We have a roof!

Hubby went to the house today and told me that the roof tilers had just finished tiling the roof! He sent me this picture...  LOL...

To be honest I was surprised that it was done today. The tilers left a few spare tiles on site for us. Hubby and I will put them in the sub floor area on Wednesday. 

We have a roof - sort of...

Well, timelines were pushed out again. We didn't make it to lockup by Christmas. 

We have had the plumbing roughed in, foil insulation wrap and roof sarking done, roof tiles laid (ridge capping is still to be fixed into place) and hubby ran some conduit for data and alarm cables. 

Ensuite wall mixer plumbing

Kitchen sink plumbing 

Powder room basin wall mixer plumbing 

Bathroom plumbing. Bath spout under the window, bath wall mixer on the other wall and you can just see the basin wall mixer plumbing to the right

Laundry plumbing

Roof sarking

Roof half tiled

Roof tiled. Ridge capping is still to be fixed into place. 

Hubby putting some extra timber in the frame for the family room TV bracket

Conduit and draw wire for theatre room projector. 

Looks like the tradies have made themselves a swing on our deck downstairs :-/ 

We have been told that the bickies will be back after the first week in January and the electrician will commence his rough in 13th January 2014. Aiming for lockup by the end if January. Fingers crossed! 

Gluten Free Blog... plus quick house update

So we are still not at lock up...

There were so many problems with the roof truss that things kept getting delayed.

We have had our roof tiles laid, although they're not finished. The brickies and tilers will return in the new year. Here is an updated pic. I will share more in the next couple of days. 

In other news I have just started a new blog called Gluten Free Addict. I would love it if you would visit and share my new blog www.glutenfreeaddict.blogspot.com 

With so many people diagnosed with coeliacs disease or a gluten intolerance I hope to be able to share some recipes, restaurant recommendations, shopping guides etc.

Thank you!

Some roof, some bricks and no common sense!

We have had a few headaches in the last 10 days. There have been issues with getting the roof truss up, the brickies didn't roll the mortar on the garage and the wrong windows have been installed in the family room. Before I get into those issues I'll share some progress pictures. 

As the pictures below will show we have had some bricking and framing done since my last post. 

They started to brick the wall for the garage and forgot the roll the mortar... Lucky they were only four courses high when we realised this. They have since knocked the wall down and started again. 

We have also had several headaches with getting our roof truss erected. First the crane was too small. Then the next crane guy refused to drive down the block in fear that he wouldn't get back up - the joys of building on a sloping site!!! Finally a 50 tonne crane was booked to help lift the roof truss onto the frame. Even then the crane couldn't reach the back of the house so the framers have to do the rest manually - poor guys! 

This is the crane...

Here are some progress shots taken today. 

Down the hall, looking towards master bedroom. 

Front entrance. 

Photo of the inside of the garage wall. This wall will be plastered on the inside. 

I also noticed today that the incorrect window was put in the family room. The windows for the family room, meals area and garage are the same windows except that the garage ones aren't double glazed. The framers accidentally put a single glazed window in the family room and left the double glazed one on site to be installed in the garage. I have emailed the builder today to rectify this. Given that I picked this up whilst still at frame stage I assume it will be a quick fix. 

Framing almost complete

Quite a bit has happened in the last week. Our frame is almost complete, we have had two posts erected for our balcony and there is a lot of scaffolding. Some bricks have been delivered, as well as the roof truss so that will be going on hopefully by the end of this week. 

Here are some progress shots of the frame from the top of the block. 

In that first pic you'll notice there is a big tree towards the rear of the block and it's disappeared from the subsequent photos  

This is what is left of that tree. 

View from our bedroom window with and without the tree. I'm glad we got rid of it now as it had another 10m to grow!

You can see the two steel posts for the balcony amongst the scaffolding.

The base of the posts.

We met our aircon/heating guy on site last night to run through the system requirements. We have decided on a multi-head split system for the bedrooms and man cave. The theatre room, study, kitchen, meals, family room and hallway will be a ducted reverse cycle system. This will suit our requirements and lifestyle habits well. 

We are also shopping around for some sound batts to put in some of the walls. There are so many to choose from - its confusing! We better decide soon though as the builder has indicated they'll be plastering in December. 

Framing commenced

Unfortunately we haven't had a lot of progress in the last four weeks. At least, i would have expected more progress. 

We have some of the framing done for upstairs. This is the first section that was done. Looking down the hallway to the master bedroom. 

