Let there be lights!

After spending most of the Easter weekend twiddling my thumbs because it was raining raining raining and inside the house was quite dark, FINALLY on Tuesday morning Sir Energex rode up in his trusty white steed and connected various things, and I had power.

I am also the proud owner of two electricity accounts .. blah. I think Lucinda has a photo somewhere of me actually flipping the main switch and letting the juice flow - well it flowed after a couple of false starts with the surge protectors or fuses or whatever the hell those switches are. We turned on all the lights and fans (not all at once) and everything worked except one bulb in the main bathroom's heat lamp thing; it's not burnt out so probably just needs a wiggle.

What a difference being able to go in there at night! Luckily I have put blinds on most of the windows because in the living area it's a bit like being in a goldfish bowl at night. Those dark tinted doors no longer protect us from the curious eyes of the neighbours. The dining area has a blind too, as of tonight. I am still trying to decide what to put on the big glass doors - everything is so expensive and I have already spent Mr Rudd's money a few times over. Unfortunately the Lotto fairy hasn't visited me.
I probably owe Stephen about a tanker of rum by now - he has put the rangehood up and installed my dishwasher after I was having problems.

The pump for the tank is having a few problems with its solanoid but should be fixed tomorrow or next day. I am still waiting for Foxy to do his thing. I assume he wants his money and I want my house!! My new bed arrives tomorrow for Mr Squishy to lie on and I am tempted to just sleep there tomorrow night, whether I have had handover or not. Which could be a big surprise if any tradies turn up early the next morning - poor dears. :)

Zoe has vacuumed and dusted the three bedrooms, the bathrooms but wasn't touching the toilet after The Incident. So she has all that ready for them to move into their rooms. My room still needs to be done after the bed arrival. I also still haven't put up the Elfa. Or done the Starserve. Was a bit reluctant to drill holes into walls when I didn't officially own it all but that is wearing off very quickly.
The kitchen has mostly been prepared - the drawers have that rubbery stuff that stops things slipping as liners. Fridge in and on; dishwasher installed. I have pantry shelves to do.

Some kitchen piccies with my pretty glass splashback ....... the metallic doesn't show up as much as I thought it would, just makes it sort of changeable in the various lights.





Sink and the Asko dishwasher beside it - can't wait to have that to use every night!




Looking straight through to pantry door - I haven't done the shelves in there yet. They're on The ToDoList.

View from other side showing my nice new fridge. Freaky thing it is - I plugged it in and the clock inside had the right time on it. dododododododo! Rangehood needs cleaning of Stephen's paw prints.



I also have 10 metres of crusher dust to spread out which got added to The Todolist this arvo.

Six weeks ago I fell off the garage slab and buggered my ankle. It's still 'not right' - stairs aren't fun and running is out of the question. Tonight I fell over some left over mesh and made bleedy bits on my shins and hurt the toe I broke a few years ago. This is the other leg to the ankle. I'll need a bloody wheelchair soon!

Tiled

This morning (yes on Sunday) Damien finished grouting all the floor tiles. I am tiled!
They are still grotty from the grout.

You can see the flattened out backyard (side yard?) through the doors - it looks a lot bigger now.

I heard a rumour that the plumber will be here in the next few days. Hopefully the next pics will be of plumbing and light fittings installed.

Almost there, almost there!

A new year

One of the girls mentioned that I hadn't updated in a while. Well, that's because not much has happened! Most of the tradies are off on Christmas holidays.

The internal painting is more or less finished. Paul just has a few bits and pieces to do or touch up. He said he won't be doing the outside until all the downpipes are done - erm, cos he has to paint those for a start lol.

Damien finished all the wet area tiling and grouting and headed off to niece Melanie's house to do hers. She has an en suite shower recess that is nearly the size of my whole en suite so I think he'll be there a while!
I had to share a photo of some of the grouted tiles - they look so much better.

I scored well from Santa :) two Maxwell & Williams white dinner sets, a steam mop, and stainless steel kettle and toaster. I have also hit the sales and bought myself a few utensils and a couple of Maxwell & Williams pasta bowl sets (half price!).

Splish Splash

All the tiling is now done, and Damien will be back tomorrow to grout it all. There was one ensuite floor tile left over!





