Thursday, 29 May 2014

REVERSE GEAR

So our house is coming along well. Despite being promised bricklayers by Thursday (today), they haven't shown up. We do however have internal plaster boards up and the joins are ready for sanding. Should have the kitchen installed next week. Thanks to the plasterers, everyone has access to our house tonight. Not too happy about that. The laundry and back sliding doors were left ajar, I suppose to vent the plaster smell. The lock-up stage is turning out to be a reverse-lock-up. Please brick my house before we see real rain.
 Our lounge/dining area windows.
 The space for our kitchen to please be "inserted" next week.
 The corridor down to the kids/spare bedrooms, guest bath and toilet.
 Another shot of the kitchen and dining areas.
The front corridor leading to our "green" front door. Hehe, loving the undercoat :)

We are still hopeful for a quick settlement, if the pace remains this steady. It is a pretty easy build and this house build is guaranteed to be complete in 14 weeks in QLD. Why not here? In saying this, I have my heart set on an early August settlement.

Sunday, 18 May 2014

Colour in...




These are our chosen colour schemes, the only variation is that we will be having light oak as the laminate flooring in lieu of blackwood and the benchtop, as it will be ceasarstone, will be ice snow. A few of the suppliers have changed, mostly because they had us sign a very dated contract.

TV: to hide or not to hide?




I am lost as to where we place the TV. We have a wood heater that we need to install between the lounge room windows. The only option for the TV is on the opposite wall, above the fireplace, next to the sliding doors or fixed to the wall in the far corner of the room on a swivel mount.
Open to suggestions for where to place this well used piece of technology. Our TV is a 42inch and we normally have a pay tv box and the wii/playstation hooked up.
This image shows the layout of the room, not including our 3.5 seater lounge (2.5m in length) and pair of arm chairs (0.7m wide each).

The lounge/dining area is 4880 X 9520, of which 4690 is allocated to the lounge area. 

This is what my instinct is saying, yet having my couch in front of such a large window is not quite ideal, as it's leather.

What about a TV above the fireplace? I am undecided and indecisive. This decision may drag on.




PROGRESS FINALLY....and surprisingly quick too :)

So after the land settling later than expected; 30 Jan. It took Metricon quite some time to get all the required plans together and sent to council for approval.
The site cut commenced on the 17th of April and since then, it has been go, go, go!
invoice was sent.
We visited the site today, and were suprised to see a slab, frame complete, electricity meters, switchboard, all of the windows installed and roof tiles delivered ready to go up with roof scaffolding already in place.
I had some great shots of the lounge area, the size which I am extremely happy with. My daughter kindly deleted them for us on the car ride home.
I am somewhat disappointed with the size of the outdoor room, hopefully hubby will extend the decking out and around the side of the property to compensate for such a small area.

A rough guide for timing of the progesss:
week 1: site cut
week 2: slab poured
week 3-4: framing and windows 



Our house seems to be almost bang on track with this guide, so we are hopeful for a 14-16 week build time. Metricon have advised us that the 2nd of October is our completion date, yet I am quietly praying for August.

Our Opinion of Metricon

We are overall quite happy with the quality of build so far, we have looked at other builds nearby and their sites are messy, concrete slurry has been left to set everywhere and their slab does not have clean edges, which will make gardening very difficult in the future. Our site is clean, and progress has pushed past some of the homes that were started before ours. 
Our site supervisor has changed since the completion of base stage, and he has already called twice to inform us of the works booked in and completed.
We can only hope that the pace is kept steady and that we will be in soon. At this stage of the build, patience is vital, yet I cannot help getting excited. 

Excitement

I am so excited that I purchased these two chair to sit alongside our Arthur G sofa from the factory sale in Huntingdale. They will later be paired with out leather sofa which is a modern take on a chesterfield. 
You will have to wait, as will I, to see them sitting pretty in the lounge area when our house is completed.