Just in stock: door dampers v2.0!

OK guys - it's taken a while, but we've got our new door dampers in stock!

Check out the video below for an introduction to the new redesigned door dampers. As before, they're suitable to install on kitchen cupboards, laundry, bathroom vanities etc. You can also use them on pot drawers, but after some experience with the previous model, the pot drawers can weigh 10-20kg when loaded with pots & pans, so you will need more dampers - 4 or more depending on how heavy the pot drawers are.



If you'd like to order a set, or find out more details, please check out our dedicated site tim-and-tina.com. We'll be shipping these from Monday next week, all over Australia!

t&t

DIY: Landscaping with stones/aggregate

Managed to finish off setting in the pavers along the side of the house yesterday, and flattened out the front "garden" in preparation for the next stage.

Went down to Daisy's Garden Supplies today - I had shortlisted a few landscape/garden supply places, but quite a few of them don't open at all on Sunday so they got struck off the list immediately! Anyway, they had a good variety of mulches, rocks, stones, sleepers etc, and I was very surprised to hear they'd deliver an order within the hour, even on a Sunday afternoon! So anyway, we chose to get 5 cubic metres of 20mm screenings - it's a granite aggregate, looks great with lots of white/black flecks in it, plus half a dozen sleepers and some other bits & pieces.

So, 45 minutes later we had this dumped in front of the house:


Here's the laundry side of the house with some pavers set into mortar;


and after about 90 minutes, we'd done this much movement of stones. Used layers of newspaper and weedmat under the stones to control weed growth (from what I've read, apparently layered newspaper does a fine job to block weeds growing - we'll see! At least we have plenty of newspaper to recycle this way!).

We'll probably add a few more wheelbarrow loads of stones once the basic coverage is done to make sure it's more level. Already a big improvement over the uneven mud trail that's been there for a year; and once this side is done I can hang up a clothesline outside the laundry.

Hoping to get all the stone laid out by next weekend, then mulch/planting the front garden, and maybe even make a start planning a deck for Melbourne Cup weekend!

(does anyone know if you need a permit for a small deck, around 20sqm?)

T&T

IKEA Springvale opened

So Ikea have opened another store in Melbourne, which was great news for us as we're both pretty tragic IKEA fans! Plus it's only about 20 minutes away from us. Their designs are generally top-notch if you like modern, relatively minimal furniture pieces at good prices, and they have so many items it's pretty much guaranteed you can't leave the store without buying something interesting.

I think the only questionable aspect of Ikea products is the longevity of the chipboard/paper pulp products, though everything we've ever bought is still functional. Oh, and their mattresses are not good at all - bought one for our old house and sold it on ebay a few weeks later.

We decided to head there last Sunday evening, as they're conveniently open late night weekends, and strolled the 2.5km walk that is the guided route through the store. I didn't mind this wire wine rack, I think it was made of two $50 sections stacked on top of each other. More functional than beautiful though.


Plus some ideas for our laundry. We have a big walk-in linen cupboard full of my computer gear and car parts (what else would you store in a linen cupboard?) but we have a big blank wall above the laundry sink and bench. We'll probably put some open shelves above the bench - so you can hang things to dry on it, or store stuff that will still have plenty of air circulating around it - and maybe a wall-mounted cupboard or two. Also maybe some wall-mounted hooks and fold-down drying racks. Not that I'll get to use it, since we got married Tina has demanded I stay out of the laundry for fear of ruining her clothes... who am I to argue?


If you wanted to delve deeper into the inner workings of Ikea, there's a National Geographic feature docu on the production process (google "Ikea Megafactories", about 1 hour long), or this decent read by Businessweek.

And speaking of Ikea, by any chance is there anyone from USA reading this who wants to lend us a hand? We need two (or four) of these Besta suspension rails to wall-mount some Besta cabinets, and for some reason Ikea Australia have decided NOT to sell them locally, and Ikea USA won't ship internationally?!!! If we can't get this necessary hardware to mount the cabinets, I'm going to return them and get something else. I'll pay for the rails, postage to Australia and some more for your time! Leave us a comment if you help us out!

