Choosing lights

Choosing our lights was one of the hardest decisions we’ve had to make.  There are so many pros and cons to all the different lights, it’s reeeeally hard to weigh them all up.  E.g. downlights are good because they look quite clean and unobtrusive but they’re bad because they get quite hot and can cause fires if they’re not installed properly and you have to cut a big hole in the insulation around them which of course causes heat loss/gain through the roof, not good when you’re going for an energy efficient house.  So, fluros, they’re good because they’re very energy efficient, but, if you turn them on and off frequently it shortens the life of the bulb (significantly I’m told) and since compact fluros have an electronic ballast and mercury in them you really decrease their environmental benefit if you churn through them.  And fluoros have issues being dimmable.    So in some situations the halogen are still the best.   All this, combined with trying to find something that looks good and won’t cost a fortune makes choosing lights pretty difficult.

So after much angst we decided on the lights as shown below.  Clockwise from left:

• Tubular Bells 55cm from Euro Luce. Three of these will go above the kitchen island bench. They’re fixed to the ceiling, ie not hanging on a cord.  These are halogen and therefore give off a good bright light for kitchen workspaces and are dimmable.
• Odeon from Beacon Lighting. These are circular fluros and will be used in all the bedrooms, bathrooms and study and on the wall in the stairwell.  These are the ones we’ll use in most places, there’ll be 20 of them in the house.  We’ve used then in a few places where halogen rather than fluro would’ve been better, ie pantry and WIR but there were no good (cheap, non-downlight) halogen’s available so we’ll go with these for now and replace them later if we find a better solution.
• Dioscuri 25cm from Artemide. These will be used in the living area and outside in the courtyard (they’re waterproof) .  We chose these rather than the Odeon’s for the living area mainly because they’re dimmable.
• Studio Large, from Ambience Lighting. These will go on the outside walls above the gates. Not sure if you can tell from the photo but it’s stainless steel. (this one is lying on it’s back).
• bakelite ceiling rose and lampholder and twisted cloth flex from Authentic Lighting and Hardware. This will go in the entry. Not sure what kind of fitting I’ll put on this, I have a few ideas but I’ll keep them to myself for now :)
• Not in the photo are two fluro downlights for the kitchen, and a George Nelson Bubble Lamp for above the dining table (see previous post).

(PS: this post was drafted by Amy about a month ago, but never got published.  So I made some tweaks and pushed it out).

Decking, plaster and a few leaks

This week we had the carpenters back to do some more cladding and the decking facing the street on the west-side.  It’s not finished, but the decking looks good and starts to give us an idea of what the finished product might look like.   Our landscaper is back in the country, so we’ll be meeting him this week to finalise the plans and then schedule the work to start (probably in mid-January).

The plastering is still going on.  They’re really dragging there heels, which is frustrating everyone.  The upstairs is mostly plastered, and just the ceiling and stairway need to be completed downstairs.    They’ve promised the builder that they’ll finish it ASAP … but  we’ll see.

We had some big storms last Thursday, and I went through the house after work, and there were some leaks. :(   In some ways it’s fortunate that the plastering wasn’t completed, as some of these leaks would not have been as evident.   There seems there’s something a bit wrong with the roof plumbing where the first floor meets the ground floor.   Our architect attended the site-meeting on Friday, and he’s given the builders a bit of a kick in a pants to get it sorted out.   There going to have a meeting with the builder, architect and plumber first thing next week.   I’m sure it will all get resolved … it’s just all a bit stressful.    At least we have an independent expert (the architect) on our side to help negotiate and resolve these issues.

Light!

Just picked up our light to go over the dining table. Bought from luke.com.au. It’s lovely!! Can’t wait to put it up and turn it on! (but it’ll probably be another month yet)

Bubble lamp

Slow progress

Progress was a bit slower this week.   The curved cladding got completed, more insulation was put in and the upstairs bathrooms were plastered.

The cladding on the house is pretty much complete now (barring the little bit you can see here).  There’s more cladding for the external parts like the gates and garage … but the house is pretty much there.

This is the ensuite, you can see the shape of what will be the recessed shelf below the mirror and also the shower at the end.

This is the main bathroom.  You can see Amy through what will become a recessed shelf near the bath … she’s standing on the stairs.

Here’s one of the bedrooms.  You can see how much insulation we’ve got.   It looks a bit like a padded cell at this point.

