Packing!!! :)

We spent all yesterday packing boxes. We will also spend most of today packing so that we can move this weekend :D :D

The builder has been chasing the council all week. They are meant to be insepecting the house today (fingers & toes crossed!!) Once they give it the all clear it is ALL OURS :D :D and we get the keys and can start moving in.

It's been raining all night and all day today (34mm this morning alone) and it looks like rain all weekend. The roads are starting to flood so it might be interesting :S

The slab for the double garage was poured on tuesday so here are the pics:

It came a day early = happy campers :)

Graffiti ;)

ohhh i like a good slab... (of concrete! lol)

Side of house - now with weed lawn and stakes to mark our pop up sprinklers

Latest pic of the front - complete with weed lawn :P If it keeps raining we might still have grass to mow before Christmas LOL. Oh well, it's better than mud.

KITCHEN!!! Garage door & front door :D

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of update as i've been away for the weekend.

We now have a kitchen! We think it was installed last thursday, around the same time the garage and front door went up :)

I LOOOVE  the kitchen! The colours have come together really well, maybe even better than i expected. Everyone else seems to go with black and white but there was no way we were having that in our kitchen, It would feel depressing to me for some reason (oh, and black gloss benches are a NIGHTMARE to clean, trust me) The only complaint is the size of the kitchen itself, i really wish we could have somehow made it a bit bigger. Oh well, we will make it work :)

Things i love:
The diamond gloss bench top (Lunar Stone)
The pot drawers
The touch-catch door under the breakfast bar
The overall colour scheme and how it's come together :)
ALL OF IT!!! : D : D

I should also mention that i love the look of the garage door, and the remote that comes with it! The front door is actually the wrong one so we will have to get it changed.

As you'll see in the photos the shower tap fittings have been changed to a mixer :D and are now awaiting the gyprock.

Onward to the photos!

duckboards and wading pools at the front step/garage (It was flooding in Tamworth)

wading pool!, post on stilts wating for concrete and a plop of mortar left from the brickies

Swimming pool in background, anyone?! You can just make out a line of floodwater in the distance.

Ooh a tap! Two actually, and they even work!

Front of the house today after we found an unlocked window to climb through! We'd been locked out for a week now.

Internal doors ready to go

Remote controlled door :D

Here it is! :) Top cupboards and kick board -peruvian clay, Bottom cupboards -Pumice, Bench - lunar stone diamond gloss (covered by cardboard). All laminex selections. Handles are slim bow handle in satin chrome, also by laminex

Loving the drawers! Dishwasher space

Oven space and gas cooktop space above it covered by cardboard

Top cupboards with room for exhaust fan and fridge space

The best shot i could get of the sink under the cardboard

The offcut from the gas cooktop space - we scabbed it out of their bin along with the one from the sink space! If we can find edges for them we might be able to make a little movable trolley or something to match the bench. It's a shame to waste such beautiful glossy bench top!

Yes! please be careful and look after our lovely kitchen!

Skirting boards ready to go in

The offending shower pipes have now been changed and we have our mixer tap installed. I wonder how cranky they were having to re-do it??

The view out of our bedroom window, this will eventually all be built out :(

Close-up of bench top and breakfast bar

Best shot i have of the touch-catch cupboard door at the back of the breakfast bench

Taken through the window when we were locked out - the best colour indication of the top cupboards plus the pantry and linen in background

Bricks, gyprock and cornices!

I survived our 3 week Cape York trip and had a great time (away from the winter - 32*C up the top! mmmm), so now it's time to update you on all the house progress :)

The bricks were finished around the 5th of July. As we had a lot of wet weather there was little progress until the following week when we had the gyprock installed on 14th-16th. Since then we have had more rain with minor flooding in local creeks so progress has slowed again. The cornices are all installed as well as the lining of the garage and framing (?) around the front door way. We are yet to get skirting boards installed.