To finish with, today is day 364 since we got the keys to our house - can't believe it'll be ONE YEAR TOMORROW! Maybe I'll bake a cake for the house... though there's also soil to shovel, a dog to walk, a bike to be pedalled and a few other things to do tomorrow.

T&T

Handover pics continued

It's Sunday night, about 48 hours after getting our keys. Spent all weekend cleaning and moving in basic items, the place now looks a mess all over again with half-opened boxes, rags & mops everywhere, temporary foldup tables and chairs... but anyway, here's a couple of pics taken at handover on Friday, before all the moving chaos began.

The front door - part of the promotion when we signed on for the house. 1020 x 2340, clear glass, stained Intergrain Charcoal. 750mm Gainsborough pull handle upgrade. Not sure whether we'll keep the clear glass, or add some obsure tint - I quite like the clear glass at the moment. Bricks are Austral Melbourne series Hawthorn with offwhite flush mortar - absolutely love them! That portico light, we'll change to a sensor light... getting all the plain light fittings changed will happen, but it's low on the huge list of things to do.



Entry hallway, and the feature upgrade stairs. Cantilevered hardwood with continuous handrail. and stainless steel balusters. The downside to these stairs is that they look awesome, but you can't really have any under-stair storage due to all the supporting framework under the stairs. Currently in raw finish - we have the stairs guy booked in tomorrow for sanding & staining over 3 days; if he does a good job, we'll put his details up. We will probably need to touch up or repaint the walls surrounding the stairs after staining (as the stain will run onto the walls), so might even change to a feature colour around the stairs - we'll see how much stain bleeding there is and decide after that. Three step lights illuminate the treads and look very very nice! We didn't add in a light over the stairwell, as it wouldn't be very visible from the ground floor. Some designs like the Liberty have the stairwell turning 180 degrees, and I think we would have added a stair light in that case.


Laundry. Got to have one, but will be trying to avoid spending any time in here unless absolutely necessary. We decided to put the taps on the all above the washing machine position, so the taps are easily turned on/off when the machine isn't in use. Usually they're in the cabinet right at the bottom, a bit of a pain to crawl down and turn off. Had plenty of experience with split washing machine hoses that were left on all the time, that end up flooding the laundry and beyond, so turn off your taps when not in use! We also put in a floor waste under the washing machine, just in case. Colours here: floor tiles are Tecnico Charcoal 400x400, wall tiles are Linea Grey 200x300, cabinet is Laminex Polar White with Laminex New Graphite benchtop.

Standing in the family room area, looking towards the kitchen in front and dining to the left. Needs more furniture, and more food, and lots more beer & wine. Ceilings are Dulux White on White, walls are Dulux Natural White. Of course, at night with downlights or fluoros on, everything looks creamier than in daylight.

And finally, we cracked open a bottle of champagne - this was given to us by the real estate agents when we bought the old house back in May 2009, and we'd been saving it for handover day!


We had handover with a missing kitchen drawer handle, and a bloke came around Saturday afternoon to replace it, so that was pretty good. There's a couple of problems that need to be sorted out soon rather than at 90 day maintenance (mainly we can't watch TV because someone forgot to connect the antenna to the Starserve system!), but we're pretty sure John will get in touch with us soonish about them, as he's on our street all the time building our neighbour's Chelsea!

And for all you housebuilders out there - when you do get handover, with shiny new keys in your pocket, driving up to your house with the facade lit up, parking your car in your garage and walking into your house - it makes all the planning, waiting, stressing, moving, mortgage payments all worthwhile!

More handover pics another day!

T&T

Day 221: Hooray - things are being fixed!

Tina was at the house yesterday and some more stuff was being done - of primary interest to me was hearing that the problems in the walk-in-linen data fitoff was getting fixed up already!


So, examining the picture above, the starserve enclosure has been moved nice & high to the right - excellent! Looking inside the enclosure, the incorrect unit has been removed, so I presume the correct one is being ordered in. Also the data returns now come through near the powerpoint, ready for termination.

Very happy to see how our SS has responded to our concerns so far & so fast - top marks to John & Metricon for that! Of course there's a few holes & gaps in the plaster to be patched up later on, but that's all part of normal completion anyway.

