TILES!!!!!

Today I went to the tile shop :)

Even though it was the first visit to 'just get some ideas' I fell in love with some glass feature tiles :) Dark blue, light blue, med blue & turquoise. What won me was that they have a kind of silver 'glitter' (for want of a better word) at the back of each tile that makes them sparkle. They look so light and fresh. They are little glass squares and they come as a sheet. I would prefer the long thin rod shaped ones but they only come in squares. That doesn't matter though coz they still look awesome!

I also found a large square cream tile (400x400) for the open plan living. It has a sort of white & brown vein in it which up close I didn't at first think looked that great but from a distance they look really good. I found all of the ones with only a feint vein in them just looked like plain cream at a distance. That same tile also comes in a 200x200. I haven't decided yet if I will just use the exact same design in the living areas and bathroom. As it is a small house I think it will be too busy to have too many changes in designs. But then is the same floor tile throughout too boring? I need to have a think about it and get back to you.

The guy there also found me a wall tile for the bathroom. It is a plain cream gloss tile that matches the floor tile. I haven't completely decided on it though, it went well with the other tile but it is fairly plain. I imagined the wall tiles with a bit of fleck or something, but I guess with the floor tile and feature having detail it will be ok to have a plain wall tile. I think I would prefer the floor to have the detail if I had to choose ones that's plain. It will make the feature stand out more which is what I wanted and I think plain cream will look clean and fresh. I'm glad it's gloss coz it will open the room up and it will be easier to clean :P

So there are the ideas so far. I'm half considering just using the same feature tile in the kitchen and be done with it. Like I said, the house is small and I don't want to add to many different ideas. The guy suggested I could use the same feature tiles but put them differently like in diamonds in the kitchen rather than strips. That way it will keep the theme but not be too monotonous. Hmm... something to consider anyway.

There are two other tile shops in town so I’ll have a look at them before I make any choices. Then my hubby & I need to sit down and agree on them all (he just wanted to see the choices and have a say, rather than waiting around in shops for hours & hours)

Anyway that’s the latest update for now. I’ll try and up load one of the pics of the tiles together. Bye for now :)

Example of vanity with feature

Here is a nice vanity that a girl from H1 added (sorry can't remember name) I like how it is just one strip but it makes a difference. Simple but effective :)


http://media.photobucket.com/image/new%20bathroom/donuts_011/IMGP0667.jpg

and below: examples of how a subtle theme is carried throughtout, the feature is even in the floor tiles! you can see the same tiles in the shower, over vanity, in kitchen and on tiled floor!

http://www.davidbrighthomes.com.au/home/marketplace/detail.asp?qid=23&cID=3&s1ID=&s2ID=&s3ID=


and lastly (excluding the kitchen which i think is overdone)you can see the shower and vanity both have a feature tile.

http://www.davidbrighthomes.com.au/home/marketplace/detail.asp?qid=21&cID=3&s1ID=&s2ID=&s3ID=

photo uploads

arggghh... what is with the photo uploads on this thing? It makes it so hard to add pics!!

Very frustrating. Maybe it's preparing me for the building process...hehe

Solar Passive

Just thought i'd tell you about why we choose this particular plan & block.

A solar passive house basically means it makes the most of the sun, garden & breezes along with choosing appropriate building materials. Basically we want a house that is (as far as possible) naturally warm in winter & cool in summer. It doesn't mean that we are hippies or have solar panels. :) It is the one basic principle that can have a big impact on your heating and cooling bills - believe me, my parents built a solar passive house and on a hot 30*C day in Australia it was naturally 10*C cooler inside and 15*C cooler in the basement.

We'd been looking into solar passive house designs for a while and decided we wanted to incorporate these ideas into our house plan where possible.

I won't go into big explanations here as i'm prob not good at explaining it. Basically you should have the long side of your house facing north so you get lots of warming winter sun & sunshine. It's best to have living areas on this side and not waste sunshine on your garage or wet areas.

We are actually placing our house closer to the southern fence (we have a fair bit of leeway with our block size) so that we can get in more of that sunshine & not be shaded by the neighbour's house.

The western side heats up quickly from the summer sun so it's best to have a short side of your house face that way. pref the garage to absorb extra heat. We have a bedroom facing west but it is shaded by the verandah and we can also cool it with flow-through breezes.

Another way we are keeping the heat down is by having a light coloured roof and brick. Think about how a black shirt heats up on a hot day - bbq anyone? We are also having a whirly bird to get all the hot air out of the roof cavity.

In summer we will open all the windows up at sundown and close them early next morning to let all the cool night air in. Keeping doors, windows and curtains closed during the day also helps keep the house nice and cool. In Winter we will close all the blinds & curtains at night and keep all the doors closed to help keep the warm in. We have standard insulation supplied by the builder.

Lastly we plan to plant some decidious trees so they shade the house in summer but let all the sunshine in in winter :)

So there you go, sorry if i bored you but it was an important part of our planning process.

We don't have solar panels or any 'weird' energy saving things in our plans. We will be on natural gas though so that means an instant gas hotwater system - no more running out of hot water, yay :)

Colour schemes

Last night i was awake for ages thinking about different colours for everything. I know we have a while to choose everything but i would like to have an good idea in my mind so that it is easier when it comes to choosing later on.

DH and I both like blue (royal blue to navy, not so much lighter blues) and neither of us like the white and black colour schemes that seem to be popular at the moment.

We also plan to have this as an investment at some stage down the track so we want it to be 'us' but also work with other peoples tastes too.

My idea at the moment is cream & light browns (eg latte) with a few dark blue and chocolate highlights.

I'm thinking latte carpet, large cream tiles and cream kitchen cupboards. We both like the idea of blue bench tops but will this be too much?? Should we stick with cream and brown with just a highlight of blue in the tiles?? hmm.

If anyone actually reads this let me know what you think!

This is a copy of our house plan.

Additions/changes ....
1. We added 40cm across the house to stretch bed 1 and family room.
2. We also added 20cm across the house to stretch bed 2 and living room. This means we can now fit a queen bed and two bedsides in these two rooms and also have some extra space in the living rooms.
3. We also added a verandah to the front of the house which will be good in summer as it will block the western sun.
4. When walking in the front door there will be a little cavity space built into the wall in the corner identified as shelves on plan opposite kitchen. This will be for a feature such as a vase and it will have a downlight above it to light it up. I saw this idea in the builder's display home and loved the idea.

I have taken out dimensions etc as i'm not sure if i'm allowed to post it with all the info. Anyway here is the plan. Like i said it is only small but will be good as a first home / future investment :)

House plan property of Hunter Prestige Homes Pty Ltd. 'Billabong' (modified)
contact: Po Box 913 Singleton, NSW


I can't make it big without making it blurry. Click image for a clear view of it!

This is the first blog of our building process, yay :)

My husband & I are building a new house in Tamworth, NSW.

So far we have chosen a plan and a block, have pre-approval and signed contracts.

As FHO we didn't want to build anything too huge so it's a 3 bed 1 bath but on a larger block (900m2). The block is in a new subdivision in one of the outer areas of Tamworth. The back fence looks out onto a paddock with cows & views of Tamworth in the distance :).

We signed contracts before the end date for the FHO grant so we should get the full 24K.

The builder made arrangements with us so that we would have extra time to save deposit without missing out on the grant. So.... at the moment we are saving the last of the 5% deposit which we should have by mid december. Once we have the deposit and official approval / paperwork from the bank the builder will start building :)

I'll try and get a photo of the block next time i'm out there. At the moment we are doing a little bit of research into furnishing etc. Can't wait to start!
Fiona