Follow our journey as we build our forever house for us, our 3 sons, dogs, chickens and Nan

Thursday, 30 April 2015

Move In Day

So we have fallen over the line and moved in.........

The run to the line has been long an arduous and with 4am starts and late finishes for the last week.  Dave was doing the final gas fit as we cracked the champagne (After we finished fitting the shower screen so the boys could have a shower).

Thankfully Brett's Mum came up and lent a hand removing all the drop sheets and associated dirt.  We were still cleaning out the open area when the removalist's arrived with the furniture from the rental.

So we now live in the new house.  It is absolute chaos and absolutely amazing.  We still have a lot to do to say we are finished but it is liveable

 Finally
Finally cracked the bottle of champagne we have been threatening to drink at every major milestone.  Unfortunately every big job rolled into another.

 Domestic Chaos

 The Help
Brett's Mum gave the vacuum a serious work out over the last couple of days.  Thanks Mum

 Nans Kitchen 32 Hours to go

 Vanity
Where's the plumber?  Don't panic he will come.

Welcome Sunset

Saturday, 25 April 2015

Toilets fitted

We have toilets. Woohoo. A manic Anzac day Saturday saw a bunch of electrical work done by super John the sparky.  The pavers were on site and did a pile more paving.  Work continued on the granny flat kitchen.  We cut in the holes and fitted the sink and hot plates and fitted the bench tops to the cabinets.  We fitted a pile of doors and draws and installed the lazy Susan's in the corner cupboards.  Just a question what did Susan ever do to be slandered so?








Friday, 24 April 2015

Under a Week to Go

Wow how did we get to this point.  Friday Night and we move in next Thursday.  The place is still a building site and there seems to be a million things to do but stuff is happening thick and fast.  Today (Friday was probably one of the busiest days on record since we started this madness. Dave the plumber was there finishing off all the external connections.  We filled the septics with water and then the council health Inspector came through and inspected and passed them.

John the electrician was there starting the final electrical fixing.

Philip the paver and his French backpacker off sider started on Monday and continued on with the paving.  They have made great progress.

The 2 multi-trade specialists Brett and Melinda were there building Nan's kitchen and supervising all the other works.

Some chap who's name I instantly forgot was there fitting carpets in Nan's end.

Parking was at a premium.

During the week Chris the carpenter paid us a visit and finished all the skirting boards, architraves and window reveals.  Throw in to that he also helped us fit the laundry/scullery bench and cut out the two sink holes.  Bench tops are expensive and cutting holes in them is pretty scary stuff.



Pantry/Scullery/Laundry 
Bench tops look amazing (ignore the dust) and match the tiles(hidden by the plastic) perfectly


Chris Cutting in the hole for the Sink
I got scared and called in the expert.  Stuffing up on this bench top would be an expensive mistake.


 The chandelier
Melinda's Sewing room


 The Gas Bottle Connection


Nan's Kitchen
The base cabinets are all now installed and ready for bench tops.  More Sinks and hot plates to cut holes for


Our Kitchen
Ready for Caesar stone to come and measure up for our stone


Paving
The color is actually much redder than it appears here.


Septics

Sunday, 19 April 2015

19th April Update

Friday night was Date Night.  We left the kids with Nan and wnet out on our date to  Bunnings to pick Nan's Kitchen off the shelves.  We took the ute with only am radio so we could listen to 1080 6ix radio playing classics from the 50's and 60's and snuggle up close on the bench seat.  Who says romance is dead.

Saturday morning the paving bricks arrived.

Then it was into making and fitting kitchen cabinets.  Turns out Melinda is a gun at assembling cabinets and 85% of the cabinets have been assembled.  The kitchen in our end is really taking shape.

Saturday night I got to try some stout that Chris the carpenter left for me. I'm not normally a stout drinker but this was very good and I maybe a convert.