Close to lock-up

It’s been a few weeks and there’s been quite a bit of progress:

• Gutters and downpipes
• Installed gas and solar hotwater
• Gas plumbing
• Bath installed
• Insulation
• Gas fire installed
• Plastering started
• Stairs installed
• Cladding almost completed ;)

We should be at lockup next week …. <cross fingers>.

Check it out …

 

More windows and too much water

All the windows are now in, including the windows around the curved study section. As you can see below it’s looking pretty good. These windows have an Azurlite tinting to reduce the amount of westerly sun entering the study.   From the outside they have a grey-ish mirrored appearance.

The photo below shows the window/frame of the mini balcony in the main bedroom.  As you can see we get a nice view of the big (and very green) Liquid Ambar in the front yard.

 

After the big rain storm on Friday the house was a bit soggy inside. Particularly in the dining, which is below a box gutter that isn’t plumbed in properly, and therefore will fill up and gradually leak it’s contents into the house, making the studwork and floors very soggy. Yuck!   You can see the gutter below …. along with my jury rigged water diversion device made of Tyvek moisture barrier and sticky tape.   It was quite effective at getting the water outside.

More windows, more cladding

The remainder of the windows were delivered this week, and some of them have been put in (in the kitchen and dining).   The cladding is getting pretty close now, and they should have the house cladding done in about a week.    We also finalised all the door hardware/lock/etc and they’ve been ordered … so we’re hoping to be at lockup in a few weeks.

Some punk kids got on the site this week and graffitied!  Luckily the little angels had enough taste to only tag the Tyvek moisture barrier, and not our lovely timber cladding.  Phew!

Really taking shape

It’s been a few weeks since the last post.  Since then steady progress was made on the timber cladding … and yesterday they started applying the curved cladding upstairs. It’s looking fantastic. :)

The builders expect to have completed the cladding in about 2 weeks time.   The remainder of the windows will be delivered on Monday.  They estimate we’ll be at lock-up stage by mid-November at the latest… and they say it will be “real close” to finished by Christmas.

The past few weeks have been pretty stressful (mainly for Amy).  We’ve had a lot of decisions/planning/revisions/etc to the electrical plan, lighting, door hardware and joinery.   Things that you’d think would be simple (like door lock), are much more complicated than you could imagine.   We’re really close to finalising all this … and once this done most of the major decisions are done (which is a big relief).   Then we’ll be on to the landscaping. ;)

The first photo below shows the south-side and entrance.  It’s a little hard to see … but they’ve clad over the gate opening, and will cut it and use the cut cladding for the gate.

And the cladding begins

Last week the cladding begun, and it’s looking great … even if they’ve only partially done only a few of the walls.   The cladding is a sugar gum and will be left unstained to weather natually.

When we first started planning this house and gave the architects the brief we thought we’d build the house from some sort of blockwork (like Hebel).  When they came back with the initial design which was clad in sugar gum I was a little hesitant given that most houses are built of brick these days.  After some investigation and seeing lots of really nice wood clad homse I came around.   Every time I see a wood-clad home I usually really like it.   The wood makes them looks warm and natural.

In addition to this home being energy efficient, it turns out that timber is much more environmentally friendly than bricks.  The embodied energy in bricks is high due to the manufacturing process.   The sugar gum cladding is grown in sustainable plantations, and it’s radial sawn which reduced waste in the sawmill.   So it will look great and be environmentally friendly.  :)

It’s a bit hard to see in the picture below, but they’re using stainless steel nails so we don’t get ugly rust marks in the wood.

Most of the water pipes were also mostly put in last week.  There’s a multi-colored maze of pipes weaving throughout the house.  The purple pipe is grey-water (to the toilets), the black is the pure/mains water to the kitchen and the green pipe is rain-water used for the rest (showers, basins, washing machine, etc).

The windows are going in

The windows started being put in on Thursday, and that continued on Friday.   Most of the first delivery of windows have been installed.   Everything but the windows in the garage and the huge bank of north-facing windows in the living area.  These windows took 6 guys to lift off the truck, and it will take another 6 to move it into position.   The builders admitted it was going to be a tricky manoeuvre.

The windows were being stained prior to being installed.   Apparently the painters stained one laundry window in the incorrect color … but luckily the head carpenter notices something wrong and called the builders and got them to stop.   The window is a grey-ish color and doesn’t look good.   The builder has said it’s the painter’s fault and they’ll get it fixed (whatever that involves).

On Friday the external sugar gum cladding was delivered.  There’s 10 large packages worth.  They’ll be starting on the cladding once the last of these windows are in.

manoeuvre