Author: Richard

The past week has seen the tiling get underway. Our builder’s tiler is from Masterton and he has brought down a crew of 7 for the duration of the work (they got themselves an Airbnb!)

Leading up to the tiling, our builder contacted us because the tile company did not have enough stock of our chosen tile, as we needed ~150sqm worth. He then went through half a dozen tile places to find tile options, and somewhat amazingly, found one that was practically identical including the dimensions (450×900). Legend.

We met onsite with our builder and the tiler to go over the layout of the tiles, the finishing trim and the grout colour. Who knew how many colour options there are for trim and grout!

The following week we were back onsite for the landscape walk-through – fencing, paved areas, driveway and grass. The tilers were well underway, people laying the tiles, people cutting tiles. We popped in again on the weekend and the bathrooms are now tiled and they’ve done an impressive job.

Although the tiles have variances, the tiler has managed to find pattern’s that match between tiles and blended 2 or 3 tiles in some area’s. It makes quite a difference from the mis-matched jigsaw look you can get with tiles with veins or patterns. The non-tiled areas on the floor that are visible are the channel drains for the shower, these will also have tile inserts for a cleaner look.

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Not much happened last week as our builder took his entire team to Queenstown for 4 days, what a top guy!

They’re back on site this week and full steam ahead. More doors have been installed and we’re really happy that we went with the full height doors. It makes the ceiling seamless from one end of the house to the other and also has the effect of making the ceiling look higher than it is and seamless from one end .

Because all the bathrooms are fully tiled, the sub-floor has been dropped under the showers in the master ensuite and main bathroom in order to fit a special sloped shower tray which the tiles are laid over. Without dropping the sub-floor the showers would require you to step into the showers because of a special sloped shower tray that gets installed. By dropping the sub-floor under the showers, the tray’s can be installed and the tiles laid so that the showers are level entry. It is quite a bit of work as extra joists need to be installed and fixed to the existing joists but set lower so certain areas of the flooring can be dropped.

Window and door trims are going on as well and they look great.

We’ve also had the wall between the living and lounge rooms built out to where the cavity slider opens to. Originally, (and as per the plan) the wall was stepped because of the cavity slider on the lounge side of the separating wall. By having the wall extended to match the cavity slider frame, the awkward change in wall thickness was removed and door is less obvious.

The retaining wall is coming along. It’s been back filled now so the last thing that needs to be done is to set the height once the back yard ground level is finalized.

And fencing is coming down in preparation for the landscaping work.

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Well Auckland is back at Covid-19 Level 3 and we’re at Level 2. Thankfully our builders can stay safe onsite with their precautions and carry on working.

All remaining scaffolding was removed this week, and the house can now be viewed in it’s entirety. It marks the completion of the exterior works except for the last of the plumbing, electrical and security.

On the inside the plastering continues. It’s got to be a laborious job when every join and every screw has be to be filled and sanded, and our builder is meticulous so it will be spot on.

The first of the interior doors have been installed, these are the cavity sliders and so far the big one separating the living/dining area and the lounge, as well as the pantry and our walk-in wardrobe upstairs have gone in. These have the top guide rail set flush with the finished Gib so the finished look is very seamless.

Also we now have a garage door! No more plywood and framing screws to close up every night. It is also insulated which is a bonus. We tossed up having a cedar garage door to match the front door but settled on this one, which has a nice texture to it and won’t need the kind of maintenance that a cedar door would.

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Installation of the Gib is almost complete, with just a few a couple of small area’s left to do. The bathroom’s have now also had plasterboard put up. This is a heavier grade fibre cement product, similar to what the exterior cladding is and instead of being fixed with screws it’s fixed with stainless steel nails. This is required in order to hold the weight of the tiles as all bathrooms are fully tiled.

Cutout’s for all the light fittings have been made, and the plastering has started in some areas and for the recessed LED strip lights.

Being quite a sunny day, it’s was nice to see the amount of light that comes through from the stair window into the downstairs hallway – this was looking to be quite dark!

Also this weekend we took a walk up through the surrounding hills where you can look down on the sub-division and see the whole area and what is yet to be developed further into the valley. Lots of mountain bike tracks in the area so it’ll be fun to explore.

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The scaffolding is starting to come down – which marks the completion of the exterior and house can now be seen a bit more clearly. The scaffolding on the front remains as the plumber still has some fitout work to do.

On the inside, the builders are charging ahead with the majority of Gib going up. With the GIB up the house is really starting to look like a house with the spaces now clearly defined.

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With all the electrical and plumbing done as well as the data cabling, our builders have wasted no time in getting on with installing the insulation.

To compliment the 140mm exterior framing, we’re installing R4.0 rated insulation in all exterior walls and in the ceiling where are putting in R6.0 (these are 260mm thick!). These are the highest R value single batts we can obtain for the space. The interior walls are R2.6 and the midfloor are R3.2.

GIB plasterboard supplies are also onsite ready to go up in a few days time.

Work on the retaining wall continues as the palings are now being added.

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Friday of this week we all made a trip to site for the framing and window walk-through with our builder and site manager. Being Level 3 there’s now new H&S measures for visiting site. We were required to digitally sign in via the HazardCo app on our phones which is a QR code at the gate. Sanitize before going into the house and when leaving and keeping distance between our respective ‘bubbles’.

This meeting is a bit of a milestone as after today it gets expensive to make structural changes! It’s an all of building walk through to see if we want to make changes to framing anywhere and to go over every single window, the size, opening and for sliding door’s, the direction of opening.

Framing wise we made no changes. One change that had already been committed was to change the door into the pantry from a hinged door to a pocket door which will require additional framing work to do.

With the windows, the majority of we made no changes to. One of the sliding doors were flipped to open in the opposite direction. Ava’s room has a large window and we looked at different profile options to have an awning opening. We’ve added two windows to the garage to get natural light and ventilation. Several of the windows which are 2200 high we’ve made a change to take the window flush to the floor so it’s seamless.

The flow on effect of this change is that making the large window in Bedroom 3 flush to the floor puts it too close to the roof over the garage door. To resolve that, we’ve change the roof profile from hip to a gable so it doesn’t wrap around the front of the garage.

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Monday 23 March – Alert level increased from 2 to 3 and will move to alert level 4 in 48 hours. Level 4 means full lockdown for at least 4 weeks. For us this means working from home as offices are closed, remote learning for Ava as schools are closed, all businesses and public venues closed except for essential services and supermarkets.

Our house build will also be on hold. I managed to get up for one last look on the cold Tuesday morning the day before full lockdown. The builders came up later that day and the next day to tidy up the site and secure everything for the lockdown duration. We were scheduled to have the framing and window walk-through today but that has been postponed. Building resumed for level 3 on Tuesday 28 April.

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Not much happened the week prior except that scaffolding went up around the building. This past week, the joists for the mid floor were delivered and have been installed.

It outlines the first floor quite well as you can see the floor area marked out by the joists where it runs from the stairs across the garage and forward over the living room.

Also interesting is that the framing is no longer pink!

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This week the ground floor frames went up.

On Monday the pre-fabricated frames were delivered to site, just 3 days after the slab had been poured.  On the Tuesday they all went up!  They’re not yet fixed to the slab, that will happen once the slab has had more time to cure.

We got to have a walk through on the weekend to get an initial idea of the room and window sizes and to see the orientation to the early afternoon sun.  There’s a lot of glazing down the north side of the house on the ground floor and we can see how much light is flooding through into the family/dining, living and downstairs bedroom.

We’re using larger 140x45mm exterior frames to allows us to use deeper insulation for extra warmth and deeper window sills. Interior frames will be the standard 90x45mm.