The roof trusses are finished

These are the photos we took yesterday. The roof trusses were 3/4 finished. We visited the house tonight and they were completed.

The roof has started!

A short update for today....the roof trusses have been started to the back of the house. There is also timber sheets (laymans terms!!) on some areas of the frame.

Squirrel.... I am glad I am building a house with you. I love you and can't wait until we move in! xxx

The roof trusses are heeeeeere!!!!

The builder rang us this morning and we arranged to meet on site at 5.15 pm tonight. The builder showed us the Austral Symmetry bricks in the colour of Asphalt that had arrived. I really like this builder as he was concerned that because we are using a smooth face brick there are sometimes slight variations in the colour. Bricks that are rough face don't need to be as perfect because imperfections in the bricks don't show up.

The builder had already cleaned up the site and had placed plastic over the garage floor because he said so many people come in and out of the garage and store things in there, that there is a tendency to drop plaster, dirt, etc and generally damage it and he doesn't like that! I bet you are all envious of my builder now... someone who actually cares about the quality of his work!!!

The roof trusses have been placed on the frame roof in readiness. Chris the builder also said he wants to hurry and get the roof on and the bricks done so that he can clear most of the workmen out as he didn't want them to damage the house! He also said he was going to install the large bilfold cedar door at the very last moment as he wanted to make sure it was always in A1 condition.

We picked up a bit of plasterboard at the house he is building for himself, incidentally, it is just 5 minutes around the corner! It was magnificent!!! I thought my house was wonderful, but his was "out of this world".... huge vaulting ceilings, huge spaces, and a kitchen to die for, in a glossy olive colour. What was pleasing to see, was this builder was using the same products and tradesmen for his own house that he is using for ours. He obviously knows and trusts their workmanship and is happy with the quality of products. It makes us feel "safe".

We saw a final "mock up" computer print out of the kitchen. One change we had made was a double undermount Oliveri sink with no drain tray, as opposed to the usual kind with the drain tray dominating the skin. The Oliveri sink comes with a portable drain tray which we will use if we don't put things in the dishwaser.

We also saw a new sample of the polished porcelain floor tile as the one we had chosen was being discontinued. We liked this one better than the one we first saw. This one is very creamy and fits in will with the neutral colours. We were also shown a sample tile for the front portico and the back step..... folks, we are not just getting a plain concrete step... the builder will tile it!!!

And finally..... we got a progress payment!!! The only downside of the day! Oh well, it had to come!!! If only things were free!!!!

Paint Colours!!

Choosing paint colours.... what a nightmare! It is SO difficult to come up with paint colours so I am starting now!!

Unfortuantely it is difficult to see the actual colours we are thinking about as they don't replicate very well. Here is a sample of the kind of tones we are looking for... neutrals!!! Or, if we were in the 70's we'd say "browns!" It is funny to think that by changing the name of a colour it makes it more appealing... call something brown and everyone says..."eeew yuck", but call it chocolate, cocoa, caramel etc and it sounds very inviting!!!



My place is like "paint sample central". We've brought a ton of small paint pots - at nearly $7 each! Remember the good old days when you could get a small sample for free.... these paint sample pots must make Dulux a tidy sum!

If you know your paint colours, you might know PUDDLE and WARM NEUTRAL. We look at these for the larger living areas but they appear to be a little dark so we have discarded those... and two paint samples bite the dust!! We also tried BUFF IT but it is a little olive in colour, so we've thought no to that one... and throw out another paint sample!!!

We came across LIGHT RICE which we thought would be ok for the bedrooms and hallways, however, we think that it might look ok for the larger rooms! It looks very similar in colour to the ECRU shade shown above. We are now waiting for a sample of LIGHT RICE HALF - that is, a touch paler than the original. We are also waiting for a sample of ANTIQUE WHITE which is actually a very pale cream.

We are waiting for the hardware store to get in the next 2 paint samples we want to look at. If they are not right, we'll get more and more until we find the right one. We currently are painting them on a piece of paper, but the builder has said he'd get us a bit of plasterboard so we can really see what it will look like.