Other developments, the robe fitoffs should happen this coming week, as the shelving, chrome hanging rails & supports, and sliding doors have been delivered to all bedrooms.


We chose to upgrade to framed mirror doors in taller size (2340mm to match the doors), and deliberately stayed away from the frameless mirror doors - the frameless ones are just about impossible to slide open or close, since there's nothing to grab onto except for a little "handle" that's a few mm tall! Try before you buy, people. Plus having the mirrored doors look nice, they make the room appear much bigger & brighter, and are a relatively cheap upgrade per room to do. Another thing - if you get tall ceilings, get tall doors/robe doors too, to take advantage of the increase in ceiling height. We also raised the height of the shelves in the robes to 2000mm, so we can put in an additional clothes hanging rail later if we want to.

In the master bed, for the promotion we got two robe fitouts, which is basically some open shelves and a few drawers.


Not keen on the bow handles (actually I don't like anything curved or rounded!), will probably change them over to square handles later. In the future, may even take out all the robe fitout in the master bed and do one of those cool "designer" style robe fitouts, like you see in Howard's Storage World or Ikea :)

And our big cavity slider door has finally been installed. We added this in to separate the rear open plan area (kitchen, family, dining) from the front area, it's 1020x2340mm.

Been sitting in the family room for weeks, and it looks good - except for a little scar in the top right corner of the door which will need repairing later. Also there are gaps above all the cavity doors in the house, so we'll have to mention we want them closed up later on.

And today (Day 221) there were some fixing carpenters at the house most of the day, and they put in some beading around the outdoor room, and installed extra noggins/framing in the garage and portico, so that the plaster can be installed in both.



We've also got a site meeting with our SS and the construction manager on Tuesday morning, probably just to get an update on progress and to see how things are going for the final few stages of the build. Things are sooooo close to finishing, we can almost touch it! The house is looking better and better as all these little fitoffs are getting done. As we were leaving, my aunt and cousin drove past so we invited them in for a sneak peek - and they were very impressed with how everything looks so far too!

T&T

More painting pics

Some pictures showing the house after painting has been finished!

First off, beautiful front door, I think with all the staining completed. The ceilings, skirting, architraves, doors are all Dulux White on White. The walls are Dulux Natural White - probably a little more creamy than we though it would be, but I think the slight contrast will grow on us.

The laundry floor has had steel reinforcement welded back in, and should have the concrete repoured sometime this week - can't get our laundry floor tiled until this repair is completed. Termite protection was also reinstalled around the new waste pipe position.

And finally, our master bedroom.


T&T

Day 192: Peering in through dirty windows

Tina got a few pics of the house in daylight today, but only from peering in through very dirty windows. Note to self: bring some windex to clean the windows next time!

Think the front & rear doors have had another coat of stain, as they're looking a bit darker. Nice!


Also some of the internal doors have been re-hung. Peering in through the dining room window, we can see the rear biparts again to the right, and next to them some double doors leading into the home theatre room.


Now here's something to think about if you're doing floors yourself - you might want to check with your builder how much gap is left under the doors when they're hung. Looks like maybe an inch between the internal doors and the slab, which means if we're doing a timber floor, the underlay + floor thickness should ideally fit under this space. If it's too thick, we'll need to have the doors adjusted to allow for the flooring thickness. Didn't think about this before we started, and a little late to do anything about it now!

And last pic for today, looks like the kitchen is almost finished. The plastering around the moved window splashback looks to have been sanded and painted, as well as the infills over the overhead cupboards. Wish we could get inside to see how the ceiling and wall colours look up close, it's hard to tell from these photos.


Benchtops were scheduled to go in today, but maybe we'll see them next week. See that horrible brick wall visible just outside the kitchen window? We're definitely going to have to block that view; don't want to be staring at that through our windows! I think we'll put up some kind of bamboo screening in a dark colour (maybe the charcoal stain colour of our front/rear doors), with some nice fruit/herb trees in pots. Would be nice to have lemons and limes handily available for my Coronas!

This evening I also got an update from John on my voicemail - apparently painting is pretty much all complete now. Termite protection was put in the laundry where the waste pipe has been moved, and hopefully the concrete repair will be done on Monday and the laundry cabinet replaced on the wall. And next Tuesday - tiling starts!