Powder
















Laundry - this has the same floor tiles as will be throughout the rest of the house. It looks good.







Ensuite













Bathroom









The colour of the tiles isn't showing well on my monitor - the bathroom ones seem to have an orangey tinge which they don't have in reality.

Cupboards and handles

Much excitement today when I got home. I had bathroom and laundry cabinets and cupboard handles! It was getting dark so it was a bit hard to see properly. The only one I'm not overly sure that I like is my ensuite! I don't think I chose a good colour for the top :( I'll look in the morning with the tiles near it and see how I feel. Ah well, too bad if I don't like it - I can't change it now.
The handles are the same on all cabinets; the ones in bathrooms are just a smaller version.

Main bathroom - roman marble top and parchment doors

Powder - roman marble top and parchment doors

En suite - pearl grey top and shannon oak doors


Laundry - roman marble top and shannon oak doors

The laundry was supposed to be shannon oak cabinets with parchment benchtop and top cupboards. Not sure what happened there, but it looks really good, so I'm not about to complain.

Kitchen with handles and back panel installed. Note how it is trained to hold my coffee cup already.

The tiler is due any day now too. And the painter continues with the gloss on doors and architraves.

Stoned

This week it seems like nothing much has been done, but it's just at the slow end of things now, where everything takes time; especially to do it right.

Looking back towards front door

The painter has been doing his thing. The ceilings have all been Builder's Whited and one coat of China Doll on the walls. He has also been painting the architraves and internal doors in gloss China Doll and that takes time to get right without smudges and marks. The house seems so much bigger and brighter now. I hope the walls turn out more or less the colour that they are now; I'm a bit worried that the paint might be too white.

That paint smell is a bit erk though. No wonder paint colours have such weird names, if the makers are sniffing those fumes all day lol.

Most exciting part of the week was getting stoned! The Caesarstone has been installed in the kitchen and it looks mighty fine I think. I was a bit worried about edges since no-one actually asked me how I wanted them, but the stonemasons have bevelled every edge, no sharp corners anywhere :) Cos I'd be the one to bash my hip on sharp corners constantly, klutz I am.

Kitchen from dining room

Love my drawers! I even took a cup down there to make sure it would fit into one of them :)
I have picked up the oven and cooktop; the dishwasher is on backorder. As is the fridge. Once they are all installed, I can decide what colour the glass splashbacks should be - they get measured and installed as the very last thing in the kitchen. I chose handles that would go with all the stainless steel.

Waiting on the Wetseal boys now. They came late yesterday but the paint was wet so they couldn't install it. They said they would be back today, but not seen a whisker yet and it's now lunchtime. No more cabinets can be installed or tiling done, until the Wetseal has been done.

It's very hot today. Hot up in the old house but I'm happy to say that the new one is wonderfully cool and the windows and doors are all shut! Maybe I won't need that aircon after all (maybe). Or the forest of fans - mmmmmmm, no, I'll need those for still days.

Tripping the light fantastic

Another quiet week. Biggest problem at the moment is waiting on council to approve the sub division and storm water plan. They can't do the storm water or connect the tank until the green light is given. But work on the inside continues ...

The Dynamic Duo have a couple of days work (the eaves and al's ceiling) to do. All the inside carpentry appears to be done. It's looking more and more like a house now.

According to The Boss, the painter will be back Monday to do his thing - he had to finish a couple of other jobs last week. The tiler is booked in for the end of next week. The bathroom tiles are all in the house but I have to move 100 metres of floor tiles down there as soon as the garage is clear of carpentry stuff - I can feel the pain already!

Major hiccup on Thursday - the cabinet maker couldn't get the Burnished Wood laminex for at least a couple of weeks and the cabinetry needs to be done before the tiler can do his thing .. catch 22 . I had to pick a new colour by Friday morning - after all that agonising over the first one! The new one is Shannon Oak - similar but more grain and lighter. I have no idea what matches what now and will probably have a kaleidescope house.

Speaking of pain ........ I had to buy all the lights and fans so Megan and I went shopping this morning. A cool $3,000 later, I have every light, every bulb and every fan, and a 'small' light-headed feeling as I signed the docket lol.


