Busy week..

So much has happened at the site the last few days. The roofers have been busy with half the house done and all the gutters and fascia finished, the window company have also been and have installed most frames and some glazing, and the wrapping has started as well. Freya was very concerned that this was how blue our house was going to look. Some of the eaves have also been lined with cement sheeting.

Extra long sheeting for the raked ceiling in the foreground

Back of the house

Very muddy on site with all the deliveries, workers and rain lately

Next week should see the roof finished, house wrapped, windows done, electrical started, data started and insulation installed too. Also the garage and shed floor were pressure cleaned on Wednesday so they can get sealed, but it's taken days to dry, hopefully a coat of the sealer is going on tomorrow, and then the second coat on Monday.

Shed structure completed!!!!

Stuart had Davey help him out on Sunday and together they made the final door and hung it.
Today the plumbers returned and finished the other side of the roof,  the guttering and trims before the rain started.
Stuart just has to do a few little things to the doors, and the polisher needs to seal the floor then it will all be done. Oh yeah, we also have to get a tank and connect it up too.

front of shed with the sliding doors closed

back and side view of shed

Ian from KB contacted me today. We will be meeting with the joiner on Wednesday and the windows will be getting installed on Thursday. It's all happening now.

Progressing still...

Half of the shed roof has been completed! Hooray! They only worked for a half day which is such a shame, had they worked all day it would be finished, and the day was perfect for it. Clear, warm and no wind. The weather forecast from tomorrow onwards of course involves rain, so I just don't know that the shed will get completed at the start of the week as is the plumbers intention. Stu was out there today, and with Matt's help managed to hang one of the large sliding doors. He then started the frame for the next one.

nearly there..

The house is looking great too. Majority of the bracing has been removed so we can now walk freely through the rooms which gives us more of an idea of size as well.

Looking down the hallway to the kitchen/dining

Taken from the corner of the WIP, across the living area

The small 3/4 wall/bookcase, yet to be resized

Small verandah at the laundry door

Can't even tell that only one half of the shed roof is on!

Trusses are up

Wow it looks like a house now! so exciting to see the trusses up and see the shape and size of our raked ceiling.

Looking up from the garage

South side of the house looks good too!

From the master looking down

Front of the house. REALLY need to get rid of that dirt pile for my photos!!

Our meeting went well tonight, no issues at all. Timbercrete may be arriving at the block this week; fascia, guttering and windows all expected next week, and the roof predicted to be on by the end of the week after (4th May).
We have also organised a plumber to come out Thursday/Friday of this week to complete the roof and guttering of the shed. This means all we will have to do for it is make the other sliding door, then hang them both. So all going well, the shed could actually be completed this weekend - providing nothing goes wrong and we can get some help to manhandle the doors into position.

House & Shed

The frame is progressing along with some bracing completed as well now. Very happy to see on Friday that the floor polisher had returned and the drying cupboard and the area in the kitchen that had been missed have now been done. They also appear to be coated with something already too.
Found out that we can change our oven selection, so really need to get on to that, and we chose the colour for the fascia - Shoji White. It's a pretty good match to our window frames.
This weekend we had an open day at home so didn't get to the block until the afternoon. We managed together to complete one of the sliding doors, although hanging it will prove a challenge and we will need some extra bodies to help. We have managed to find someone to quote us on the roof completion, and someone else will be getting back to us with a price tomorrow, both can start this week which will be great.
Today Stu spent some time on the kanga finally filling in all the trenches, it looks heaps better. Can't wait to see the remaining dirt piles also spread out.
The roof trusses are supposed to arrive at 7:00am tomorrow morning, and we have a meeting with Glen again on Tuesday.

Overall view from front gate. Looking so much better with the trenches filled in

The next area that needs to be worked on, flattened out so we can get rock
on it to make turning on the driveway easier and provide access to the garage.

Frame progression

The frame is coming along nicely, the shower niches have been cut out, the windows are being set up more and the few missing walls are now in place. Pretty exciting to see the framing around our high light windows in the living room.
The 3/4 wall has also been done. We checked it out tonight, and are going to ask to make it a bit bigger - both height and width, depth wise it needs to be a little shorter, at the moment it looks quite little and silly, we are hoping that once it's a bit bigger it will fit the room better. If it looks too small now, it's bound to look even worse once the raked ceiling is done.

