Bricks ...... of course its going to rain!

This week was when our bricklayers were due to start.... so of course, Sydney is having a once in a decade super storm. I really shouldn't complain because my current house is fine, we are all safe and there are plenty of people much worse off than us.

But, it seems typical that when we needed dry weather, it poured and poured.
My bricks and tiles are all ready to be laid ..... and now we wait

I took this picture today...... certainly wasn't getting out of the car and traipsing around in the mud.... I really hope that open window hasn't let any water into my ensuite!

Kitchen , Bathrooms, Stairs

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It was exciting to visit the house this week and realise that so much progress had been made. I had a crazy work week so hadnt even done a drive by to see if we had any progress. I am so glad I got to see all this work! The kitchen of a home is to me the centre piece and most important. In our house it is also actually smack bang in the middle so it needs to have a little wow factor.

I had increased the size of the island bench and added a cupboard on the hall side and seeing it all as I had imagined is just so exciting! I love it! I do worry that we wont have enough power points in the kitchen but we can add more later.  We will have all stainless steel appliances and a silver glitter glass splash back so I think the kitchen will look pretty amazing.

 

Our cupboards were upgraded to Formica Warm White Gloss. We have standard cupboards rather than the lift up cupboards above the main bench because Mum is short and couldn't reach when the lift ups were open.I am so happy we splurged on the bulkhead. I hates my previous house getting all greasy above the cupboards and gathering dust and such.

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 Lets hope the laundry tub does not become a feature in my kitchen as it is here

 We have a decent amount of space between the bench and the island which is great as we are all generous sized people and I hate squashy kitchens. This is the standard distance though

Another important factor for me (which did actually cause me a sleepless night) was making sure that there was enough room between the fridge cavity and the island to slide our enormous fridge into. I knew the fridge cavity was plenty big enough but really that would be no use if we couldn't get the fridge past the island. Thankfully after checking measurements multiple times and seeing the space, I know it will fit.

Even the kitchen bin is in. There is no space in our kitchen to have a free standing bin and I don't like the idea of the bin (dirty) being in the pantry. That is also why we don't have a butlers pantry..... the concept of wet areas in a pantry is not something that appeals to me. We opted to not have the microwave down low in the island bench as is standard but instead have a set of drawers but we are now left with either the bench or the pantry for the microwave. I think it will end up being in the pantry but again I don't really like that idea. We don't use our microwave a lot though so perhaps I will get used to the idea.

Also added into the house this week is the bathroom vanities.

 The main bathroom has a single vanity and we have not added above bench cupboards. I am sure once we move in we will want them but it was just a cost saving measure initially as I was not sure how much additional money I was going to have. Hindsight tells me I should have but that's a lesson learned. The vanity colour is Laminex Zincworks in the silk finish (an upgrade)  and the bench is Laminex pure calcite which was standard but the 40mm thickness was part of the promotions package when we purchased.
The sink is standard and to be honest I am not sure whether I love it or hate it. Mum doesn't like it at all because it is too modern but it was standard and again, we didn't want to spend extra money here that perhaps would have compromised spending elsewhere.

The Ensuite bathroom

 This is the standard double vanity included in our package. I kinda think the bit that goes over the bath hob is a weird space but the drawer they had in the display house seemed odd also so we just left it as standard. Mum and Dad don't plan on using the bath at all so they plan a couple of baskets to fit into that space for storage as they don't have overhead cupboards either.

The colour of this vanity is Laminex Platinum in a silk finish (an upgrade) and the bench is 40mm Laminex Pure Calcite. We have different colours in both bathrooms as we like different things and also they are far away eough from each other in the house that it won't matter.

Something we have also noticed is that in order to open the window in the bathroom you will need to actually step into the bath to do so. When we chose to upgrade our tiling to go full ceiling height they had to change the windows to be wind out ones. That is actually really difficult to do leaning over the bath as its quite a distance. I suspect our bathroom windows will live open a small amount.