T&T

Day 187: Review of last week's work up to now!

So there hasn't been many updates during the week - we've been busy moving to a new housesit, plus the house has been locked up with the painters doing their initial preparation work. Plus I've been distracted with my new car - I had it serviced as soon as I bought it, and now it's giving me problems! Grrr....

Anyway, John called me Friday night to arrange a walkthrough Saturday afternoon, and we were able to be brough up to date on events. We also have a new CSC, I think this is our seventh?

Still waiting on the engineer's report on how to fix the laundry floor, that should come in sometime this week.

Anyway, here's the first round of pics from last week's work. The front and rear doors have had the first coat of stain put on, and they're starting to look good already!

Should get a little darker with the next coat of stain. Blends in well with the bricks outside, but from the inside there's a huge contrast with the white walls & ceiling, looks brilliant! John also pointed out where many of the windows have been damaged from bricklaying, so they'll all get fixed before handover.

Rear bipart doors also stained up nicely.

Over the dining room window, some of the cornice has been cutout as the ceiling is bowed. This will be fixed properly to the trusses, then new cornice over this area.


The kitchen has seen some attention too. Infills have been installed over the overhead cupboards, plus a few of the doors have been replaced - one or two were scratched, the ones under the sink were rubbing, and the one in the corner of the island has been replaced too - still needs a bit of adjustment as there's a very obvious uneven gap around it.

And our kitchen sink has arrived - a special order for us, as we couldn't find it in Studio M's standard sink range.

This is a Clark Razor double bowl undermount sink, normally a commercial installation but great for home use, as it's massive! Though not as deep as we though it would be, it's the widest/longest one we could find.

And to update our schedule, painting is meant to be done by end of next week (ie end of June). The electricians may be called in to pull through/expose all their wiring before the final coat of paint. Stone benchtops should be in on July 2nd, and tiling to start soon after!

Will post a few more pics tomorrow.

T&T

Day 178: Engineers inspecting slab, and painting prep

Paid the fixing stage invoice last night - only one more to go; the final payment! But when we have to make it is still not yet decided!

Spoke to our SS today, and John gave us an update on what's happening right about now.

• Painters were in sanding yesterday, and should start on painting on Monday. Window frames still need to be sanded next week. Hopefully painting should be finished by the end of the month! Some of our doors were returned to the house, though now our recently delivered internal access door is missing in action; probably being prepped for painting too.
  
• Structural Works (engineers) were at the house today to inspect the laundry slab where the pipes were moved, and should come up with a report on how to fix things properly on Tuesday. Nice to know our concerns with the slab here are being addressed correctly - our independent inspector recommended an engineered solution, which we're getting.
  

Anyway, it looks like someone has also identified a little problem with the ensuite shower niche;


It says "NO FALL" on the bottom of the shower niche, which we think means there's not enough slope on the shower niche to provide runoff of water. Without the correct fall, water will pool in the niche, eventually rotting through grout and waterproofing and ultimately rotting the stud wall here. Not a good thing, so hopefully someone will figure out how to correct this - we won't accept a niche which collects water! Plus if you look at the top & bottom of the niche in the photo, it's pretty wavy and uneven, so we'd expect this to be corrected too to get a perfectly square niche. Tiling can correct minor surface imperfections, but not something as uneven as this!


Also some tins of Dulux Undercoat waiting to go on! Think that painting will dramatically change how things look - at the moment there's a lot of exposed plasterboard, more plaster patches and random spots of colour everywhere, so having it one uniform shade should improve the appearance heaps!

Got a call from my mechanic too; my new car only needs new tyres for a roadworthy certificate, so with any luck I might have it on the roads next week!

And finally - tomorrow is the auction of this Metricon Promenade in Mont Albert North which I'll be attending. Be interesting to see how much $$$ it earns!

T&T

Day 171: Laundry waste pipe moved, painting has commenced

According to MyMetricon, we've had the Fixing Stage completed as of 10.6.10! Time to check under the couch for coins and sell off unwanted items on ebay to pay yet another 20% of the build cost - though this means there's only 10% +/- variations to go, and that'll be at handover!