 Sunday was a bit of  a write off as we had to travel to Joondalup to pick up a corner pantry for Nan's kitchen. Nearly had a coronary when we saw the price and maxed out another credit card.  We are unofficially broke.

Spent the rest of Sunday morning fixing fences so the dogs could come for a visit (Kangaroos have forced holes in the fence).

Sunday afternoon was spent making cabinets, painting ceilings in the area, moving excess plasterboard from the verandah and digging in the final stormwater pipes so the paver can start on Monday (and thankfully not listening to the football. It is going to be a long season.  Stupid game)


Paving Bricks  Arrived

 Kitchen progress: First 2 cabinets installed

 Note that beautiful painted ceiling: like all things about the raked ceiling painting it was a horrible job.

 More stormwater so the paver can start Monday

Chris the carpenters Stout: I'm not a fan of stout but I maybe a convert.

Thursday, 16 April 2015

2 Weeks to Go

Two weeks to go and it is all happening.  We are under the pump and working long hours so the posts will be short and sweet


  • Painting: we started painting our end.  Nan has hired a painter for her end and he started Monday.  Highly unlikely we will be finished painting before move in day.
  • Antenna: the antenna man came and installed our TV antenna.
  • Carpentry:  All the window reveals and architraves are finished.  Just a couple of doors to do and a few internal architraves.
  • Plastering and cornice:  cornice installed in Thomas room and laundry scullery.  Open area plastering is complete and we have started painting.  Cornice will be ongoing over the 2 weeks whenever we get a quiet moment.  As we finish a room we will paint as we go.
  • Tiling: Is finished and looks amazing.
  • Cabinetry:  We have turned to cabinet making (another trade under our belts).  We have started assembling the cabinetry for the laundry scullery.
  • Appliances arrived on site
  • New water pump was delivered
 Recycled Red Bricks

 Cabinet making

 Nans painting (primer)

 Corner pantry Installed

 Boys Bathroom

Powder Room

Sunday, 12 April 2015

Sanding

We hired a commercial grade drywall sander for the weekend and spent the weekend sanding, final coating and re-sanding the entire house.  What an awesome piece of equipment.  It is quick and gives a great finish but if you used this every day you would have biceps like Arnold Schwarzeneger.  By Sunday night my arms felt like jelly and the only thing I could lift was a beer glass.

The telephone cabling guy turned up on Saturday to run the cable from the Telstra pit near the road to the house.  With a little bit of digging in the rain to extend the services trench across to the pit, the cable was run and connected without too much fuss.  Now to sort out the internet.

Did I say rain? Pretty rainy over the last few days.  The storm water system has got a real workout and the level of water in the tank is looking a little healthier.  We had a blockage on Saturday when marri blossom wished down the one downpipe without a leaf eater on it and blocked the outlet into the tank where the mosquito screen is. Pretty cool when we removed the block to see the massive in-rush of water.


Friday, 10 April 2015

10th of April Update

Yet another massive week inside the house.  So what have we been up to?

Plastering
  • Every joint has had a second coat and 60% of the house has been final coated
  • All the external corners have been second coated and are ready for a good sand and final coat
  • All the internal corners have been final coated and are ready for sanding
  • We have the commercial grade sander hired for the weekend and plan to have the full house final coated and sanded by the end of the weekend
Cornice
  • We did our first couple of rooms after getting a lesson from Chris the carpenter and I must say our corner joints look much better.
  • We are hoping to get a pile of cornice up over the weekend while we wait for the final coat to dry.

Plumbing
  • Dave has been and connected the water to the house and run a pile of external taps and plumbed in the hot water systems at each end
  • Given the remnants of another tropical cyclone dumping  pile of rain on Perth over the last couple of days we did some more storm water including connecting up more down pipes and modifying the first flush systems for the shed and the house to sit at the lowest point of the system so we can drain the water that pools in the system

Carpentry
  • Chris was able to give us another day this week and completed a bunch of window reveals and architraves.
  • Another day or so and the carpentry will be finished .

