Hello, I have been promising an update and this is mainly for the great friendly people I have met on the internet. There has been plenty going on this week, and I have been just a spectator to it all.

I had a good mate come over and finish off the quad around the timber flooring. Here are some pictures of the installation taking place and the finished job. We are really happy with how it has turned out, and we find it satisfying to say that we did it ourselves.

Note the lovely window treatment :-). We still have garbage bags on most of our windows. Window coverings are the current project on the go, and I will update when these are all finished.

I don’t think I have really explained why we did our own floor coverings. Basically the finance broker said, “you have only got X dollars to spend”. We decided to leave the floor coverings to later after we had moved in to save some money. The weird thing is, we had to borrow the amount of our land rebate, and this came back to us when the loan was drawn-down. We then had enough money to do the flooring ourselves and thought “great no cold dusty concrete!”.

During the week we had a monitored alarm installed. We did not consider this at all when purchased the house, but after I saw some of the crime stats for the area thought it would give some peace of mind.

This week our driveway was poured. We were thinking of going for exposed aggregate, but as we wanted a wider drive and modified cross-over we did not have the budget for that. We then decided that coloured concrete would look fine and would fit in with the design rules of the estate.

The concrete is coloured Bluestone and has been sealed. Next week the concreters return to widen our cross-over. This was just something that we had to do as the angle of the cross-over was all wrong.

In an earlier post, I explained that when the painters put the last coat of paint on the façade it rained afterwards and ran. This has all been touch-up now and I am happy to show the façade as it should look.

Our old house was about 12 square, and this house is 28.7 square. We didn’t think of this really when we were building, but we do not have enough furniture. So during the week we went out and ordered a new TV unit, buffet and lounge suite.

We also made a trip to Ikea for some book shelves for the study and rumpus room. Ikea has a good website where you can work out how many parcels you need, the size and weight. We went there on Tuesday and Supermum has definitely earned her title! She was pushing around 240kg of parcels on the trolley, loaded them into the car and unloaded when we got home – all by herself, with me just standing there watching.

After that, she spent the next two evenings assembling the bookshelves and I think she has done a great job as you can see in the photo below. My contribution to this was to hang the glass doors – with quite a few choice words thrown in I can tell you ;-)

On Wednesday night, the kids were playing in the room with all of the bookshelf pieces when we were getting dinner ready. When we walked back in found that little miss five year old had looked at the instructions, taken all the dowels out of the packets and hammered them all into the correct holes! Well, I was one proud Dad and she was there telling me she wanted to be a Builder when she grows up, …. and a Kindergarten teacher, a Hairdresser and Computer Technician ….

Today I met our neighbours Rellie, Jase and their two boys Lachie and Jacob (other half was at work). Very nice people and great to meet them after plenty of friendly exchanges over the internet :-)

There will be plenty going on over the next few weeks, and I will keep this updated for those whom may be interested in having a look.

Cheers

PS, desperately waiting for Broadband! Argghhh dial-up … tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1999….

A forced break

Hi all

Thanks so much for the well-wishes, I really appreciate your thoughts!

I have been out of hospital for two days after spending a week at the Freemasons in East Melbourne. As explained I had a procedure called a Nephrectomy, which is the removal of a kidney. This was due to complications of a birth defect I had which wasn't discovered until my early thirties (37 now). I did have the problem surgically repaired 4 and a half years ago, but the pain never went away and over the last 18 months I have had 4 opinions on what to do. This seemed like an extreme option to take as the kidney was still working at a reduced function, but having another prerfectly good kidney meant I could take this option. The kidney could not be repaired again due to the scar tissue from the previous surgery - so I agreed to have this done. Basically, most days I felt like dragging myself off to hospital as the pain was a 10 out of 10 and I really wanted some releif.

Anyway, the doctors and nurses treated me very well and on the day of surgery my Anesthetist told me that this is the 2nd most painful surgery that there is. Well, let me tell you that I won't argure with that. I have had 13 other operations in my time and this took the cake for pain!

I have another 6 - 8 weeks of recovery ahead of me and taking some necesarry time off work. Sitting hear in a brand new home with lots to do is quite frustrating but nothing I can do about it.