With the storms making a moat around the house, I feel like Guinevere so I now have a Klight in Shining Armour at the front door er drawbridge lol

We also had to buy the kitchen sink so off to my favourite electrical store we went, and they didn't disappoint. I chose the one I wanted and a voice said "are still looking for that sink?". It was the guy who had sold me the cheap rangehood. He told the girl who had served me that there was still some of the Special Promo ones available - so I got the sink and $230 of attachments (cutting board etc). I am now a VIP customer apparently lol. So Clive Anthonys, people - great service and great prices !! (this was an unpaid advertisement in the interest of retaining my VIP status)

Hopefully I will have more next week and some interesting piccies to show of paint drying :)

After the silence last week, things are moving again. Yay! No photos though. I really like my two panel internal doors.

The Dynamic Duo have done all the architraves, hung all the internal doors and done most of the skirting. I only had their services by default - they were supposed to be doing the trusses on my niece Kylie's house but it was too wet to get the truck onto her block (yes, it's a real H family thing with this builder lol - he is building 4 of our houses at the moment). However they got most of the work done so the cabinetmaker can do his thing. The fibro/gyprock/whatever it is has been delivered for the eaves and Al's ceiling. The delivery truck got bogged and took out the yellow-tipped white post that marks my corner :(

I also had Paul the Painter turn up and start puttying nail holes. He will be spraying the internal walls next week and I have until Wednesday to choose what colour of off-white I want. Who would have believed that WHITE could have so many shades !! The ceiling will be Builder's White - the white you have when you aren't having white. I have no idea on the walls yet but my journey to find a white did produce a good result in other spheres.

Despite having the flu at the moment (aaaaawwwwwwww) I ventured out on Friday to hunt for Whites. And what a charming picture I was; dripping with sweat and red-faced with fever lol. On the way back from the paint shop, I stopped to get more laminex samples from Barrys ( a girl can never have too many samples) and next door was a Clive Anthonys electrical store. Went in to check out rangehoods and ooo! the de Longhi one was $899, down from $1249, as they are end of line. Had a think at home about it, then Zoe and I went to the local CA store to buy one. The salesman told me they had a cancelled builder's order for those rangehoods in their warehouse and I could have one for $699 if I wanted. He had to ask???? So it is now tucked safely up in the dining room walkway for everyone to trip over for the next month or so :) Clive Anthonys are definitely on my list of People I Like during this build - the local store happily put my order for the stove, dishwasher and fridge on hold, until I need it (which will be soon!) and they gave me good prices for all of it.

I met up with the cabinetmaker later that day and now I can't change my mind any more over colours. Just bite my nails and hope it all looks ok. It is sooooooooo hard to match all this stuff up from teensy chips. The bathrooms are the same as I described earlier. I have really only used 4 colours overall:

Main bathroom and powder - Pumice cupboards and Roman Marble (gloss) benchtop
En suite - Burnished Wood cabinet and Pearl Grey benchtop
Laundry - Burnished Wood on the bottom cupboard and Pumice on the benchtop and wall cupboards.
and finally!! the kitchen - Burnished Wood cabinets and Caesarstone Ice Snow benchtops. The CS colour isn't showing well on my monitor; it's a whitish colour with flecks of greys and pale browns.
I will decide on the glass colour after it's installed.


We were woken by the roar of the wind and rain in the storms on Wednesday night at 2am. I haven't seen rain that heavy in a long long time. Next morning, my new house had a moat again - up two bricks high. There are 3 courses to floor level. Phew! It will be better once the storm water is installed properly. But there were no leaks anywhere inside :)

So that is this week's update. Stay tuned for the next episode of The House of Jan - same bat channel, same bat time, same bats :)

Progression

Progress. At the slow end of things now.

The plasterboard is all up and the plasterer has done his thing with the nail holes and joints. They have different crews/tradies for each section - one group comes in and does the board, then the joint guy (who has the niftiest stilts), and tomorrow (I guess) the cornice guy comes.
The brickies have done all the way around about halfway up the walls. Today they actually got high under the eaves on the bathroom side but were stopped by the rain; more than is showing in this picture which was taken yesterday.
They should be finished, rain permitting, by the end of the week.