Looking up at the master bedroom from the backyard 

Framing around the staircase was done. Pantry framing, linen cupboard and WIR framing done - hard to see from this picture but I promise it's amongst all that timber! One of the walls in the hallway is also done. 

The doorway leading from the front to the bedrooms 

You can see the framing for the bedrooms, bathroom and laundry laying down ready to be put up. The layout has also been done for the study, theatre and family room. Those two uprights at the back are the steel posts that sit either side of the sliding door from meals to alfresco area. They will of course be concealed in the wall. 

Our concrete pad footings at the rear for the alfresco/balcony posts have to be redone - for the third time! This is because they don't meet the engineering guidelines. Although its another holdup I suppose I should be grateful that it was detected and will be rectified. I'm sure there are some builders who would have proceeded without fixing it. Still, it's annoying to have yet another hold up. 

Roof truss is due to be completed mid November and lock up in December. Or so we are told. 

We have also been told that we are still on track for a March handover. I'm not holding my breath though. 

Hubby spoke to a tree lopper today and we are going to have that tree taken down soon. As well as it blocking our view from the bedroom and living area it will present problems down the track. It can grow up to 20m tall and it'll be too dangerous to have it close to the house. 

Stay tuned for more updates...

Store room walls completed. Almost.

The last 4 weeks have been quite tedious. We were waiting on the core filled double brick store room walls to be completed before the flooring for the main level could be completed. As mentioned in earlier posts this is quite a laborious task. This week they core filled the last section of wall - yay! - so next week they can continue with the flooring and framing. I think brickies will be back next week too. They are yet to finish the core filled brick pillar that runs alongside the store room but that should be finished in the next few weeks. 

The store room window was put in place. 

The other side of the store room. The core filled brick pillar is approximately 1/3 built. 

Where the door will be for the store room can be seen here and it makes me realise just how tall the ceilings in there are - a whopping 4 metres! 

Looking down onto the store room just before the core fill was done. Our bedroom will be directly above the store room. 

Hopefully I can update with better photos in a week or two when the framers and brickies have spent more time on site. 

In other developments the Caroma Pearl basins we chose for the bathroom and powder room may not be available so we have to decide what we want instead. We are leaning towards a more rectangular version of our ensuite basins.

We have also almost decided (I say 'almost' because we always change our mind) on our aircon/heater setup. Now it looks like we will get a ducted split system for the family/meals/kitchen, theatre and study. We will get a multi head inverter split system for the 3 bedrooms. We will have to make our minds up pretty soon so we can order the units and organise the install of the big unit in the ceiling near lock up and any  piping etc can de done before the plaster is put up. 

Framing, bricks and floor joists (and cupcakes!)

A fair bit has happened these last two weeks. We have had the framing finished for downstairs. Well, almost finished. A small frame is yet to go around the service pipes but whatever. It's basically done.

The bricking has commenced at the front of the house. Here are the progress pics so far for the bricking at the front. 

The bricking of the reinforced cavity filled store room walls continues. This is a long process of bricking a section of the wall, waiting for it to cure, filling it with concrete, letting it cure and starting again. They have to do this for over 7 metres of wall. Hubby says this is like a strong room. Lol! 

Floor joists have been laid for approximately half of the main living level and some yellow tongue flooring has been laid. Termite protection also installed around the perimeter of the brickwork. I'm still confused about how a strip of orange plastic-ish material stops those little white monsters. Maybe they don't like orange!?

Floor joists day 1...

Day 2...

Day 3...  (Including someone burning off in the background. I hope they had a permit!)

A pic of inside the man cave. With some of the floor joists for the main level down I get a better idea of what 3 metre ceilings are like. All I can say is "wow!". I'm bordering on midget (5ft nothing) so hubby can take care of the cobwebs in those corners. My chances of reaching those ceilings lay between f@ck all and buckleys!

Fine weather is predicted for most of this week - hello Spring!!! I'm hoping with the great weather ahead that we will see more great progress this week. 

Last but not least, it was the annual RSPCA Cupcake Day on Monday 19th August. I baked my little heart out and raised over $200 for the RSPCA. Plus no one suffered food poisoning which I regard a massive bonus. As well as Rocky Road cupcakes, my cupcake selection included toppings like coconut and strawberries in a vein attempt to resemble a healthy food option. There were also gluten free cupcakes and dairy free cupcakes so those with a food intolerance couldn't use their intolerance as an excuse not to participate and donate ;-)  See, I do have a caring side.