I will get the camera out and take some shots of the finished flooring, and driveway once completed. There will be some homemade curtain work starting soon, so this will be up on the blog when done.

I guess that's enough about me, this supposed to be about our house. I have been feeling quite guilty about the lack of updates and photo's and will do my best to get this blog up to speed.

Cheers, Tony

Ant's Health Update

Supermum here; Just to give you bloggers a quick update & thank you for the well-wishes.
I don't promise to be as funny as John when he broke into "Geekgirl's" account, You will be lucky if it makes any sense as typing skills are lacking quite a bit!!

Ant had his Kidney removed on Tuesday, all went reasonably well. He had a small pneumothorax (when lining comes away lung, because a small hole was made in the lung when removing the old scar tissue.) he was in CCU for 24 hours, but is in the ward now. He's doing pretty well considering, just a shame I cann't really call him "Man Sick"!!! ;) LOL Ant should be out of hospital early next week.
Thanks again for the messages, I will pass them on to Ant.
Cheers,
Supermum - I wish!

PS. All that whinging about ending up on the concrete every night he could have had a mattress like me but chosse not to get it from old house - but why ruin a good story with facts!!!

Just an update

We have been in the new house for about three weeks now and the schedule has been quite tight. The first week was just me in the house on a blowup matress, concrete floor and no heater (better than camping). The second week we got the carpets put down and then moved our proper bedding in from the old house. Before the carpet was down, the entire family spend the nights in the dining room on blowup mattresses, but I seemed to end up on the concrete floor each night.

Over the last two weekends, we have laid the entire timber floor (about 110sqm) and moved 90% of our belongings out from the old house. This weekend the task is to complete the move and put the beading in over the expansion gaps around the floating floor.

If you are thinking of laying a floor yourself I would recommend it if you consider yourself reasonably handy. The tools used, dropsaw, jigsaw, rubber mallet, sawbench for ripping lengthways (not totally necessary but easier if you have one), hammer, chisel set, profile guage, sliding bevel, square, goggles and a really good dust mask. A simple square room can be laid easily in one hour. The job slows down when you have to undercut at doorways and have angles to work to. For example, the lounge room of about 4 * 4 metres took one hour. The hallway of about 6 * 1.2 metres took 5 hours as this had five doorways to undercut, a linen press and angles to work to.

One day was pretty much spent on just checking all the levels of the concrete slab and putting down some self-leveling compound over the low spots. There was one high spot that technically should have been ground back. I looked at this for a while and thought about the huge mess it would make and then realised it would be directly under a table. So I thought bugger it and just left it. When the flooring went over this you actually couldn't tell.

The driveway is in the process of being concreted and we have changed our mind to just coloured concrete rather than exposed aggregate.

The pics below show the muddy driveway and the makeshift path I constructed from some discarded builders foil. The other photo's show the carpet going down and some of the flooring.

Again, I don't have lots of photo's as they are on someone else's camera, I will get these and some updates on soon.

We have been working quite a lot on the move and I have a deadline of this Sunday, even though the old house doesn't settle for another two weeks. I am going off to hospital next week and won't be doing anything physical for a couple of months afterwards. So the focus has been on getting the flooring done and the move - way too busy to even stop and take some decent photo's.

I will do my best to get some photos up by the end of this weekend....

A preview of the flooring

This is a preview of the flooring that is going down over the weekend and Monday. The carpet is Carisse by Godfrey Hirst Carpets. It is a solution dyed nylon with a 15 year guarantee against stain resistance, soil resistance and appearance retention. The colour is called Nickel, which a jersey caramel look (Supermum's description not mine) - I would say it is the colour of a cardboard box (but that doesn't sound very exciting). The flash has added a bit of pink to it.

It is a sisal carpet that is rated as extra heavy use residential. We are quite happy with our selection, and the carpet layer is coming on Monday to install.

The timber is a Armstrong Armalock 8mm laminate. The colour is Cherry Spice, which sounds very American but I would describe the look as Tasmanian Oak. This flooring has a 20 year warranty. The flooring installation is going to be a DIY job - and hopefully this does not mean Destroy It Yourself.