Today, someone with a very big hammer came in to cut out the floor of the slab in the laundry to move the waste pipe; which long-term readers will recall was incorrectly positioned under the laundry cupboards.

I didn't go to the house today - this is Tina's photo - but to me, it looks like there's a mini-garden in the laundry, where we could possibly grow vegetables. Ideally though, we'd have a bit of concrete and some tiles there, which is the conventional use of a laundry.

From our independent inspector's report:

"Item 18. The plumbing floor waste in the laundry which is to be located below the washing
machine is installed with in the laundry cabinetry area. The drainers will be required to
relocate the pipe. This will involve cutting and jack hammering the slab. The appointed
engineer will be required to supply a rectification plan to reinstate the slab removed as the pipe is being significally relocated. The slab penetrations are sealed with termite protection seals. This will also be required to be reinstalled by the termite protection firm. Recommend viewing the appropriate documentation to cofirm these works have been completed appropriately."

So what we'll be doing is emailing our CSC and SS to confirm that we'll get a copy of the engineers' report regarding fixing the slab where its been cutout, plus confirm the termite protectin will be reinstated. That's one of the dangers of modifying a volume builder's plans too much - the additional things may not be done ideally the first time around. As long as things are fixed properly though, the end result should be fine. I wanted a drain waste under the washing machine position as I have many memories of my mum's washing machine getting blocked, or pipes leaking/splitting, and the laundry flooding the house as a result!

The painters also came today - they were meant to start Monday, but have been delayed as we've insisted on the various lockup items to be fixed first. Today, they came in and covered the stairwell in protective plastic, and started with a layer of primer on the doors. We'll have to check the doors are painted all around, including top, bottom and sides; not just the obvious main 2 sides.


Our new SS, John, also called me this afternoon to tell me of the day's progress. I did mention the manhole was in the wrong spot (see the last blog entry) and he said he'll check it out. The plasterer should be back again on Tuesday to do a final plaster fix so the painters can really get into things. MyMetricon says painting will be done by 18.6.10 which is highly unlikely - probably towards the end of June would be more realistic. I like our new SS - he's only just started with Metricon, so hopefully he'll be particularly attentive to the fine details, but he seems open and communicative, as was our last SS.

T&T

Day 168: Some further plastering/carpentry, and onsite meeting with our two SSs

This morning, the carpenters were in and added the missing noggin in the garage (only 1 required, not 2 because they're only for plaster fixing), as well as installing the balcony!


Plus some other carpenter type things were done, installing/closing gaps around the front door and internal access door with timber strips (that will be stained/painted to match). Now, if we only had a key for the balcony french doors (below), the waterproofers can go and waterproof the balcony so the tiling, guttering, and portico plastering can be done.

Also had a plasterer in today, installing the plaster under the top flight of the stairs and tidying up some other spots. He also repaired the two holes in the ceiling where the carpenters tried to find the damaged floor joist to repair... more on this later!



I guess the big things for today was our on-site meeting with Monique and our new SS John. MyMetricon was updated yesterday to say we were getting a new SS; because Monique is so busy with all the Balwyn builds, John will take care of us and our neighbour down the road (who just had the slab down for their Chelsea - congratulations guys!).

So anyway, we had a page of things that we were mainly concerned about and wanted clarification before any further work was done, and happy to say that we're satisfied with how things are being assessed and fixed.

1) Damaged floor joist: I pointed out to John that the damaged joist was directly under where the upstairs WC waste pipe was located. Since the carpenters had already tried twice (and failed!) to locate the joist from the ground floor, John got upstairs and banged through the plaster adjacent to the waste pipe, clearly marking out on the kitchen ceiling where the joist needs repairing. Should be an easy fix now!

2) Kitchen problems;

• Kitchen stone bench on the side will go right into the window splashback reveal as per the earlier pic posted- carpenters will cut out all the wood/plaster that's blocking the benchtop.
• Gaps, missing laminate strips - will all be fixed when the kitchen people come back in for the benchtops, or by the painters. Pretty minor but annoying stuff.
• Rangehood: Will be externally ducted, will be dealt with later during the electrical final fixing.
• Cables from the walk-in-linen - to be repaired by plasterer where they've been incorrectly pulled through in the fridge alcove.