Tiling
  • Mike the tiler and his offsider Daniel have been busy tiling and the tiling is 85% complete. 
  • Still need to grout everything and do the wall tiles in the spare toilet.

Kitchen
  • The Kitchen for the main  house arrived on Friday.
  • The pressure is on to install the kitchen as the "Caesar Stone" bench top people need to come up and measure up the installed kitchen before they will begin manufacturing the bench tops. At this stage it looks like we will move in without bench tops in the kitchen.
Paving
  • We found a paver and are just organising delivery of our pavers.  He is good to start on the 20th of April 
Fireplace
  • Driving past a vacant block the other day we noticed someone had dumped bricks.  We drove in and found they were old red clay bricks.  People pay good money for these these things so to come across a free source of several thousand is good.  We wanted recycled old solid red clay bricks to brick up the fireplace.  Most are stamped with either Stare Brickworks or Cardup and have a bit of mortar and stuff on them which is perfect for the look we are trying to achieve.
So it is all happening. Move in date is set in stone as April 30th as that is when the lease expires on the rental.  The removalist has been booked and we are moving regardless so we are going to keep working like crazy and make it happen.  A few people hings have come through to quote on things and expressed doubt that we can finish in the time frame we are stuck with but the tradies that know us and have worked with us on this and previous builds (Dave, Chris, John) believe we can do it and so do we (plus we don't have a choice).


Nan's shower


 Nan's Vanity cabinet


Boys Shower

Our Kitchen
Arrived in the rain on Friday.  The delivery boys decided they couldn't get the truck down the driveway in the pouring rain so we would have to open the pallets and carry every single box in by hand.  We decided if we reversed the Landcruiser up to the truck they could use their forktrolley to put the pallets straight onto the tray of the Landcruiser and we could drive the pallets down to the shed and then unload them.  Way easier.

Plastering

Worlds prettiest tradie

Friday, 3 April 2015

3rd of April Update


Lots more progress over the week.  Chris the carpenter was able to give us a couple of days and so we have had the bulk of the internal doors installed.  He also installed a bunch of window reveals and architraves and a whole bunch of skirting board.

He also gave Brett a lesson in installing cornice.  The proof will be in the pudding next week when we try and install some more but we are quietly confident they will look a lot better than our first highly dodgy efforts previously.

Melinda was busy laying black builders plastic over our newly installed floor and taping it down which means we can get super messy plastering without worrying about the inevitable spillages and droplets.  She has done an amazing job.

Mike the tiler started and we immediately ran into problems.  The concretor didn't leave enough depth in the wet areas so we were unable to get the fall we needed for the showers.  This was rectified by Brett borrowing Dave the plumbers concrete saw and  running a series of cuts 40-50mm deep through the concrete then jack hammering the concrete out.  A real pain and a day lost both for the tiler screeding cement to create the floor level for the tiles to be laid on and for us plastering. Still the screeding is done and dry and so the tiling should be largely done next week.

We now have the Easter weekend to try and complete as much plastering as possible.  The taping of joints is done and we should have the entire house second coated by the end of tomorrow.  This leaves sanding, top coating, more sanding and cornice.  With the flat boxes in action we should be back on cornice early to mid next week then try and get some paint on the walls and ceiling.

Expecting the kitchen to be delivered late next week and really looking forward to being past plastering and into final fit out.

We scored a great deal on some near new second hand paving (around 300m2) which we expect to get delivered in about 2 weeks time ( about a quarter of the price for new clay pavers).  We are just trying to find a paver to install them as we won't have the time or inclination for paving on that scale at this stage of the build.  Paving is really hard on the back and knees.  So while we are able to lay paving I really don't think we want to.

Internal Doors

 Window reveals Architraves and skirting boards

 Fire place (good storage for plastering products)

 Second coating the open area (yes those ceilings are a bastard to flush)

Floor in the bathroom screeded and ready for tiling (note lights to help dry the cement sand mix)