More to follow next week ...

A few photo's

Here are a few snaps taken today in the rain. Supermum is a hero, running through the mud and rain to bring you these photo's. And then the batteries went flat, which is the reason for the dates being out (either that or she slipped into some weird space-time continuum!).

You can see that the facade has run and the painters are just waiting for a break in the weather to repaint this. We can't begrudge the rain, we need it .... ok the mud is a pain in the backside.

The light grey you can see through the run marks is the wrong colour originally painted. This colour just looked a shade ligher than cement after it was painted and was just awful. We think it was Shale Grey instead of Woodland Grey (appologies if you have that colour).

Stayed tuned, there is more to come :-)

PS don't use rechargeable batteries in your digital camera or you won't have enough photo's for your blog.

We have a house, now its time to make it a home

It has been a big long weekend for us. Friday 13th was handover, which was a fairly smooth process with a few promises to fix some items up. I trust it will be done, or I will hold the porta loo to ransom that is still in the front yard ;-) .... Actually I won't it has been 'leaking' in the front yard and we just want it gone!

We found out that the facade had been painted in the wrong colour, and the painters had been back during the week to repaint it. The painters are having a bit of a hard time at the moment with the weather and got caught out on our job. Just after they had finished, it rained and the paint on the facade had run. They will be back to fix, along with a couple of other minor touch-ups.

After the hand over on Friday, we spent some time at Western Distributors looking at carpet and flooring. We did not put any money on their stock, as I had another supplier to check out.

Saturday the whole family went to Fowles Auctions and Sales in South Melbourne. The kids were really good while we spent a good couple of hours there making some decisions. I had this place recommended to me by a fellow blogger Grime http://bridgeport35extended.blogspot.com/ - a big thank you! This place is great, and the lady Michelle who assisted us was very friendly and helpful. I also got some honest information on the flooring I had been considering. I was going to go for the flooring that has a 4mm wear layer with the idea that it could be maintained later on with re-sanding when needed. My reason for wanting this is I have seen some flooring that when scratched you can see down to the board underneath and it looks terrible. It turns out that floors I have seen like this are probably just really cheap imports. Fowles had both the type I was first looking at and the laminates. I put them side-by-side and got out a stanley knife. You could scratch the dearer flooring really easily, but the laminate could not be scratched. So, I have changed my mind on flooring and ordered through them. It is now going look very much like Tassie Oak (it was going to be Kempas).

We also ordered a sisal solution dyed carpet that looks like...can't describe it.. just have to wait for the photo's.

Saturday afternoon, we spent another couple of hours at Bekaert Factory Outlet in Dandenong South http://www.bekaert.com.au/ This outlet sells clearance drapery material and if you are handy with the sewing machine is quite a money saver. The materials by no means look 'cheap' either and there are professional curtain makers who shop there. We picked up some material for all of the living rooms, and Supermum and Oma (my mum - Oma is Dutch for Grandmother) will be getting busy on their sewing machines.

Today I was just playing in the mud with a machine called a Dingo. I had hired this with a bucket and a trenching attachment. The plan was, remove the excess dirt from the driveway, dig a phone trench and lay down some crushed rock before the concreting gets done. It was fun for the first couple of hours, but the novelty soon wore off. I spent from 10.00AM to 6.00PM ripping the driveway back and removing the dirt. The dirt ranged from really wet soft sticky clay to hard sticky clay with rocks. By the end of the day, I estimated that it was four cubic metres I had removed. The crushed rock will have to wait until one night this week.

I have already been told off for not taking any photo's, these will come soon I promise :-)

We had our practical completion inspection on Thursday. All went well over the 2 + hours we spent going through everything.

As the painters had not come back to complete the touch-ups, we made sure that we highlighted with post-it notes where the work needed to be done. This had already been done, but we found more.

The facade is still in the mystery colour, but this will be sorted out. So I am going to wait until the end of the week before I will put any new photo's up. I would prefer to put the completed photo's up than any I have now.