3) Laundry waste: Been in the wrong spot for months, but the plumbing people responsible are aware it needs to be moved before tiling.

4) Garage internal access door: A replacement Balmoral-2 door has been ordered, as there was an estimating error somewhere - someone forgot to count all the doors correctly! And the missing noggins have been fixed this morning.

5) Rumpus room doors - Will leave them hanging the way they are, as they're set up for "right handed people" the way the right door opens. Not a big deal ultimately.

So, looks like things are geting back on track! John used to be a painter apparently, which should be a good thing, if it means he has an eye for detail!

The plans for the next few weeks:

• Carpenters back in sometime this week to do the final fixes and repair that joist
  
• Painters might start next week, and take around 2 weeks to complete internal painting
• Tiling around the start of July
• By August, final fixings, and maybe firming up on a handover date by that time too!

T&T

Day 157: Sparkies on site

Little bit of work done today, with the electricians running in some wiring to the garage now the roof there has been completed. While I couldn't get my 3 car garage, or even a workshop, at least there's plenty of powerpoints and a TV outlet!


Near the front of the garage is a double powerpoint, plus light switches for the ceiling fluoros and an external light.

There'll be two fluoro lights on the ceiling - can never have enough light in the garage for working!

Inside the sparkies have starting locating wiring for powerpoints and switches. We've placed the washing machine powerpoint and water taps on the wall above the machine (hate bending down to turn things on & off inside cabinets!)

Apparently someone from the cabinet company came by to check on the installations today too, and have left this sign:


So while the fixing stage is meant to be complete by 31.5.10 (according to MyMetricon), I very much doubt it'll be complete by then unless teams of tradies work throughout this weekend. The definition of the fixing claim stage being complete is:

"The stage when plaster is hung (decorative cornice may not be complete) architraves, skirting, doors, baths, basins, troughs, sinks, cabinets and cupboards are fitted and fixed in position. Attached garages, front porticos and carports are completed (Granite installation may not be complete). Or percentage of works completed."

Erm... we have no doors, no skirting, no architraves, missing plaster in the kitchen and none in the garage, portico isn't even started and many items from the lockup inspection haven't been addressed - so should we receive a fixing invoice in the mail before these items are completed, there's no basis for us to pay it!

T&T

Day 150: Stairs installed! Kitchen, vanities, sinks, doors, skirting/architraves delivered!

Wow, what a day of activity at the house! I didn't get to go due to work, but Tina got to catch all the action today.


A couple of guys from Slattery & Acquroff installed our stairs today. I was always a bit unsure about these stairs - big upgrade from the standard stairs, but looking at them now, they're worth every cent! Will get brighter photos of the finished product tomorrow. The great thing is that because of their slim design, they make the corridor adjacent to the stairs feel even bigger, and the cantilevered projection of the stairs makes them a real feature that you can just see from the front door too. LOVE them!

Also a whole bunch of big internal doors delivered - Tina thinks we may be one short, as for some reason our internal access door is a standard flush door and not a Balmoral-2 design like we've specified for all doors. Also the door frames and fittings also delivered. Not everyone likes the Balmoral-2 design (small panel on the bottom, large panel up top) but they're a major feature for our house, love them!


And our family room is absolutely packed full of cabinetry - we've got a whole bunch of kitchen cabinets, plus all the vanities and laundry bench here waiting to go in. Exciting! Also some skirting/architrave delivered today, and a manhole cover. Woo!

And also the laundry sink (Clarke), and the Caroma Liano basins. We've decided to have inset sinks everywhere except for the powder room, which gets a semi-recessed sink. Looks nice, but you get a lot less bench space - so only suitable for the powder room.

Very happy to see so much activity going on of course - it's really starting to feel like our house now that the internal selection items have arrived, and will be exciting to see how they look!

T&T

Day 58: First floor wall framing 98% complete

A nice sight on our site tonight (ooo, alliteration!); a first floor! And even better, the chippies chained a ladder to the staircase void, so we could get up to the first floor!