I have uploaded pics of the tiles for the bathroom and en suite. They don't show very well unfortunately.

Main bathroom - the dark tile is a mottled grey/brown which flows well from the main tiles. The wall tile is an offwhite with satin finish. It picks up the colours around it. Leaning toward Pumice for the cabinet doors and Roman Marble for the top. This would be continued in the outside vanity.

En suite - the floor tile is a deep chocolattey colour with black lightning through it. The wall tile isn't showing it's true colour (on my monitor anyway). It's grey (with a bluish tendency) with darker grey lightning. Laminex chosen (so far) is Burnished Wood for the doors and Pearl Grey for the top.

The kitchen is the one causing problems! I have to meet with the cabinet maker sometime this week and I still have no idea what colour to do it. On days like today, it's quite dull inside despite the big sliding doors - a sky tube might be in order in the future I think.

I have put a number of possibles for the cabinetry on the floor tile. This tile will be all through the house except for bathrooms and bedrooms.

I'm leaning towards the darker Burnished Wood with a lighter stone top at this stage - the one shown is Caesarstone Ivory. I can also have colour in the glass for the splashback behind the stove.

Any ideas? opinions? Let me know!!! arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

Blue

That is one big roof I keep thinking. It's looking bluer now.




*Today the windows were all put in and the sliding doors are in place but not fixed properly.

The front - garage on left and my bedroom on right; you can see through window where my bed will be ! (mental note: curtains/blinds/shutters would be handy)

*The phone line has been run from outside wall to where the hub will be (that was an easy job for Telstra!)

*The bathtub is in place - man, it's a teensy bathtub! Not exactly glass of wine, candles and bubbles.

The gas guy is coming tomorrow. Plasterer is next week and the brickie as soon as he get here. Floor tiles also arrive tomorrow as well as the Soundscreen batts I've ordered - to be put between living areas and bedrooms mostly. Another part of my weekend job.

They are aiming for pre Christmas finish - possibly as early as another 6 weeks or so!!

The pipes, the pipes are calling ........

Not a lot of visible happenings on the house front this week. I got a new pile of dirt(dark grey),some steel and mystery white plastic bags full of ???.

The plumber turned up on Wednesday and put in the underslab plumbing. Now I can see where the bathrooms, laundry and kitchen are. The left set of pipes is my ensuite. The gathering in the right corner are the bathroom, toilet, vanity outside toilet and laundry. The kitchen is the loner in the centre of the slab.



It gets inspected next Monday and I guess, after that, the slab starts.

Also had the surveyor here on Monday, doing the measurements etc for the sub-division.

I've finally decided on outside colours ...... I think. The wonderful thing about a small builder is that I can change my mind (unless its structural) almost up to the last minute. Anyone who contemplates building, get samples of everything; look at bricks in a wall not just one brick, then put it all together. What you picture originally may not actually 'go' together.



Bricks - PGH Hotham
Roof, gutter and fascia - Ironstone
Windows - Stone Beige satin, with dark tinted glass
Garage door, downpipes etc - Paperbark
Highlights - 80's fluoro green

Megan wants the fascia different - like paperbark; not sure about that yet)

Megan and I drove around for hours today looking at floor and wall tiles again. We thought we had the floor tiles right (finally), then realised that they are too 'orangey' when we were trying to match carpet to the tiles. The only thing we all agree on so far is the stripey ones for my ensuite. And possibly Laminex Stipple Seal for bathroom and laundry cupboards.
I'll try to get samples and/or pics.

I have to get quotes for the kitchen. This means drawing it up properly and actually deciding on materials. The only things I'm sure about is that there will be DRAWERS, lots of them! and a stone benchtop. And it won't be white or two pack.
I have some things organised - DeLonghi 90cm gas cooktop and 90cm underbench electric oven; Asko stainless steel dishwasher; Westinghouse side by side 610l stainless steel fridge. Clive Anthony's are keeping them on the back burner until Feb next year,if necessary; all at the original sale price (20% off) and on 20% deposit. Great service!

I'm miles behind on my uni work because my brain is full of tiles and bricks and colours! This house building is sooooooo stressful!!