We got some positive comments on the kitchen last time, could you spot the minor issue? I did as soon as I saw the photo's; most of the handles are not straight. Easy fix, and the supervisor was going to do it himself.

We are really happy with how everything has turned out, and how well we have been treated by Porter Davis.

PS, settings not working properly and I could not put a title to this. Hand over is Friday the 13th! (lucky we are not superstitious )

Week 17, tada - the promised photo's!!!

Wohoo!!! Check it all out! In ten days it will be all ours :-)
Our supervisor let 'supermum' in today so we could get some measurements and quotes done. My instructions were "Please get some photo's, people want to 'see' what is going on :-)
We have got more, these are just a sample.

This photo is a great shot of our bench top and glass splashback selection. The bench top is Quantum Quartz Everest colour and the splashback is in metalic black. Why the powerpoint is like that is a mystery.



Here is a shot of the kitchen.

And another.

And from a different angle.

The finished ensuite complete with shower screen.

Quality Inspection 3 had been done, and there were a few stickers inside showing problems. We are going in for an inspection on Thursday so these can all be discussed. From what was described to me and in other photo's I have it is fairly minor stuff.

Completed bathroom.

The revised laundry layout, with the bench changed over. We now have a space where our 7.5kg machine will fit. The sparkies forgot the powerpoint and will come back to put this in.

When you have the final quality inspection, they leave post-it notes around where there are problems. Here there are some chips in the paint work.

A couple of posts ago I was pretty angry about the vandals that struck. Here is one shot of the repair work in progress.

I also asked for some outside shots, but being overcast and late in the afternoon it was too dark for these. Actually there is not much new other than the garage door. I will try and unravel the 'mystery' of the facade colour on Thursday with the supervisor as I am sure it must be undercoat. But, this is from someone who can wear one blue sock and the other black and have absolutely no idea! Who knows, it may be different by then as the painters are coming back over the next couple of days anyway.

Next time, I will arrange the blog with a bit of a completed tour. Bye for now :-)

1st Home Sold!

A releif today as our current home sold unconditionally. This means it is a done deal, and we just have to wait for settlement.

We will be owners of two homes for about one month, which is not really a problem for us.

Thank you Ray White Werribee, they worked for six hours with the purchaser making the deal happen today. Well done, we are grateful!

Week 16, no photo's to show you

Just a quick update as another week has passed.

I called past on Sunday and found that the repairs to the vandalism had commenced. I could see that the garage door had been installed, the glass splashback in the kitchen was there and the shower screen in the ensuite also.

PD say that when painting is finished it is only 90%. They come back towards the end and complete any touch-ups as necessary after the other trades have finished. I have not had a chance to get inside to check this out, but can see on the outside a few areas that need more paint.

I think I have admitted here a couple of time how bad I am with colours. The facade is bagged and painted in solarguard woodland grey. There are some mouldings on the facade that remain unpainted and I 'think' that the bagging is only in undercoat at the moment. It just doesn't look dark enough to be the grey we selected and putting the paint card next to it seems to prove this. I will just ask the question to the supervisor about the painting on the outside.

Started to arrange quotes for the driveway. We will be going for exposed aggregate concrete as this meets the design rules of the estate.

I will try and get some photo's soon. Until next time :-)

Week 15, someones idea of 'fun'?!

I received a call from our supervisor today saying that the Electricians had let him know there had been a break-in last night.

He thought it was probably just kids having some 'fun' as nothing was stolen other than a shower head. What the little p****s had done was try and kick in the internal garage door and when that didn't work break a window to get in. They then decided to kick in some plaster walls in the back half of the house.

What does this mean for us? Probably means a delay in the hand over while Porter Davis arrange for the damage to be repaired. I trust them completely to fix it all up as good as it was before, and it really must be a pain in the backside for them. And another insurance claim on our job.

Somehow we all pay for this type of crap anyway, these costs must be passed on somewhere I would think.

I could have really gone on with this one and done lots and lots of swearing - but did all of that offline! It just leaves a sour taste when this sort of thing happens, and if anybody decides to try something like that when we are living there they had better watch out!