Pretty much all the wall framing is done to the first floor. Wonky photo due to me not holding iphone steadily enough. Play "Where's Tina" and you might spot her in the middle of the first floor. Also, most of the wood that was gathering in front of the house has been used, stacked at the rear, or in the rubbish bin - site looking much clearer & cleaner now! Also, the chippies have cut out the flooring for the flush tile base to the ensuite shower.


View of Bed 4 from bathroom. The door between these two rooms is waaaay off! Basically one of the appealing features of our house design is that two of the minor bedrooms have access to the upstairs bathroom, kind of like a shared ensuite. But the way the wall frame is right now, the door is exactly where the vanity will go. Should be an easy fix - pull down about 3 studs, and reposition door frame adjacent to shower.

Note to self; other minor things to bring up with the chippies/SS to fix by frame completion:

• several noggins hanging loose
• internal access, front door and HT room door frames still too low
• bathroom access door frame in bed 4 in totally the wrong spot, needs to be moved to correct position
• beam under bed 4 missing
• beam/sideboard to sitting room side wall missing

anonymous/paul: I think you might have interpreted our laundry redesign wrong - we actually blocked off the laundry so you don't get any access from the kitchen, as we specifically didn't want to walk through the kitchen everytime we wanted to go in the laundry!

Here's a quick photochop comparison of how things look;

basically we wanted something like the standard lindrum design (pic 1), as the standard nolan 41 has laundry access from the kitchen (pic 3). We redesigned it to pic 4, and also enclosed the powder room. Advantages are - not having to go through the kitchen to the laundry, quicker access to laundry from upstairs bedrooms (right near the bottom of the stairs), plus a massive Walk In Linen cupboard, plus the fridge recess to the kitchen becomes larger, plus there's a "linen" cupboard now at the bottom of the stairs, opposite the internal access door, where Tina can store her 38,000 pairs of shoes.

I'm not entirely sure what benefits the combined pantry/laundry would give you (pic 2?). Somehow, I would think 52 squares should be enough space for most families without having to combine rooms! My main concern is dirty (or clean) laundry in the same room as food? Possible damp clothes with the cereal? Bringing clothes in & out all the time through the kitchen? My personal vote would be to keep the standard lindrum pantry/laundry layout which is pretty well thought out already, but maybe change the linen cupboard so the door to access it opens from the laundry itself, not from the passageway outside. Anyway that's just my opinion, we just don't like laundry access from the kitchen but it may suit your needs that way! :)

Readers, please feel free to ask questions as Paul did to see if we can help, and post comments/feedback on these issues as it's good to hear what other people think, not just our/my opinions on things!

T&T

Day 51: Wild weather, but trusses about 80% complete!

Woke up this morning and happy to see clear skies and warm weather. This all changed by about 4pm, when the skies turned black and solid sheets of water fell from the skies - cutting out power to my office block, so I left early to check on the site.

And happily it appears the chippies were able to get a heap of work done in the morning prior to the storm - lots of trusses installed, maybe 80% complete? Just trusses over the sitting room and entry gallery to be completed.



Only had time to take a couple of photos on my iphone before the rain went mad again - here's a pretty wonky photo standing in the hallway ;looking towards the back of the house - study is to left, laundry to right. Void in trusses for the future staircase. Having the trusses in lets us get an idea of how large the rooms will really be. I'd highly recommend to anyone building a house to upgrade to higher ceilings if your budget permits - you definitely can't add this later on, and it gives a much more spacious feel to the house! I've heard of huge variations in how much builders charge for higher ceilings. I think ours were great value, only about $2000 more for 2.7m ceilings to the ground and I can't remember how much (less than $2k) for 2.55m ceilings to first floor (Metricon apparently don't offer higher ceilings than this for ground & first). One builder on H1 wanted $10k for 2.7m ceilings to a single storey house - wow!


The pic above shows floor trusses in open plan rear area - the kitchen area is covered by trusses, the open area to the left is the dining area (no first floor above here). You can see two pipes for the kitchen sink, but for some reason there's a big pipe near the frame and we can't work out what it's for - there's no plumbing void marked on the plans, so we'll ask our SS next week about that.

Hoping the weather will hold off tomorrow morning so the remaining trusses can be installed, and maybe the start of first floor trusses, though maybe scaffolding will be needing.

