Author: Susan Ward

The exterior painting continues with the finished colour now going on.  Looks very bold and contrasts really well with the white eaves and trim.

Posts for the retaining wall are now in and concrete has been poured, the builders are making the most of the patchy weather at the moment!

On the inside the electrical fitout has begun.  The fuse box has been installed into the garage and the lighting and switching cables have been run to wall brackets throughout the house.  Data cabling yet to be done and will be run back to a separate cabinet. Going into the ceiling space upstairs is the   for the ducted heatpump, vents for this go into all the rooms upstairs.

Also being run at this time is the piping for the Beam vacuum system.  We’ve upgraded the system so instead of having to drag around 20m of hose (and then store it), there is 3 separate outlets positioned around the house and each has a 15m retractable hoses which gets retracted into.

In the bathrooms the shower niche’s are in (main bathroom shown below), the master ensuite has changed from having a niche at each side of the 1.8m wide shower to having a single niche running the full width.  

Rondo battens are also going up – these are what the plasterboard will get secured to, so we’re not far off from having walls we can’t see through anymore!

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The cladding installation is now complete and the exterior painting has started with the primer going on.  Less beige and more white!

The rear boundary has been excavated and the full size of the backyard can now be seen.  More spray painting marking out where the posts are going to go, there’s going to be a few of them!

Stairs are now in.  No more ‘builder’s ladder’, although it was full of character, it’s great to see stairs in that space now.  They’re not as steep as the stairs in our current residence which will be quite nice. 

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The cladding installation is almost complete with just a small area at the front to do. 

The corner door has now gone in and as well as the one missing window due to the anodized finish not being up to our builders standards – the house is now locked up.

Now that the cladding has gone up on the top half of the house, they’ve been able to take down the scaffolding around the rear of the house in preparation of Earthworks Part 2.0. 

Running behind all the houses on our side of the street is an engineered batter which our rear boundary is halfway up.  We’ve decided to excavate into this batter and build a 1.5m retaining wall, effectively doubling the outdoor area at the back of the section, visible by the orange spray painted line. 

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This week we had our plumbing and electrical walkthrough. 

With the electrician it was deciding on where every power point and light switches will be, data cabling requirements, security requirements and lighting.  Fortunately, we’d already pre-planned where we had wanted the light switches so it was really straight forward.  Although when we got to the main bathroom the door swing and the shower size and location meant we had to shift the towel rail to a different wall to be able to locate the switches in a logical place.  Things you don’t notice on the floorplan!

Then with the plumber on the location and position of taps and shower heads as well as exterior taps.

The joinery for the corner sliding doors and delivered and installed as well, doors to follow and along with one last window for the front of the house, will complete all the joinery.

Also we have more beige cladding installed and not far from it being complete.

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Well it had to happen eventually.  Wellington’s perfect weather which has lasted for most of the build to date, abruptly stopped.  This week saw Wellington with some of it’s heaviest downfalls and a depressing 6 minutes of actual sunlight!

Unfortunately the roof hasn’t been completed and the entire first floor remains still exposed to the elements.  As you can see from the photo’s there’s more than a little standing water.

Next week is the scheduled Plumbing and Electrical walkthrough which prompted us to contact an architectural lighting company Moth Lighting to assist.  They are now designing a full lighting and switching plan for the house with some really modern products.

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Cladding installation has started this week.  Eventually they will be painted but for now they’re a very beige…. beige.

Also the laundry exterior door and window has been installed – this has the cat door in it and because it’s double glazed it had to be done from the factory.  A good thing to know!

More ground floor roof installed but first floor not started yet, luckily beautiful sunny weather all week.

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We have beautiful windows and front door!

This house was designed long and narrow with lots of windows on the north side to maximize sun and natural light into most of rooms.  And big windows at that. 

The black anodized finish looks very sharp and modern and it will be great to see when the cladding starts going on.  Most opening windows have vented latches to allow for secure opening and ventilation, only the ones on sliding doors don’t. 

One of the changes we made during window walkthrough was to have a tint applied to the sidelights either side of the front door, it’s a nice privacy effect but it’s hard to photograph!

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Checking in this week, the flashing tape has been installed for in preparation for the joinery installation.  Also the support framing has been removed from the garage and open plan living room so we can see the full scale of the room. And the roof has begun to be installed over the ground floor.

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Quick visit to site today.  More wall underlay on the first floor now.  It starts to highlight the size of the windows in the individual rooms, and they’re quite big!

Also the framing that was supporting the pillarless corner in the living room has been removed, and it now really opens up the family/dining area.  

 

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On Monday 11th May, the PM announced the alert level would change from level 3 back to level 2 starting Thursday 14th, so a level 2 weekend meant we had some freedom to get out and about.

We headed to the house to see progress since our walk-through two weeks prior.  Fascia has begun to be installed around the roof line and while the house is still mostly framing, the addition of Thermakraft wall underlay on the exterior helps you get a better feel of room sizes.