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

First batch of windows delivered

When I drove past the house on the way to work this morning the first batch of windows had been delivered.  The garage was full of them!   I can’t wait to see them in.

The construction of the 2nd batch of windows couldn’t start until the frame was completed.  These were windows that needed precise frame measurements to get right (e.g. where we have two panes of glass meeting in a corner window).    There’s only a handful of these though.

Roof is going on

The plumbers came back on site this week and starting work on the plumbing and on Friday they started the gutters and roof.  The roof is on the garage and 2nd floor.    The carpenters have also put the cement sheeting cladding on the garage in preparation for delivery of the windows.    The first batch of cedar windows will be delivered this week, and they need to be protected from the weather before being stained.  They’ll be painted in the protection of the garage before being installed.

Earlier in the week, we had a site meeting with the builder, the architect and the building surveyor for the frame inspection.  There were a few minor things that needed to be fixed before the building surveyor could sign off the frame.   They expect to finish of the frame this week.  Then they’ll move on to the sugar gum cladding.

We also talked with the builders about the upstairs area around the ensuite.  There were some things that were slighly different to the plan making some rooms slightly larger and the main bedroom slightly smaller.  They’d put in an extra stud wall between the ensuite shower wall and the other bedroom to take up about 180mm so to make the window position correctly.   It was a shame just to waste this 180mm, so we asked them to make some adjustments to use that extra 180mm in our bedroom.  The net result is that our bedroom is slightly larger than planned (100mm) and the bathroom is sized as planned (with the shower a bit larger and the vanity a bit smaller).  Get that?! :)

Are we there yet?!

It’s now been 6 weeks since the start of the frame construction (which is a longer than the “few weeks” that the builders initially indicated).   But we’re almost there and the frames are almost complete.   We have the frame inspection with the builders and architect on Wednesday morning.

On the weekend we climbed the make-shift ladder to the 2nd floor and had our first chance to look at the rooms.  It all looked great.    It was nice to get a feeling for the views we’d get out of the windows from all the rooms.   The photos below will give you a feel for it.

This is the main bedroom, taken from within our walk-in robe.

This is the ensuite.

This is the main bathroom.

And one of the other bedrooms.

It’s still standing

Everything’s still standing after the big storm. :)   And we were lucky with the weather the carpenters put in a full week’s work.  The 2nd floor frame is mostly complete, and they’ve got it ready to put the ceiling on the first floor.   They hope to have the framing all complete this week, so we can get the windows in and roof on.

This is the view up what will be the stairs.  Some of the structural details near the top of the stairs weren’t fully detailed in the plans, so the builders have had to figure it out on the fly.  Some of the studwork on the right of the stairs also needs to be adjusted.

Windy

They put the frame up for the 2nd floor today.  I sure hope it’s attached well because we’ve got 90+km/h winds right now!