And for anonymous who wanted to know what the payment breakdown is, it's like this:

• $1000 initial deposit; covers site survey and soil test (well, it did for us anyway)
• $3000 at preliminary contract acceptance to cover cost of custom plans
• 5% (less the previously paid $4000) at contract signing
• Base: 20%
• Frame: 20%
• Lockup: 25%
• Fixing 20%
• Completion 10%

Now that we've started along the journey, it's plain to see the payments are clearly biased to having most of the money upfront -ie by the time you get to lockup you've already stumped up 70% Perhaps that's why (for most builders not just Metricon) the first 3 stages go by quickly, then things tend to slow down at fixing & completion. Would be interesting to hear if anyone has successfully negotiated different payment percentages? Of course, ultimately you end up paying 100%. Also, note that things like postcontract variations are added/subtracted on you completion payment - we'll have to pay about $15k more for various additions, less $1000 for power pole, plus $x for retaining wall and whatever other little things turn up.

Anyway, we're pretty happy about progress on the site - at the start of last week we had a few plumbing pipes in the ground, now we're starting on the first floor frame! Providing the weather holds off, we're fairly confident our SS's predictions of frame completion by end of February will work out - and of course, another bill for 20% of the build in our letterbox!

T&T

Day 48: Base stage paid, and frame started!

Paid the base stage invoice today - can you believe CBA wanted $28 to do an electronic transfer to ANZ? Anyway, ended up doing it through netbanking for free - stuff you, banks and your fees!

Got a call from Tina on the way home from work, and she sounded excited - for good reason too, as she was already walking around our ground floor frame, which was halfway done!


Not bad work by our tradies, suffering in 34 degree mad heat - I'll bring them a carton of beer tomorrow I think! Also spoke to our fantastic neighbours, who said the chippies started about 7, and worked through to about 3, solid effort that!

The next picture shows our sitting room.




Now that the frame is starting to go up, it's so much easier to get an idea of the size of rooms. My perceptions so far is that the sitting room and laundry seem a little smaller than I thought they would be, and the study is bigger than I thought (good!). Powder room seems about right - because we made some modifications to the floorplans, our laundry/powder room is different to standard Nolan.


In the previous picture, from bottom to top: Powder room (with one pipe for sink waste), then laundry (two pipes), then the two little areas are for walk-in-linen and walk-in-pantry. Then the kitchen (with 2 pipes for sink) and dining room, then outdoor room!

This next picture shows my room in the house - the home theatre/man cave. Tina can have pretty much every other room, but I've got big plans for this room! Though one thing we need to check with our SS tomorrow is the door heights - we have 2340mm doors everywhere, and I think the door frame to the HT is too low. It's basically the same height as the bipart doors to the rear (right) of the HT, which is only about 2000mm high. Should be an easy fix at frame stage to rectify.


The next pic is a view of family room from kitchen area. HT room is to the right, and to the left is entry hallway. We'll put our plasma TV on the left, so you can see it from the kitchen and meals area.


Finally, welcome to all the new readers to the blog - seems to be quite a few fellow metricon builders out there, some ahead of us and some just starting out. Please feel free to ask questions, and to comment about things that we should be checking (in particular, we'll have to get around to organising an inspection at preplaster in a few weeks/months?)

Ben&Dana: Hi, welcome to our blog. Jealous that you're at lockup already! We looked at a Stanton display home, somewhere in the northern suburbs I think - we like how the informal area of the house (kitchen, meals, family) takes up the entire back half of the ground floor! We did get our building permit mid October, but due to delays in demolition, we really didn't started until mid January, though the site scrape was Dec 22nd.

R&T: I think you said you had a bit of a fall on your block? Sure, a big slab will cost more $$$, but it'll stop your house sliding off onto someone else's land :) Should get nice views too! I think I've found another Nolan being built in Mitcham, will blog about it if I'm right!

wushukid: Hi! What design are you building, and what area? It's interesting to find readers of this blog are building all over Victoria, and NSW as well :)

Today's frame start has been sooo exciting - I just wish I could stand the heat to stay a bit longer - had to go home after a few minutes to change!

T&T