Day 72 - Walls take shape

Catch Up Post #13 - 
Day 72 (Sat 10th July) - Plastering continues :)

 

I reakon that you can tell what stage a build is up to by looking in the skip out the front... 

Well this is our skip at the moment ...

What do you think?  

Yes MORE plastering...

The build is getting another step closer to completion

and beginning to feel like a proper enclosed house...

We have the enclosed HALLWAY :)

The bedrooms, robes and ceilings have become solid...

 Here is the bathroom... 

(The purple is a layer to protect the bath from damage)

The laundry has always been an interesting space in this build... It got tucked away at the back of the garage as we tried to make every inch of our house count... Now that it is enclosed by the plaster I am spending lots of time just standing in it, figuring out how I will set it up...  I want to be clever with my set up... 

I believe that I CAN be organised - positive thinking yay!

(I assume the green plaster-board is for the wet areas)

Here are two different views of our niche #2... (the one at the end of the hallway - see previous post)

I like :) 

how about you?

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To finish this post - here is the few pics from Day 73 (Sunday 11th July) 

Due to being a sunday, there are no changes to report... except for this day being 

...the LAST DAY we said the kids could 

SCOOTER through the house...

Now that the walls have plaster we don't want to risk a scooter crash and plaster damage... much to the kids sadness... They have had such a ball wizzing around through the rooms :)

I am so glad that the kids are having this journey of building with us... they are experiencing the house evolving with each stage and have the opportunity to really OWN this new home together - as a family we are starting fresh in this new place... Sooo grateful :)

DAY 71 - More Plaster and first row of BRICKS :)

Catch Up Post #12 - 
Day 71 (Friday 9th July) - More Plaster-boards are going up :)

This is one of the bedroom ceilings

with the fan/light wire poking through...

 

 

This is looking down the hallway to the front door. We have one side with walls and one without...

(The frame without plaster is the back kitchen wall)

We have a 'niche' next to the door of the main bedroom... 

It's at the end of the hallway so I am looking forward to choosing what to display in this feature spot... hmmm, will have to wait and see...

Looking through the bedroom window... 

The kids LOVE running through the house... I suppose its how they show their excitement... (there's sooo much room compared to the small 'sardine can' unit we are renting... so why not run around crazy?!!!)

Which brings me to our next bit of exciting news!!!

The bricks have started :))))

Finally....  

...happy dance... 

Blue walls have been fun... 

but BRICKS are the ones...we want... 

yes, very bad rhyming but typed with a big smile :)))))))

Bring on the bricks!

Day 63 - Plumbing FIXED :)

Catch Up Post #8 - 
Day 63 (Thurs 1st July) - the PLUMBING is FIXED!

Those of you who read earlier (or heard my man stressing about this) know that the plumbing laid under our slab had a small issue. One we didn't realise until the frame was put up. 

The issue was the laundry drainage pipe was NOT located in the laundry but in the media room...   oops :P (insert jokes here about a toilet / lounge chair combo to watch TV on)....

So on Day 63 we visited in the late afternoon and saw this media room pipe was now filled in and a new pipe was in the correct place in the LAUNDRY! 

Alls well that ends well :)

Looking through the garage to the media room... Pipe Gone :)

Looking into the Laundry area... Pipe Added :)

So the other news from Day 63 is:

The large STACKER DOORS are in place!!! (with Mr 7 also :)

These doors are a major design choice of ours - we are holding our breath that they add to the living space as much as we hope they do. The idea is to tile the alfresco area with the same tiles as inside the house and the door 'tracks' are also recessed (flat against the floor) to hopefully provide a seamless connection inside and out.  

More than anything our goal (within a limited budget) was to create an attractive spacious open plan living area that will be the 'hub' of the house for our family.

These are the living room windows that will also look out to the back trees...

The bath has also made it... The kids are having lots of fun with this addition...

 This is the last minute upgrade (thank you PJ Burns) of a door frame to my WALK-IN-ROBE. 

(with a door soon)

I think this door will prove VERY handy... It was initially taken out when we were desperately cost-cutting (anything non-essential went) to make our build achievable.

So now I look at this door frame and breathe a sigh of relief... I always intend to be neat but I am a "creative sort" and that lives with a bit of mess sometimes (that's my excuse hehe :)  whew... a door to hide potential untidyness... sigh with GRATITUDE....

Cheers :)

Celebrating the Slab...

Whew I never thought it would be this long between posts - my apologies to all you who have been asking and waiting patiently for more pics ...

Catch Up Post #1 - 

So quick summary...
Slab was finished on Day 40
(Tues 8th June)

Of course it required toasting this huge step towards our dream with a great friend and soon-to-be neighbour ...

 
The Frames were delivered the next day and before we knew it - our house had 3D shape!!!

Then Day 44/45/46 was the long weekend in June - which meant we had visitors and got to celebrate the slab (and frame) with some friends and family. Sooo good to show it off and at the same time pinch ourselves that it was finally looking substancial :)))







Big weekend :)))

Thank you to those who made the long trip to visit us :)))

It made it even more real to be onsite celebrating with those who have supported us so much on this journey!

We got to walk through the site with our friends...  Having frames up meant it was easier to describe our thoughts for each space etc... 

Needless to say the kids had a ball seeing their friends also...

HORRAY!!!! 

What are pipes for but yelling into? haha

(the kids discovered they could speak to each other from the pipes in different parts of the house)

What a highlight of the construction process. Well the first time we had decent visual evidence!!!! 

A weekend full of celebrating, coffees, chats over our plans, and catch ups...

Sooo good :)

Kookaburra sits on the new guttering

Merry merry king of the bush is he-ee..... 

posts r coming.... lots of pics r coming... stay tuned....

Thanks for visiting :)

Drilling, Digging, Concreting - footage!

Thanks to our wonderful iphones (guess who is dreaming of the iphone 4 already) I have some footage of the digging / concreting work on site...

The Slab Work

Drilling and digging the trenches...



Concreting the trenches...


So awesome to watch this work happening... I don't expect everyone to find it riveting viewing - but for us it is such a relief that tangible progress is being made on this dream of building our home!  No longer is it "yet more delays" that had us watching our block of land sitting untouched while we waited and waited for action...

Looking ahead, the actual build may have more delays yet. (hmmm do I be realistic or optimistic!?) However, at least WE CAN FINALLY SEE PROGRESS!!!! Horray!!!!  Its hard to believe that its actually happening - the ground floor of the house is nearly in place and we can walk around the slab perimeter and start to get a perspective of the space... 

Lets hope for things to keep on moving ahead... 

Full steam! Woo Woot