This week the sliding doors went into our master suite. They are so easy to open and close - nothing like a double-sprung door roller :)
We had talked with our builders about recessing the deck sliding doors into the floor structure so that the metal track sat down at around the same level as our finished floor. Long story short - it was not installed that way, so we would have seen a 5cm aluminium lip (just something to trip over). The builder agreed to re-install it on the floor framing directly, which happened this week. I've shown a picture of a floorboard against the recessed track, much better. The opening for our stairwell was cut into the floor. We have a slightly wider than normal set of stairs, plus a small void. You can see the framing for two half-walls to enclose the void, I think balustrades can be a bit fussy sometimes so we are doing a combination of solid wall and timber balustrade. The stair manufacturer fortuitously turned up to sketch and measure while we were on-site, so true to form I decided to return the bottom two steps, creating a podium, and in doing so found a way to spend a bit more money... Our custom made timber windows arrived - to match the rotten ones we lost. Oh, and our TV recess took shape - now we just need to find some room in the budget for a 55 inch TV!
0 Comments
This week some of the new windows and doors were installed. After they went in the builders carried on installing the new weatherboards around them. It's starting to look like a house rather than a construction site!
The big sliding doors onto our deck are 2.7 metres tall, so 30cm taller than the ceiling in our last house. Oddly because the opening is so wide, I think they look shorter than a standard door. We had an on-site meeting on Friday with the electricians - to go over the lighting and power plans. You might remember that we changed our walk-in robe layout so we also had to change the lighting and power for that room, as well as the ensuite and master bedroom. We also made some tweaks to the final positions of switches, powerpoint and the circuit organisation based on how we think we will use each room. Nothing beats that feeling of always having somewhere to plug in the vacuum cleaner! On our architectural plans we had included roof-tiled window hoods over the windows down the sides of the house. These would have matched the existing 1930s hoods on the front elevation. We made a last minute decision on Friday (much to the builder's annoyance) to ditch them. It was so nice seeing so much sky through the windows upstairs, I think it would have been a shame to reduce the light and views with a window hood. We are still doing them to the front, to keep the house looking right - but the sides will be uncovered and much more modern looking. The pace seems to be picking up now - we are heading quickly towards lockup, which means a stage payment will become due (damn) but it will also mean that the interior elements can get started (walls, air conditioning ducts, ceilings, flooring - all the nice bits). Off-site, I continue my hunt for the perfect kitchen handle. This week the colorbond roofing went on to the front study, and the side bathroom. The study is in an old enclosed porch, and the bathroom in an old sleep-out (typical of Queenslanders), so these two areas are not under the main roof.
We prefer the look of the bathroom roof (with the 3 pitch directions) and wish we had done that to the study too, but they're so tall nobody will ever see the top of them again. One of those cost-saving decisions we will just have to live with! The plumbing rough-in happened, so the walls and ceilings are now full of pipes. We tried to take photos to avoid nailing through a water line when we hang artwork in a few months. This means that once the windows are delivered and installed - we will be ready for weatherboard cladding, electrical rough-in, air conditioning and internal linings! This week most of the building was covered in building wrap - the blue stuff. That's about all that happened, but it made it nice and warm inside the house, and shielded us from the winter wind.
We had to let the builders know about some tweaks to the framing - we have succumbed and are putting a TV in our master bedroom, for Netflix. So that means we need to recess the TV by the depth of the stud wall, to avoid looking at the side of the TV and bracket when we walk into the room. On Friday two chandeliers arrived in crates from the USA. They're the same style of light but different shapes - one for above our kitchen island and one for the dining table. We took them out of the box to ensure the glass bits survived the trip - but a lot of assembly is required so we'll be excited to see them put together on installation day. Until then it's a secret... You may remember that last week the roof trusses were installed and braced. This week the sarking went on (the green waterproof material that covers the roof trusses), and then the timber battens installed horizontally across the roof; these timber battens are the fixing point for the roof tiles.
Our builder scheduled a meeting with us and the cabinet maker for Friday - to go over our plans and confirm layout, material, joinery profile, and colours of our kitchen, laundry and bathrooms. So, nearly every night this week Michael and I went to Bunnings after dinner to look at swatches, buy sample pots and paint them onto boards. It's so difficult to make such a long term and expensive decision so early, when there are still no walls! The cabinetry is custom made and painted so they need to get started very soon to make sure it's ready on time. By Wednesday everyone in Brisbane was talking about the super cell storm forecast for the weekend. At that stage our roof tiles were piled on the roof - we were nervously hoping the rain held off long enough for the roofers to get all the tiles on and tied down before the skies opened. They just made it! All our mossy tiles went back on the front elevation, and they look great, just what we wanted to see. Our Friday cabinetry meeting snuck up on us and we still hadn't decided on final colours. The meeting still lasted 3 hours, and I think we covered most of it, other than colours and handles, which are TBC! We were waiting on our floor sample to arrive before signing off, which we now have, so no more excuses. Friday also saw our 3 metre shower cut into the floor, to allow for the grade down to the drain. It's so big that we'll (hopefully) never have to clean splashes off the glass door. The storm arrived and brought an inch of water through the whole house, but everything stayed in the right spot - good work roofers! This week started off slowly with some minor framing work. Wednesday was crane day. When I left for work the truck delivering the trusses had arrived and the crane was manoeuvring into position. Pretty amazing that our entire roof structure came on the back of one truck.
