Lights, Alarm, Carpets, etc

The alarm was installed on Friday 28 June 2013.

Most of our lights were installed on Saturday 29 June 2013. We’re going relatively green with mostly LED and ECO friendly choices.

LED fan in Katie’s bedroom, looking towards the kids zone. The fan is probably a little too low, but that can be adjusted later.

LED downlight. The beam angle on these downlights are not fantastic – we’re hoping they will work out as they were a last minute replacement (from our rapidly disappearing contingency budget!) for the builders range downlights.

Builders range downlight.

Kids zone

Family

Family and dining

Media

Kitchen pendants (2/3 installed when the photo was taken)

Photo taken through the stacker door (as we don’t have access to the house when the tradies are not around :().

We think our kitchen will be pretty close to the kitchen that we roughly based ours on i.e. this one.

We ordered our carpets! Tick – another big item is off the looooong list. After a lengthy research period (25 minutes), we decided on the Cosy Comfort SmartStrand Silk range, narrowed down to two colours Riverstone (darker sample in the photo below) and Crystal Stream.
(PS. They’re not blue at all – funny how colours can show up completely different on computer monitors.)

We went with Crystal Stream (on the right in the above photo), with a Cloud 9 underlay. Installation is booked for 22 July 2013.

Water tank.

Solar water

Solar power was also connected in the last week.

Retaining wall drainage is now linked to the site drainage. These pipes will be covered with soil.

Paint and Bench Tops

We chose to change our bench tops from Essastone Piazza to Essastone Carbon due to the Piazza not being available in the country. We would have had to wait 5 weeks for the Piazza.

We also changed our paint colour from a Resene ‘bon jour’ like custom mix to Dulux White Duck Quarter.

Niche cabinet

Family room

Dining room window

Dining room niche

Kitchen

Hallway to front door.

Media room

Garage shelves

Powder room

Bedroom 5

Looking towards the family room.

We have electricity (and Tiles)!

The panels for solar electricity were installed on Friday (14/06/2013). It’s a good thing we were onsite as the contractor had no idea where his colleague put the wiring (which was installed during the frame stage)!

After netball on Saturday (15/06/2013), we noticed that our electricity was connected. The builder used power from our neighbour to get to this point in the build. Thanks Allan!

In the past week, the tiles were laid, scaffolding was removed, the painter polly filled the internal walls, trim and shelves. A plaster tradie was also around to fix the cornices in the media room and around the staircase. It is rather funny how the tradies all have their radios on at the same time – and all tuned to different stations. :)

Cool lazers being used, rather difficult to get the lines wrong, or not?

The kitchen guy was there on Saturday to correct the kickboards and ‘fix’ the pantry shelving. We are not very happy with the standard of the pantry, it’s basically just a bunch of free standing shelves – not exactly what one would expect in a butlers pantry. We will talk to the builder about this but we’ll probably have to add it to the rather long list of things that we’ll need to resolve afterwards.

We think our white cabinets looked a bit average without the brushed aluminium kickboards.

Render was also applied to the garage and feature window on the facade.

We’re considering the ‘CHERT’ carpet from Carpet Call.

Retaining Wall

This photo shows an ongoing issue for us i.e. what to do with the gap? How do we best connect the house with the backyard?
(On a tiny budget. Before even looking at the gap, we’ve already exceeded our retaining wall provisional cost item i.e. the cost of a good 2nd-hand small family vehicle, by the high-end price of a new small family vehicle – we’d like to stop well before we hit the grand saloon comparison stages!)

Below are the quotes and possible solutions.
(Apologies for some pretty bad pictures here)

1. Complete the wall with concrete sleepers, build a platform out with stairs leading down the side of the wall i.e.

Pros:

• Cheapest ($9k)
• Gets us to the backyard (which may be the future pool area)

Cons:

• No engineering cost factored in – would need to be certified under the existing certification for the wall – which may mean an additional cost
• Does not really connect the backyard – it would probably end up feeling like two separate properties.

2. Additional retaining wall bay and 2m wide concrete tiled stairs. Timber balustrade with stainless wire.

Pros:

• Should look very nice
• Will integrate the two areas without making it feel like two separate properties
• Waterproofed

Cons:

• Expensive (another new vehicle – $16k)
• No engineering cost factored in – would need to be certified under the existing certification for the wall – which may mean an additional cost

3. Additional 800mm retaining wall bay on each side. 2.5m wide coloured, concrete stairs (Boral range). Timber balustrade.

Pros:

• Should look nice
• Engineering cost is also included
• Will integrate the two areas without making it feel like two separate properties
• Award winning, home show advertising, landscape company

Cons:

• Reasonably expensive (student vehicle – $13k)
• Not rendered
• Not tiled
• No stainless wire in the balustrade, timber only
• No mention of waterproofing in quote
• No allowance for rock excavation in quote

4. Quick, with a hint of dodgy concrete, core filled blocks with timber external stairs on steel frame.

Pros:

• (Possibly) cheap ($4.3k for the core filled block retaining only – still sourcing a quote for the staircase)

Cons:

• Will possibly not look good
• Not rendered (yet)
• Tricky dead space under staircase – we would actually prefer this being covered with concrete block work.
• Timber stairs on steel frame may not be a good solution – can possibly get concrete formed stairs instead, but cost could end up being the same as the above two quotes?
• No mention of waterproofing in quote

5. Complete the wall and forget about the extra 250-300sqm backyard…for now (~$5k)

6. Build a 1.8m high raised pool bang in the middle, use the pool walls to retain the 4.1m gap. Step down to rest of backyard down both/either side(s) of 8m long pool. (Unknown cost)

The saga continues…

On the upside, we absolutely love the roof line from the back of the property!

Two Stages (Part 2)

Waterproofing

Niche cabinet. Polar white cabinets with brushed aluminium kickboards.

Powder room with floating cabinet.

En suite

Doors

Media room

Jaimie’s Wardrobe

Linen

Skirtings and architraves.

External Painting. Axon is surfmist, Scyon linea is 1/2 shale grey.

The LW made the call to paint the window trims surfmist.

Not the best photo, with the rain but the top floor is painted here.