External cladding

The external cladding is getting there. It is a weatherboard lookalike product by James Hardie called Linea. Fell in love with it from a house in a magazine...which is how I have chosen most things to be honest. It will be painted, and at the moment fancy the colour "Mist"( a light grey) from Porters Paints. See how we go with the sample pot first.

Some of the people involved..

Kaz our plumber!

Trent, head carpenter and right hand man with Paul, our builder.

Bryan from Donalco measuring up the commerical windows and back doors.

Brendan (behind Ali) our electrician.

Ben, Paul's aprentice builder.

behind the walls...

There are wires running everywhere. Not sure how he its done, but looks like one big spiderweb threading in and out of every room.  Combined with the plumbing   and the bracing there is so much going on behind these walls.

..more stairs

Iain from Allwood Stairs has done a great job. Handrails wont come onsite until later ( to avoid being damaged) .

Stairs

Here we are choosing the design for the stairs....Originally we had intended to carpet the entire stairs, but ....  well, you can see Pauls (builder) reaction as I explain my change of mind. Seriously, Paul has been fantastic. Very flexible, very patient.  (Went with spotted gum treads, spotted gum hand rail, the rest painted white timber pine.) 

Cathedral ceilings

One of the specs for our Architect, Jo Gillies, was to include Cathedral ceilings in the Master bedroom.  Jo was able to include them at both ends of the house so that the rumpus room  as well as the main bedroom enjoyed this feature. We love this. Cant wait until these ceilings are freshly  painted (White on White, I think). Here is a picture of Jo Gillies (on the right) visiting the site, with Carole Huard who also worked extensively on our design. We have Carol to thank for the skyights in the kitchen ..  thats the pic with the hole in the roof.

Windows go in at the front

As previously mentioned, I have been anxious about the windows;  the style, that fact that many would need to be aluminium, etc. Well I was relieved that the windows that went in at the front of the house just before Xmas are gorgeous. So happy with them! As they are timber, they look soft and a little classy I think. My professional photographic skills dont do them much justice, but you get the drift. After seeing these, we were happy to decide on similar style windows for the upper levels at the front and back ( from the kids rooms). They should be arriving in the next few weeks....

Roof : Windspray

The roofers worked during scortching hot days in December, and then came back to finish the job during the hotest week in Sydneys ever recorded history...unbelievable. Not one complaint. Wish I had an aerial shot. We used Colorbond Windspray.

Trying to get it right.

Wow. a little behind on my blog. Where did Dec and Jan go?? House has come along in leaps and bounds. But there are so many worries that accompany building, especially when it is for the 1st time. So many consequences of so  many seemingly straightforward decisions...if you do that, then this will happen. If you decide that type/style/shape it may be too busy/plain/odd/different...My wonderful friend made the point to me recently, that when you buy a house you get it as it comes;  usually with its own set of inherited problems such as backward doors, wrong hooks and locks, lack of storage, overdone wall colours, etc.  You live with it. You make it work. No big deal. But when you are starting from scratch building a home, you feel the pressure to get it right. To try to make it perfect. Afterall there is no one else to blame but yourself!!...And this is my excuse for taking time on reaching decisions on window styles ( sooo important), taps ( just pure pain and boredom), staircase ( in the end it didnt feel right to run carpet up all the way...), open fireplace ( went from 1970's style sandstone surrounds - no way we were going to change our minds - to settling on classic Victoran painted mantle ), electrics ( who really gives a shit anyway . ..thanks to help from my little bro in law, managed to sidestep most of this so far), and the list goes on.
Here are some pics to make up for lost posts on this blog over the past 2 months...

The photos above show the completion of the extensive framework that wraps around the original steel structure. You can start to see the shape of the house from the front.