The water points/pipes are all in place in the bathroom (with a possible wrong fitting for one - we are having a mixer in the shower but there are two pipes sticking way out of the wall, not sure if this is just hot and cold or if it needs to be changed to one pipe. We will need to look into it) The reverse cycle aircon wiring is also installed in the wall in the living area.

Current things to discuss with builder/SS are: mixer in bathroom, relocation of tank as it looks like they are planning to put it where the shed is going to be, finding out if the verandah will be cemented - i hope so but not sure! and whether we are having flyscreens (windows currently do not have them, we think they will put them in before handover as we are pretty sure they are meant to be included)

Photos care of dear husband who kept me updated while i was away :)

above: pink batts in our bedroom to reduce noise & insulate as hubby is a shift worker. Below: kitchen/living wall with wiring. Thick wiring with orange cord is for reverse cycle aircon unit

above: plaster people hard at work. Looking down hallway from front door. Below: My beautiful corner niche which is visible from lounge room and front door/hallway (see above pic) soooo glad we added this :)

above: kitchen and sunlight :) on left is pantry and linen then hallway to front door. Notice aircon cord poking out! Below: same room from opposite direction, this will all be open tiled area. The doorway to  the right leads to bed1, bathroom, toilet and bed 2

Below: Shower pipes that may need to be changed.

above: gas tap for bbq and external powerpoint for future outdoor area. Below: water pipe and power for pump (we are on all tank water except kitchen tap and two outdoor taps). I think other cords coming from ground may be the power for the shed.

North side of the house in late afternoon. The sun makes the bricks glow a lovely golden colour :)

Slab pour tomorrow!!?!!

I went for another drive past the block today, just to see how muddy it was getting. I was VERY surprised to see that the formwork was done, the waffles were in and everything is ready for a slab pour! It looks like we will be getting our slab tomorrow after all : D
I assume it should be ok as long as we don't get heavy rain in the morning. I'll be ringing the builder tonight to confirm. If it is tomorrow we will both be there to watch, take photos and add our coins to the mix as DH happens to have the day off work : D
YAY, i can't believe it is happening after all this time. Wooohoooo!!!!
Some pics of the site:

All waffled & ready to go! :) Small square front and centre is the porch, to the right is single garage. We have plenty of room to add another (free standing) garage to the side of the house later on.

The laundry pipes are all sealed

My pink glitter gumboots : D











Plenty of room for a garden, and views of Tamworth :)

Rain, rain, go AWAY!!!!

Once again, the only news is that we have had rain all week, it is raining at the moment, and rain is predicted until the weekend :(

I ran into one of the builders in town on monday. He told me that they had rescheduled the slab pour for this friday. Seeing as it has been raining so much i highly doubt that it will go ahead. The only thing that has been done on site - they have stacked and resecured the foam waffles so they can't blow away. I hope we can have clear weather from next week so we can get into the build. We'll just have to wait and see.

Mud!

After another day of constant rain, it is looking highly unlikely that we will get a slab pour this week. If it was clear weather it would have been poured Thursday of Friday. Oh well.

We went for a quick visit today and took some photos. There is finally something to take photos of! It was very muddy (hard to see as we tried to only walk on gravel parts). There were no builders in sight, although they have done a little bit more since my visit on Monday. The wood frame (?) to hold the concrete is closer to being finished and the foam wall has been broken up (and seems to have been flung everywhere - maybe by wind?) Anyway, things are slowly happening. Onto the piccies... :)

What we have so far. Our humble abode :) The block borders are the colourbond fence, rural fence at back and runs (about halfway) through the white styrofoam pile on the right. As you can see we will have plenty of room for our garden (900m2 block)

Bathroom: L to R- foreground is shower, drain, up back is bath then vanity. Furthest right is seperate toilet. Caved in from all the rain.

 

 
 
 
 
Dear husband checking out the progress. Notice houses in background built by same builder. The cream one is very similar to ours minus the verandah we will have over front window & porch. The lamppost is close to our other border mark. Click to enlarge.

 

 

A better view of the block. You can see the styrofoam chaos to the right!