Still there a plenty of people in the world with far more significant problems than this anyway....

Next time should be a happier house is now complete update :(

Week 15, plumbers and electricians come back

Went to the house today to meet the electricians to make sure of the placement for the light fittings. Basically when we purchased we designed the layout with the idea of adding more later on, so the positions would have seemed strange to them.
They weren't there, but our supervisor was waiting so I discussed the placement with him.
He also went over what was going to happen from now until hand-over.

The electricians were coming in today to install the light fittings, power points and light switches and anything else electrical that needed doing.

Took the opportunity to grab some quick photos of the tiling job. Have to say that I am pretty impressed with the quality of the work and how the overall look has turned out.

This first photo is the double shower in the ensuite. You know, shower with a friend and save water!


The plumbers had also been in earlier this week to fit the vanity basins, tapware and toilets.

The shower in the main bathroom.
































Vanity in main bathroom.
















Today there were coming back to replace this laundry bench top. It is going to be reversed as our washing machine is too big to fit in the space you can see here next to the back door.

















I know, this is hardly a glamor shot! But, I didn't really take any photos of the paint job. I did have a good look at the quality of the paint job and again, really impressed. There is a really nice gloss level achieved on the skirts, archs and doors.

This is the only photo were you can get a glimpse of what I am talking about, so I have included it!

Yesterday marked the 10th year that we have been in our current home, and the real estate agent left a message saying that an offer was about to come through - so fingers crossed that it will be a decent offer!

We will be in the house next week to measure up the windows for blinds and bedrooms for carpet. I will take some updated photos then as it all should be very close to being finished.

See you next time :-)

Week 14, tiling complete

There have been no opportunities for me to take any photos in the daylight. All I have managed to do is look through the windows with the torch.

The tiling has been completed and looks great! Can't wait to see it all in full daylight and the paint job too.

They are now moving on to what I would call the finishing touches. The Electricians come back next week to fit the powerpoints, light fittings, light switches and anything else electrical. Other things to happen next week or the week after are shower screens, final plumbing, paint touch-ups, garage door, glass splashback and probably more things that I don't know about.

We have a hand-over date early in July which would put the total construction time at 17 weeks. Amber gave me some good advice recently "start packing!", which we have started doing with great gusto. So far about 40 boxes and some furniture have gone into storage. I put our current home on the market before we were really ready. This has put the pressure on us to have it clean and presented well before our first open house this Saturday.

I will be in the house later next week and will take some photos of the kitchen, bathrooms and paintwork.

I am looking at getting concrete driveway quotes at the moment for exposed aggregate and researching flooring. The driveway has to be done within three months of moving in, but the sooner the better so we can actually use the garage. I still can't tell if the driveway angle is going to be a bit of a **** (swore there and then edited) or not and might get the concreters opinions.

The fences also have to be done within a certain timeframe after moving in, but I will have to look at the land contract as I can't remember. For the flooring, we were thinking of ceramic tiles but decided against this because of the chance of cracking. We will put in a floating floor and if the slab gets some fine cracks underneath it won't matter. Plus, the flooring looks better in our opinion. I wanted to save some money and thought tiles would be cheaper, but I found a bloke on eBay who has his own business importing this flooring. He also has a display at the Pipeworks Market and I went there to check it out. His flooring is the same as that I have been quoted $77 - $105 sqm, if you are interested click this link http://stores.ebay.com.au/kvl102420113_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZQ2d33QQftidZ2QQtZkm

We are very excited about how the new house is going, but right now the selling process of our current home is the focus. I was seriously considering doing the selling myself and pocketing any commission payable, but this post changed my mind http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=1848 as I realised I would be way too stubborn and not negotiate. I will let the Real Estate Agents do the negotiating for us.

See you in about a week with some pics! :-)

Week 13, painting finished now onto tiling

I have not been able to get any recent photos of the place, only been out there one night in the past week with the torch. Was out there today for a very short time looking for a plaster offcut to use in a repair at home and did not have the camera with me.

From what I have seen, the paint work is looking great and I can't wait to get inside to have a proper look.

