to check that the tiles had been delivered to site and check they were the right ones (that way we could stop any work and have the right ones delivered).

On a scale of 1 to 10 ... 10 being the highest 1 being the lowest .... my shock factor was 11 when I saw that our entire roof had been tiled!! The tradies were working on the guttering and bits and pieces and when I asked the young guy when it would be finished he said 'tomorrow morning'.

After the initial shock, my next shock was to inspect the tiles and was a little bit disheartened when I saw that the colour was not what I had expected. We had chosen 'chocolate brown' roof tiles, and the tiles in the sun appear to be a reddy/brown colour. They look great, but not what I had expected. I have put a call into the builder to find out if in fact they are the correct ones. I'm thinking that perhaps when you have one tile you don't really get a good feel for what it's going to look like.

Anyway ... even if they are wrong I'm not too fussed because I think they look good.

Mood - really excited.

Gutters and supervisor (not a Guttered Supervisor)

Gutters are on - just have to be painted.

Plumbing is in - just need the rest of the house built to be able to see if it works!

We met Peter (our Supervisor) this morning on site. Nice bloke and not bad looking either! Seemed to know what he was doing (which is always a good sign). He is very happy with how everything is going and hasn't come across any delays (yet). He tells us that the roof will be on by the end of this week and the bricking will start next week. Our next door neighbour (also building with PD) is having their bricking done at the same time so he is supervising both crews.

Wiring for the electricity will be done by the end of next week also, so we will get Tony down hopefully that weekend to help John put all of the data cabling through.

WAY exciting.

Our Valentine's Day gift

Who needs flowers, chocolates or tools on valentine's day when you can go down to your block (with effect from this post, the block is now favourably referred to as the house).

As we drove down the street, we both let out a 'woo hoo' when we saw what is going to (very soon) be our beautiful house.

Peter (our supervisor) & the gang have done a great job (we think so anyway - I'll get Dad to come and check out their work) and are certainly working to the timelines that they have said they would.

We are meeting Peter on site on Monday morning so will be good to get an idea as to how he thinks the project is tracking.

Enjoy the photos! We sure did.

Base of frame laid out & windows delivered