Stay tuned for more paint details!!!

The Frames are here!!!!

Who would of thought I would be so excited by timber! The frames are finally here after a week delay because of the rain. The pic below shows the entry hallway where the height of the ceiling will be 3 metres.


Here is the entry, to the right is the master bedroom, to the left, where there is no framework, is the 3 car garage.

This is an internal shot from the family room looking towards the built in pantry in the kitchen. You can see down the hallway towards the front door.

This shows the back of the house, where the alfresco bifold doors will be. The builder said the frame people have made the wrong frame and the doorway should in fact be a little winder. He kindly said he'd alter it. (Once again, we do have a conscilatory builder)

There are a lot of large windows - looking at the frames made me realise we are very open to the views!

Roll on the next stage!!!

Leaving Messages for us!

Thank you for your comments, we've enjoyed reading them. As things get going a bit more and you can see more of the design I am sure there will be more nice comments. So we know who is leaving us a note, please write your name..... first name will do... otherwise they show up as anonymous and we don't know who said what.

Thank you!!

Slab Photos (not the beer slab kind!!!)

As promised.. here they are! Sorry about the darkness, we just drove to the block tonight and took them and it was pretty late.

The pic below shows the right hand front cover which will be the master bedroom. You can see the bathroom area - the concrete area is lower than the rest of the slab. This was because we didn't want any differing height of floor between the tiled and carpet areas - it's a "pet hate" of mine!



The pile of dirt on the slab has been caused by the plumber digging the storm water drains and putting the dirt on to the slab. The dirt area covers the 4th bedroom.

The back corner closest to the cam is the rumpus room. The alfresco is in the cut out. Directly behind the alfresco is the family room.

From a previous visit, we noticed that the plumber had marked the ground where the storm water would go across the yard near the alfresco area. We had concerns and the builder agreed, as we want the pool to be built in the area on the left side of the house. When I told Chris, he immediately went down to the site to speak to the plumber and change the layout of the pipes so the construction of the pool would not be affected.

Whilst we were stick-nosing tonight, Chris the builder turned up. He showed us around and pointed out a few things. He's on the same wave length as us, as I have said before, and he realises that he as the builder is there to advise us and in the end do what we want. When he explains things he says, "I am happy to do X, but normally we do Y". He's very agreeable.

Chris said he has a new floor tile sample for us as the polished porcelain one we had chosen was being disconnected, but he said there is another one very similar. Chris also has the finished designs for the kitchen which he'll drop over this week. Yeah!!!

We're on our way!!!

Update! The slab has been poured and it is drying out, ready for the framework. The frames are on site waiting to be put up... hopefully soon!

The plumber has been digging trenches and laying pipes for the down pipes and one of them runs straight across the backyard so we will be speaking to the builder to make sure he does not put them across where the pool will go.

I'll get you some photos soon!!

Slab Delayed & Tapware

The slab was supposed to be put down on Friday but with the rain earlier in the week there was a delay.

We saw the plumber there on Saturday putting the finishing touches on the pipes. The slab formwork is 90% completed so it shouldn't take long. Not sure if they have the concrete folks booked for a certain day but we'll see.

I purchased some of the taps today for our house. They are the Scala range.... with a solid pin handle. Sorry the pics are a bit hard to see.

Bath tap

Basin tap

Kitchen mixer

Our "Porcupine" lights!!!

We drove for 2 hours to collect the lights we had chosen for the 3 minor bedrooms. We hunted and hunted a few months ago but could not find anything. We went to one last shop and we saw these and loved them! We call them our "porcupine lights"! We won't hang them too far as they could get in the way and your head may bounce on them!!

We have chosen downlights for the rest of the house.

We wanted to have a really nice light in the master bedroom, the only problem was the room is so big so we would of had to go with a really large light so it matched the scale of the room. All lights that were wide, were hung on a long pendant, or they were long in length. It was not possible to find a light that looks good. Instead, we've gone with 5 downlights... not as exciting but we saw a house with a bedroom of the similar size and they still looked very nice.