I said last time there were a couple of things I was not happy with but thought they could be 'work in progress'. Turns out that was the case as there were some shelves in the linen press and bedrooms 2, 3 and 4 where the supports were only tacked in. These will get secured properly soon. Last time I noticed some gaps around the architraves and door jambs when there was only one coat of paint. I am pretty sure that these would be filled somewhere before the final coats, so I will look out for that now the painting is finished.

The tiler has started, with the water-proofing in the showers and the ledge for the shower bases. They haven't yet changed the laundry bench, and I hope it doesn't get tiled on the wrong side!

Until next time :-)

Week 12, more photos of the paint job

This is the architrave profile we have selected for the arch's and skirts, very happy with the choice.

We called into the house today to grab some more photos and for me to check the paint job in natural daylight. Again, it is really hard to see the true colour in these pictures, the one in the garage is probably the best indicator. The photo with all of the doors looks very yellow - which it isn't.

The painters have done the ceiling white and one coat of the wall colour and it is looking great!

Now that there is paint on the wall I can see what a great job the plasterers have done. It did look very straight and neat, but with paint on I cannot see any joins or waves in the ceilings or walls - well done fellas!

I think in this photo you can see the true colours. All internal walls are being painted in Wattyl Porcelain in a low sheen finish. This is a fairly neutral colour and we will add some feature walls after hand-over. We didn't get the builder to do these as we could not decide on what we wanted! Anyway, it is not going to make or break them if we don't use them for this.

We will also let the kids select a feature wall colour for their bedrooms (with a bit of guidance).

I have put a few photos of the outside so that you can see how it is all going. In the daylight I could see that it has only had one coat of paint.

This photo shows our exterior selection, the tiles are Boral Macquarie in a colour called Ebony. The gutters and fascia are painted with Wattyl Sunfast in Colourbond Paperbark (used to be called Marino). The bricks are Boral Settler Sandstock.

We are really happy with our choices and how it has turned out :-)

When I had a look inside, I was very impressed to see that there had already been a start made on the items identified in the inspection report. I noticed some of the fit-out work that I was not totally happy with, but I will talk to the supervisor before I go blogging about it. To me it would be fairly easy to fix and I could be premature to complain about it. But, on the other hand the supervisor has said if there is anything that bugs me it is better to ask.

Supermum says I don't close off the blogg properly each time and it just sounds like I stop mid-paragraph. So... ummmm... 'May the force be with you' .....

Week 12, painting has started

We received a copy of quality inspection 2, and must say that this confirmed for us that the quality of the build to-date is excellent. I could understand about 99% of what was written on the report, but talked to the supervisor about it all anyway. Happy to say that all items identified on the report will be addressed and when inspection 3 is done will be double-checked.

I am going to talk about the job the brickies did again, it is just that I really admire the skill involved and it is just such a major part of the house. The inspection report confirmed that the brickwork was spot on and of an excellent standard. There was really nothing to say on the report regarding the brickwork. So again, well done fellas I owe you a couple of slabs or better!

The pictures you see here are a couple of snaps taken on supermums phone. It was getting dark, so these are a bit blurry. Will take the camera out on the weekend.

I stopped by after work and did another torch job. I could see the quality of the paintwork on the gutters, fascia and downpipe was excellent and this was one thing were I could surely see the colour.

This is another trade that I appreciate after having done quite a bit of painting myself. I was happy to see (in the dark anyway) that there were no obvious drips or runs and no splatters on the brickwork.

I did have a look inside and think that this paint is the sealer/undercoat at this stage. You can see that all of the cabinets and windows have been taped up. This is because they spray paint the house which I think is a great way to go. Would sure beat rollers and brushes!

The architraves, skirting boards and doors have all been hung. I am really happy with the choice of profile we have selected.

Everything in the house is straight, level, square and has even gaps where there should be gaps. These are the things that I am paying attention to now and I think I have a bit of an eye for them also.

When things are not symmetrical and supposed to be, it drives me crazy! In our current home I can point out each and every wall that is not square or has a bow in it.

Tune in next time "Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel" and there should be more photos of the paint job (yes I still live in my childhood and may make Get Smart references also).