According to our spies...

According to our spies (well alright, the spy is Bryan dropping into the site at 9.30pm last night on his way home from work) that the bricking is progressing...

He tells me that the rear wall of the garage is done and that the left wall (looking from the street) and back wall are done halfway up (up to the height where scaffolding is required) and the part of the right wall is also at this point.

And our tile selection appointment has been booked. They originally wanted to book us in for May (MAY! :o ) but thanks to some swift-talking from Bryan, he's managed to book it for the Friday before we go away (to get married!). He's promised them that we'll be quick and that we'll have our selections sorted before we get there... well it's not really a lie... we have been in and made some selections but it all comes down to the price. We're going to go in an look again before the appointment to make sure we still like what we chose last year.

This is what we had in mind...

Pictures from the weekend...

Here are the photos from our visit to the house on Saturday...

The fascias and gutters...




They've finished the side wall of the garage...


...and they've started on the back garage wall and the walls outside the lounge and kitchen...


Here I am giving Tyler (our Weimaraner) a walk through... "over there is the kitchen - you'll have to stay out of there..."


One of Bryan's 'arty' photos... looking through the front door and up through the roof trusses...


...and then there's this...




There are two 50 cent pieces that have been put into the brickwork of the garage wall (in the mortar). I'm not sure what this is about... If you could shed some light on this I'd really appreciate it!

Gutters, fascias and fridges....

Our gutters and fascias were put on today (yes Saturday!!). The colour looks good against our bricks too (lucky! it's a bit late to change if we didn't like it...).

The bricking is also continuing but there's still a long way to go yet... We might have to reduce our visits back down to once a week - that way we'll be impressed with the progress. This week we've managed to go almost everyday and it seems not much has been done (which is wrong because there has been progress - just not as fast as the slab and frame...)

We did get some pictures today but they're on my phone and I can't download them on this PC. Hopefully I'll remember to put them up on Monday.

Tomorrow (oops, it's past midnight, so I mean today) I'm heading into Melbourne to a warehouse sale looking for a fridge. That's if I can find a good bargain, that we can afford and it's fits into the fridge alcove in the new house. We didn't really think about this being a problem when we OK'd the plans - should be fine though. Failing that we're off to the second-hand fridge place in Geelong... it's time to replace the 2 fridges we have as together they are putting our electricity bills through the roof (one fridge is too cold and freezes everything (not good for beer in glass bottles let me tell you) and the other isn't sealing (neither fridge nor freezer) and the fridge man says that new seals just won't cut it...) so we think it's time...

Brickie has started!

I nearly didn't stop by the block last night (only a passing thought that I dismissed just as quickly!) because I really didn't expect to see any progress. Why?... it rained on and off for the morning and I felt sure that would have put a stop to the work.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that some work had been done however. Not a lot, but just enought to get a feel for how our bricks will look, and I am very happy so far.






I still can't help but feel a bit disappointed that I didn't get to see more progress, but I'm sure when Bryan gets home from work this afternoon he'll have photos showing that lots of work has been done today... I hope...

The fascias and gutters have now been delivered, and I also found this...


Bryan asked if I'd checked to see what had been thrown at it, but I had to admit that I didn't even think to check. It does look like someone's thrown a rock (or perhaps a brick - there are plenty!) at it.

Bricks and wrapping...

All wrapped in white...


Windows in place (bedroom on left - main bathroom on the right with th obscure glass)


Looking from the rear yard (window on left is a bedroom, door in the middle is the laundry door and to the right is the living room)


Looking in through the front door


The garage


Looking across the front of the house


Looking into the living area of the house - across the side yard






Our Red Gum bricks

Minor Update...

Bryan stopped by the build-site on his way to work and has called in with the following report (see how hungry I am for details!!)

1. The windows have been put in - and yes our front windows are correct (now... the SS tells me that the company that pre-fabs the timber framing did stuff up the window measurements but these sections were redone and all is fixed);
2. We've been wrapped - I'm waiting for the photos to see what colour we are now;
3. The bricks have arrived - Bryan was a bit concerned that they weren't the right colour but we have rung the SS and both he and the supplier have confirmed that they are right - we'll have to wait and see how it pans out when the brickie starts tomorrow.

Bryan has taken photos but we'll have to wait until tonight for those. In the meantime, here are our external colours. I don't have an image of how they'll all look together apart from what's in my head and so far I haven't worked out how to download that - the USB cable just isn't doing it...

This is our facade (flipped so that the garage is on the left)

Our bricks - Red Gum by Austral with natural (grey) rolled mortar joints. Not our favourite, but this is about the only one we liked from the standard range and I really couldn't see the point in paying extra $$ for bricks!! (plenty of other things we'd rather spend our money on...)

Roof tiles - Barramundi in the Tudor Style from Monier (CSR Roofing)

Garage door - sectional lift with remote - in this style but in a dark charcoal colour - called monument (below)Colorbond Monument will be used for garage doors, gutters and fascias)


Window Frames - black
(it's just black - you don't need a picture of that surely!! :) )

Front door - Paperbark

Nothing to report, just waiting for my next visit/update...

I'm itching to see what progress has been made on our house since Friday. The SS said last week that the bricklayer was due to start this week so I'm hoping to see some brickwork when I get to drop in tomorrow afternoon on the way home from work.

I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing living 30mins away from our building site... If we were closer I'd be able to drop in more often and see the progress, but then I'd probably get even more obsessed with the build and be there everyday!! As it is I get to go there once a week on my way home from Melbourne and maybe again on the weekend (usually if dog training is on, I can get Bryan to do the training and I can duck our for a sticky beak...). That really is enough - for a person with patience (which is not me in case you haven't guessed).

Pictures tomorrow I hope!!!

A skeleton of a house.

20th March 2009

The roof trusses are on...


The crows approve...


Looking out of the kitchen window...


I'm not sure what this pipe is but it's sticking up from the floor of one of the bedrooms - I think I remember it having electrical wires - there's another one on the other side of the same room.

More frame and roof trusses

19th March 2009.
The Roof trusses are going up (they're sitting up there on top ready to be installed) and the windows have been delivered...

Looking from across the street

Looking through the garage to the study and then the main bedroom on the other side.


The living room and backyard - complete with windows.




The front door - or where it will go at least.

Looking into the main bedroom. We're not sure what's happening with these windows. The shape here is not what's on our plans - nor those of the site supervisor. He's checking up on this and will let us know what happened tomorrow.




The back yard - not big but big enough. The side yard is about the same width but longer.


The bedroom side of the house.

We've been framed!!

18th March 2009
We have a frame...
(pictures taken on my phone in diminishing light)

A slab!!!

14th March 2009
I don't know when it happened - I was hoping for pics of the slab in progress, but sometime between Wednesday and Saturday the slab was poured and the formwork removed.

I was talking with Mum about how a slab can seem small until it has wall on it - ours looked big! At least it looked big to me as it seemed to take up so much of our block!





Our front porch...


That little block is where the hot water system will sit...


Idon't know what this little divit is but I took a photo anyway...