It's raining!!!!

The tradies are still currently laying out the formwork for the slab. The electrician and plumber are doing their "thing". Chris the builder said he hoped the slap would be started this Friday... let's hope the rain that fell yesterday all day hasn't affected the schedule. Yes, it is only one day but I just want to see the frame up so we can walk in and out of the various rooms... it will really feel like we're building a house!!

Doors doors doors!!!

Here is the Gainsborough door handles we have chosen for the inside. It is in a bright chrome.

These are the doors we liked... unfortunately! I say unfortunately because they cost a lot more than the regular 4 panel doors you see on new houses. Boo! You can see the 4 inserts, they have, for want of a better word, "steps" so each little section of the door insert is a different size. I don't know how else to describe it. I may be able to find a close picture for you to see. I think the extra cost was worth it because they look so nice.

The next item is the bifold door system of the alfresco area. We were originally having a bank of 5 doors like this one, however, we have just changed to a bank of 4 doors, but they'll just be slightly larger so we get a bigger expanse of glass. The door will have one "flapper door" as it is described at, which sits on the far right and the other 3 doors will open to the left. It just makes getting in and out easier.

And the front door - to give the house "street appeal" which I think it has a lot of! The door is a cedar 1200 mm door with frosted glass. It will sure make moving in easier.. we won't be worried about scratching the door, or squeezing the 3 seater couches in!

Hope you like... feel free to leave any comments!

Slab Formwork & kitchen decisions!

The formwork has been started for the slap. The first picture shows the area where the garage will go.

In this picture below you'll see the garage on the left. The little square right in the middle is the portico and on the right at the front is the master bedroom.

A wider shot of the house.... yep, they are cows in the background... mooooooo!

The builder has said that the slab will be poured next Friday - today is Sunday.

We finally made a decision about the kitchen - we will have pot drawers on either side of the oven!! We will have a corner cuboard with a lazy susan kind of thing so the corner isn't wasted. It was so hard to decide, we laughed about having a camp kitchen with just a portable sink and table in it.

On the weekend we had a look at some new homes to see if we could find something - a tile or glass - that would look good in the splashback area. We do have our heart set on the mega expensive tiles... but if there is something else we love just as much, well that would be fabulous. We did see one place that had gloss porcelain tiles as their spashback. The colour was dark and it looked like marble. Did I say that I had definitely changed the colour of the kitchen to Mountain Pepper.

One last thing for my partner - the cat DOES not want to be launched in to space like an astronaut.. so DON'T kick him off the chair! xx

We have lines!!!!

As the block is sloping left (lowest) to right, and front to back, the builder has built up the land so we'll have even more of a view.


Another view of our land. The darker stones on the right hand side are to protect the land when builders trucks drive on it. Notice the blue sky... it's a beautiful day here - and it is supposed to be winter! I bet you wish you lived where I did!

Here are the lines! I dropped by to see how things were going on the house next door and to see if there had been any headway and guess what.... WE HAVE LINES! Or, perhaps in more technical terms, they've laid out the plan of the house so the slab can be started. It's wonderful to be able to stand inside the lines and say, "we are in the kitchen here". A truck was on the block when we got there and he apologised for being in our way. I said, you are in our bedroom.. he replied, geez, your bedroom will be big!

The pic below shows the portico area - that is that square at the top. To the left of the photo is the master bedroom and to the right is the 3 car garage.

I know what I am looking at, but you might have troubles! See the grey coloured gravel on the right, well, right in front of that is the garage. The rectangular shape on the right, directly behind the garage is the living area and kitchen meals area. It looks small - must be the angle of the photo.... trust me, I got worried when I saw it as it looks so different when it is just drawn on the ground in line..... we measured and it is just perfect.

The "square" at the bottom of the pic on the right hand side is the alfresco area. We are having a bank of doors here in cedar that will open fully so the whole wall area is open. Hope there are no mozzie's around!!!