I asked my mum to walk up and take some photos throughout the day. By around 2pm all the trusses had been craned into position and secured. Super quick! Nothing much happened the rest of the week. We had a good view of a fire in the mountains (hopefully controlled burning?). We went for a walk this weekend and saw a house only a few hundred metres away from us with excellent hedge game. That is some serious garden inspiration, and we'll have to put our thinking hats on to come up with a garden design for the current dustbowl (it's currently like walking on the surface of the moon). Next week we are looking forward to some roofing materials to keep the rain out, and we have our first design confirmation meeting with the cabinet maker. Just a kitchen, three bathrooms, laundry and walk-in robe to sign off - I'm sure that will be stress-free... When I was leaving for work at 7am on Monday morning, the builders had already started removing the roof tiles. By lunch, they were gone. The builders have stacked the tiles in our front yard, and we will be putting them back on the new roof. We like the 'not so new' look of the lichen covered roof tiles... people pay good money for those years of neglect and we got it for free.
The rafters came down the following day, and by the end of the week we could really get feel for our future living space, albeit full of stacks of timber. We measured out our new indulgent king bed and realised our master bedroom is huge, which we were nervous about. Other than watch our beautiful character bungalow disappear this week, we had to sign off on our window and door order. We decided to only install new timber windows on the front facade, the sides and rear elevation will be aluminium. The glazing is semi-commercial with a chunky frame, so they shouldn't look too out of place on an old house, and the best bit is we won't have to paint them, ever! We luckily realised that we would have been able to wave from our ensuite to the main bathroom, so we have changed our ensuite glass to frosted before it was too late. Next week we hope to see some progress on the upper floor framing and even the roof. The builder orders the roof from a truss manufacturer, so it should go up fairly quickly. Some major changes this week - and lots of photos!
I've put them in sequential order. The site was really busy this week with 6-8 guys working most days. I was sick, and working from home this week, so I was able to walk up the street to take a look each day. Monday saw the block piers go up on the entry porch and sleepout bathroom. These will get a rough render finish to match the existing render above. The bricklayers built two piers too wide, which is shown in one of the photos, so this will need to be cut back. It's important for us to have a snoop around each night to pick these small issues up early. Upstairs, the flooring was filled in where the old staircase came out, and more weatherboard came off the existing structure. The scaffolding went up this week, and it's huge, hence the title. It looks like a commercial building. The upper deck was assembled, and we're mentally placing furniture already! There's also a couple selfie (couplie?) in there, and a photo of the sunset that we'll be enjoying from the deck in 6 months. This week there weren't many dramatic changes to the exterior. The ground floor deck structure was finished and concreted in. The weatherboard was removed from our old kitchen upstairs, which will be extended to become our master bedroom.
When we were raising the house, the bathroom on the right side (in the old sleep out) was not structurally sound, so it came down. The floor framing for that room went in this week, we are rebuilding that bathroom as it was, which is a condition on our development approval. It will probably be the only room with level floors! Inside some changes were made - the interior VJ walls came down, so we now have an idea of what our open plan living/dining will be like. There are posts still (to hold up the roof) but we can now see the space. There is a large hole in the floor where our staircase was, which is being filled in. It's very dusty inside!!! Or actually just brace the walls. The first of the plywood bracing has been nailed up. It's super thin, but does the job of holding the framing square, just like the back board of an IKEA bookcase.
The deck structure has been built, resting on temporary supports. The steel posts will be attached to this timber frame, and then concreted into the footing holes once they are exactly the right height. Aaaaand, the ground floor wall framing has been finished! On the weekend I patrolled the site with my trusty measuring tape, checking that everything was properly aligned!
The framing timber (blue treated pine) was delivered bright and early Monday morning and the boys didn't waste time unwrapping it. The walls are framed the ol' fashioned way, assembled lying on the ground then lifted up, positioned and secured. Progress was slow but exciting this week. There weren't many guys on-site due to some milestone on another of our builders' projects, but as each room went up we walked around in it and pretended to live there to see how it felt. Having the framing up made the rooms seem tiny! I think they will get bigger once the wall sheeting goes on. At the end of the week the timber was delivered for the ground floor deck, so I guess that's coming next... The week started out with level soil within our retaining walls. The soil was then dug up, and plumbing run under the ground, and buried. The soil was flattened out again.
After that, shallow channels were dug in the slab in a regular grid - which will create a thicker section of concrete in that area, an in-ground beam. On Wednesday and Thursday the plastic moisture barrier and reinforcing went in, ready for the concrete to be poured. The concrete was poured on Friday, and we were walking around on Saturday. It seems much bigger now that the concrete is in, and the finished levels have emerged from the dirt. We are really excited, now that the ground work is nearly all done, we will get to see some walls soon. It's interesting living so close to the project - we see it every day, so the progress seems to be more gradual. I think if we only checked on it once a week, the progress would seem more rapid, because we'd be noticing a week's worth of changes all at once. This week features some action shots of me, looking at things. Enjoy! |