Electrical and Plumbing Rough In

Electrical and plumbing roughed in, good to see we got all mixers in main bathroom as well as the ensuite.  Also, the gas has been run to the house!

Benches in, skirting on, and internal doors arrive

I must admit to being very lazy the last fortnight in doing this, but I have my excuses.  Anyway, these pictures were taken on Wednesday with my phone. Just got lucky that I went to the block in the morning and the garage door was left open.  I have made an appointment with our site supervisor for Monday, so will take my camera with me and take some better pictures. The tradies never seem to leave any doors or windows open lately, so only luck is getting these photos.

Amazing progress has been made in the last 2 and a bit weeks, it seems like it wont be too far until we move in now.  There has been a LOT of rain but that has not stopped them.

What has been done since the last update:

Kitchen Benches and bench top are in.
Really happy with the way the handles are, I do remember picking them that way nearly 12 months ago, but the plans had them as vertical. I didn't really care too much, just happy the plans were just about right. Considering we never once got 100% correct plans, the tradies have done a great job so far.  And the things they did get wrong, we either got upgraded for free or the problem was fixed by them.  With the kitchen, the colours of the overhead cupboards are wrong as well as the kickboards, but not sure if I should say anything as the white does look good. They were supposed to be a light grey colour.

I really like the colour of the bench top, it looks amazing. Would have loved to have gotten stone for all the bench tops but they just wanted too much money.  This is a nice wood grain like finish in a light grey. The camera on my Samsung Galaxy is just really bad, or my likely, I am a very poor photographer.  The colour is like the very right of the picture.

Bathroom cupboards:

Ensuite: Vanity in and shower base sealed.  The unit is pretty big, cant wait to see the size of the mirror.

 Shower base sealed.  I think we just have a glass screen and no door, but not 100% sure. Will find out soon I guess.

Internal doors have arrived.

Lastly the external stuff. Rendering to the facade has been done, and the bricks have been washed. I have no pictures of the bricks, but I'll get some Monday.  All that is remaining now is the eaves and skirting which is sitting in the garage, so if all goes well and the rain stops (crossing fingers and toes) that should be done this week.

Monday will most likely be a lot shorter post with better quality pictures.

Lock Up Stage - Bricks done and plaster in

I have been a bit busy through the last week so haven'd had any updates for here. They got a lot done in a week, bricks completely up and plaster completely up as well.  I apologise for the poor quality of the photos as I forgot to take my camera to the block and had to use my phone.

I really like the colour of the bricks and the mortar, they work really well together I think.  Hopefully the render colour on the portico will work in well, or at least look as good as it does now being just bricks.  The door will be a cream colour

I cant get inside to take more photos of the plaster work as we are locked out. Hopefully the builders forget to lock it up one day and I can get in there to take a few snaps.

There were a lot of bricks left over, so I asked the builder if we could keep them for a letter box etc. He had no problems as long as we moved them ourself :) So we spent about 2 hours moving bricks.

I have been told we should expect to be in the house end of June, maybe start of July. Hoping that it's quicker than that as it's starting to get expensive renting and paying off the house now.  And of course, to have our own house.

Tiny space between our garage and the fence

View from the back of the block

View from side of house into Kitchen/Dining/Lounge

Weekend date with my girfriend moving bricks.

Insulation goes in, plaster arrives and 1st layer of bricks!

We had a meeting with our site supervisor this morning. He told us that we would be in late July/Early August. I hoped to be in before the end of June, so hopefully they can get there for us.  New updates are that insulation has partially gone in, plaster has been delivered, and bath has been plastered.

We were excited to see that the brick walls have started. The colour is exactly what we thought it would be thankfully.  Ive seen some variants of the ironstone brick that look very uniformed in colour and are slighlty redder. These have quite a nice mix of white, grey, red, brown and black. Should have the bricks done and plaster done by the end of next week.

Also, this is the first time we have opened the front door, quite a liberating feeling.

Roof Tiles Fixed and Bricks arrive

Went out to the block to see if they had done the roof like they said they would. To my surprise, the bricks had also been delivered, and the roof has been fixed down.

The shower base in the main bathroom has also been put in, and the plumbing has been adjusted to the plan now.

Electrical and Plumbing

Haven't done an update in a while, as I have been a bit lazy. Plumbing and electrical have been roughed in. We had our meeting on site with the sparky and he was a very good guy. I was worried they would not let me run my own cables, but he was fine. He said "It's your house".  We also got him to run a few extra powerpoints including the one in the roof for the projector. Also, we got one in the pantry. Not sure if we will ever use it, but thought it was a good idea as you can then keep the toaster, coffee maker or whatever takes up too much space on the bench in there and use it.

We ran our HDMI over Cat6 cable runs for video to the family room and main bedroom, as well as rear speaker cable and outdoor speaker cable. We also put a couple of extra cat6 points around the house, 1 in the study nook and an in the master. This means we will have data to Rumpus, Family (as included in NBN install), Kitchen, Study, and Master. I only ran single runs, kind of regret not running 2. But should be fine.

We were considering putting LED downlights in the living room and rumpus, but at $100 a light thought it wasn't worth it. I don't think they would have worked well in the room anyway. Just going to go to Bunnings and buy some DIY batton light extenders for $15 and put some nice shades on them to make them look like feature lights. In the kitchen, I will put a DIY 4 bar spotlight, and have some LED strips run under the overhead cupboards. That way, no licnesed electrician to come in and saves us a fair bit of money.

The last thing that happened was the plumbing going in. We got a phone call the day they did it, saying JG had put the wrong order in for most of the fittings. We had an upgraded shower with rail shower and mixer , but it was not on the order that way. Anyway, it's all fixed now and we got upgraded to mixers on everything. That was what was showing in the plans, so I think that's fair enough.

Next week Tuesday the insulation goes in, then Wednesday plaster.
There has been a short hold up on bricks, as supply is low.
The roof has still not been fixed on yet, as it has been raining fairly regularly of late, but have been told it will be finished by end of this week.

 

Roof is on

Tiles have been set out on the roof. I thought this would take a pretty long time as there are quite a number of tiles to be done, but they got it done in a day. They need to come back to finish it off obviously, but things are moving ahead quite well.