The golden steps were also added in this week........ why do I call them golden? well they cost almost as much. In our tender presentation we were informed that our house would need to have the garage dropped 5 bricks to fir onto the block due to the slope. This then meant that we needed to add in a set of steps to allow access from the garage to the house. The only option we were given was wooden steps as to have cement steps would mean huge expense due to the return visit required by the cement layers. So, wooden it had to be and they were $1381.

I cannot for the life of me understand this huge cost when a similar ( all be it not the same ) cost  $84in Bunning. I cannot imagine installation coasts being more than $1000!Anyway, despite asking if we had other options we had to go with this option because we would not have passed council and received our occupation certificate without them.

Having now seen them I think we will also have to pay to have a railing put with them for safety of the elderly parents. Another thing to add to the post completion shopping list.

So far along the way we have noticed a few things we plan to change when we have the finances post completion...... they are

• sliding door to children's retreat........ my son likes to sing loudly..... I should have though of that sooner as we are now not sure whether it can be done as we don't have many walls without power points etc added in.
• shelving to the walk in robe bedroom 2
• shelving to wardrobe in bedroom 3 as my son is going to be using the allocated linen closet for storage leaving us without a linen cupboard and the spare room seems the logical place
• bench and underbench cupboards in laundry and overhead cupboards - we have already identified a distinct lack of storage 
•  power point in pnatry
• we may have a row of cupboards and a desk built into the children's retreat..... again, more storage

None of these are crucial changes and we may perhaps find once we are living in the house that they are not so necessary..... I am sure there will be many more and diffierent things added to the list.

Hiccup #5

As we expected, there was a chance we would have to re choose our carpet or tiles selections because we had chosen them so far in advance. At least being pre warned it didn't come as a shock.

We have been asked to choose our carpet again as Di Lorenzo do not have enough of the one we chose. So, a quick run over to see them and we had chosen another colour. We only have carpet in the bedrooms and the study and formal living and we didn't want to spend extra money so we had pretty limited choices. We have paid to upgrade the underlay though and hopes this help it feel a little nicer under foot.

As you can see from the two choices, they are quite similar. The top choice is the old and the bottom is the new along side our floor tile and our wall colour choice. Fingers crossed it looks ok. 

The process was made pretty simple and we had no extra costs. I did ask when we were there if we could check whether we would have to do the same with the tiles but apparently not, we have to wait until they contact us if the need arises. I don't care, I was just trying to prevent another trip to Norwest.

Internal Linings and a site inspection

With the progress coming along so quickly I felt it time for a site inspection. To be able to see what was going on and know where we are at is important to us all.

Chris our site supervisor keeps me informed each Friday of what is happening and what will happen in the week ahead which is great. We are now considered to be at the lock up stage as we have completed internal linings..... air conditioning, insulation, electrical and plumbing are all in and the gyprock is up. I have included  a few pics from various angles.

Something I did pick up was (when looking through windows) prior to gyprock being done is that our tv and associated power points that were meant to be high on the walls to allow us to wall mount our televisions had in fact been put down low. I have spoken with Eden Brae and they will rectify it for us. Aside from the main bedroom, we want to wall mount 4 televisions in the living room, rumpus, children's retreat and bedroom 2. They will just look better if the power and cords are hidden.

 Ensuite bathroom

 Rumpus room

 Bedroom 2 looking into walk in robe

Looking from the main foyer down towards formal living and dining

 

Main bedroom from ensuite doorway

 

Kitchen and meals 

Formal living

It gave us all a great perspective of the size of the rooms as some felt very different to how we had imagined. I absolutely love the big windows and I cannot wait to see it with kitchens and bathrooms put in. The next stage internally is the addition of skirting and carpentry, the wet areas and then it is on to kitchens and tiles. Our site supervisor estimates perhaps another 10 weeks of build time which would take us to the first week of July. 

Bricklayers will hopefully start next week