Gives us a great indication of roof height now, when we get a chance we will get rid of that dirt pile in front

Glen contacted me earlier in the week and advised that the roof trusses have been delayed and are now expected on Monday, it was nice to find out something ahead of time, saved me getting excited then disappointed.
I also got a great photo emailed to me this week. We were very lucky in finding a friend of a friend who had purchased a lot of Timbercrete blocks, but then decided they didn't want them all anymore. They live locally and had the exact size and colour we were after, so we purchased some off them. Well they are now set out ready to be wrapped then transported to our block, I can't wait to see them here and getting laid, although I do realise that is a while away yet. Thanks heaps for the photo Marnie :D

Soon to be our house!

I've been doing a lot more research into lights, stools for the breakfast bar and also recently began to rethink our oven selection. I went and did some measurements today and realised that it is a bit small - some of my trays and pans wouldn't even fit in it. I'm in the process of changing the selection now, KB had already ordered it but haven't yet picked it up so hopefully it won't be an issue.

Found out today that the colour we wanted to use to powdercoat the fascia is not available. So we have the colour selector here and in daylight tomorrow I will hopefully find a good match for the ivory of our window frames.

I also bought something for the new house today - well actually I have put it on layby as I don't have the room for it here yet. It's an artwork and I love it! It's the first thing I have bought for the house..other than bricks, insulation, driveway etc
We have also decided to get someone else to finish the shed. We haven't had much luck with weather on the weekends, and just want to get the thing finished. So far though, we are having difficulty finding someone willing to take on the job.

Shed still ongoing...

Stu had some assistance on Friday and he and Simon managed to get quite a bit done in their long day. They finished the East wall, did the gutter brackets on the north wall, cut down the excess on the east and west wall and laid the wire on the roof.
On Saturday Stu did a few fiddly jobs including the guttering brackets along the south wall, and then yesterday he started putting sheets on the roof. He only managed to get 4 on (2 front, 2 back) before the wind picked up again so he started working on the 2 sliding doors instead.

Looking so much better with the tops trimmed

Today he is unable to work on it due to the wind, hail, rain and cold.  This is feeling like a never ending task. There are so many other things that need to get done too, I would love to just pay someone to finish it off.

We've been framed!

So exciting to see the whole house (minus a couple of small internal walls) standing now.
Our meeting last night went pretty well. We worked out size and placement of the shower niches, and I also requested the master bedroom window move a little. The powder room is now going to be polished concrete at no extra charge too! The 3/4 wall in the living room is yet to be assembled, and they won't attach that to the slab until we have given our approval as we don't want extra holes in our flooring if it gets put in the wrong place!
We also discussed what we should do about the support pole in the alfresco. The draftsman had stated it would be treated timber, but we have decided to box it with cement sheeting and paint it.
I'm spinning out at how large our windows are going to be but as Stu said, I do want a house filled with natural light. Speaking of light I have been spending ages on the internet researching lights for the breakfast bar. It doesn't look like these will be able to be LED as I only found very basic LED pendants and they were ugly and expensive.
Trusses will be arriving later next week, it really is all happening now! So glad our frame is up in time for Easter - and it's turned out to be a wedding anniversary gift too!

Looking West

Front view...shame about the other houses! lol

Looking East

Looking through the living room windows

Frame beginnings

Not quite as much frame completed today as I had been lead to believe, but it was still exciting to turn up this evening with our whole family (including Ruby), to see the progress that had been made. So far our bedroom, WIR and ensuite, as well as the alfresco wall, lounge room and part of the dining room are standing up tall and proud. The way it's progressing I doubt the whole house will be done by the end of tomorrow, but hopefully by the Easter break it will be.

Our bedroom corner

Front view of house so far

Seeing the tall studs poking up that high looks rather odd, I hope that's not the actual height of our raked ceiling as our house may look quite weird if it is. The small passageway from our bedroom that leads to the WIR and ensuite is a little larger than anticipated, and a bit of a space waster but otherwise all looking good so far. Needless to say, I am looking forward to seeing the rest of the house take shape.

This shot, taken from the garage corner, better highlights how much is still to be done

Frameworks beginning

The basics of the frameworks has been started. All the top and bottom plates are in place and the East wall of the house has studs but no noggings and is not yet standing up. Tomorrow is going to be a big day I've been informed, with lots of walls expected to be done. I can't wait to see it in the afternoon!

Going to look very different tomorrow..

If you look closely at the picture, you will see that Stu managed to get 2 more sheets up on the shed on Sunday afternoon, and he also did some repair work to the driveway at the entrance which had become pretty bad. We are hoping that the weather over Easter will be kind to us, and fingers crossed manage to get the shed done.
On Friday we got a lovely surprise in that our power finally got connected. Perfect timing for KB really.
Have I mentioned how excited I am about the frameworks going up tomorrow.....