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 continues

So last weekend, decided to push on to get more of the front landscaping done. With the hard work of carting many wheelbarrows of aggregate around the house completed, we got 6 cubic metres of black wood mulch delivered.



We chose black wood mulch primarily for its appearance - if you've got garden beds or trees you want to mulch, black wood mulch is probably not what you want!

Anyway, with a bit of help from Tina and my parents, we got the mulch roughly spread out across the front in about an hour. It'll help keep down weeds when it's laid out a few inches thick, and gives a pretty modern, sleek look to the front.



Have done a little tidying up in the front since then, but it's come a long way from the builder's rubble that was there before!

And speaking of builders, there's still one sticking point left. Just like Megan & Stefan, and I guess pretty much anyone who's ever built a project home, Metricon haven't got back to me yet on our bowed ensuite door - noted at handover and 90 day inspection, all the way back at the start of 2011. I sent a very polite letter into the service department about a month ago, and that was met by deafening silence. Wonder if if anyone reading this blog works for Metricon and wants to look up my case and get back to me?

Coming soon (probably not)... planning to build a deck!

T&T

Door dampers - now discounted postage on packs of 10!

Still have a few of our soft closing door dampers available to purchase at tim-and-tina.com! Have recently found a little loophole to send a packet of 10 cheaper than I first thought - now only $24.95 posted anywhere in Australia including registered post!



And of course if you want to buy more than 10, discounted prices are available on the website too.

T&T

Floating floors, day...?

Did a bit more flooring since the last post - finished off the study on Cup Day.


We salvaged the temporary front door (it was going to be thrown away anyway!) and stuck a couple of trestle legs underneath it to turn it into our new study table. Not sure if we'll paint it, vinyl wrap it or do something else, it's a bit rough at the moment but looks nice and is huge!

Nearly finished the entry and hallway, and there's a few fiddly bits left under the stairs and towards the powder room and laundry.


Will need to find my jigsaw for some complex cuts near doorways, and re-arrange my dropsaw to do lengthway cuts.

Also finally got my iinet ADSL2+ connection established - bought a brand new ADSL router, and... well, nothing works. Lodged a fault report with iinet who will then take it up with Telstra if it's a Telstra wiring error. However, if there's a fault in the wiring internally, then it's yet one more stuffup to fix up. Unfortunately I think we got the worst data cablers in the world to do our house, with the antenna not connected to starserve and the data plugs not correctly attached - they all "fall in" to the wall cavity when I try to plug in a data cable. Meh. Anyway, should it turn out to be a problem with the internal wiring, I'll get it fixed up and send the bill to Metricon, who can then get the idiot cablers who stuffed it up in the first place to reimburse my costs.

T&T

so.... here it is - tim-and-tina's soft door closers now available!

phew, what a weekend! We ordered flooring (yay!) and a lounge (finally!), sealed the grout in the bathroom, but more importantly, took another video with another example of how the door dampers (soft closers) work, and how you install them!

Next video - an example of a door damper freshly installed in mum's kitchen, while she was still cooking!



Want one (or two, or fifty?) Go to our new website tim-and-tina.com and check out the detail about our soft-closing door dampers there!


T&T

Inspecting display homes - what kind of quality can you expect from your house?

This afternoon took a little drive up north to Mernda to have a look at some display homes to see what kind of finish was on them.

Surprisingly, some of the display homes (I won't say which builder!) have some pretty poor detailing when you look up close - one of the houses we saw, I swear the bricking on the balcony pillars was done using all the crappy brick sides facing out! For those who haven't looked at a single brick closely, there's at least one nice "face" side which should be facing out, and at least one "crappy" side which is usually facing "inwards" and hidden by the frame. Lots of overspray in one house, where the gloss paint from the door architraves was all over the adjacent wall, and no-one seemed to have picked that up. Bad brickwork was everywhere, lots of bricks not flush with each other plus mortar blowouts. Bad tiling in wet rooms, with tiles not flush, sticking up enough to catch your feet. Plenty of doors that didn't close properly, with latches not catching and holding the door shut. Feature wall painting done badly with ragged edges. Anyway, the point is, don't think your house should be of "display home quality" because your house should be a lot better!

Anyway, some photos... one of the Metricon display homes we went into had the right solution to the little question about doors opening against each other. In this pic, the door to the bathroom opens towards the door to the shower.


To stop the door smashing into the shower door, a little stopper is put on the back of the door itself - a simple, elegant solution, and it works. If our bathroom door is left "stopperless", we can just pick up one of these stoppers somewhere and fit it ourselves easily. Actually, we'd probably go and buy a whole lot of nice designer stoppers to replace the little rubber bumpers stuck on the plaster, a lot more durable I think.

In another house, saw a super cool, almost built-in wine rack in an alcove near the kitchen.


Quite clever - each 2 bottle holder section can link into another, secured with a single metal rod running down the centre of it all. Readers - has anyone seen this kind of wine rack before and know where we can get it from? Or can suggest any other funky wine holding solution?

And finally, a couple of the Metricon display homes in Mernda have rainheads (the little box above the downpipes, used for draining flat roofs or balconies). Our inspector picked up that our rainhead coming off the balcony doesn't have an overflow, which is just a hole cut into the rainhead to allow excess water to gush out the side. Both these rainheads have overflows - though even these are probably a little undersized, as they're meant to be the same diameter as the downpipe. Anyway, a pretty easy fix for our house as it just needs a hole cut in the side of the rainhead - takes about 3 seconds using a drill and fine-toothed holesaw bit - but another thing to check off the list at PCI.


The point is, the overflow hole is there to provide an escape route in case there's sooooo much water coming through the gutter, so the water comes out the side rather than backing up and flooding the flat roof or balcony, which then would end up flooding your internal walls - a bad thing! Who would've thought a little hole would be so useful!

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

Day 210: Gearing up for the final stages!

Ran into our SS today - he was at our neighbour's site (which he also supervises), cleaning up all the loose rubbish on the block himself. Nice to see a SS who gets his hands dirty! Anyway, apparently we're still on track to get most of the internal fixing done by end of the month.

He did say we can get our carpets in before handover, which is brilliant news - now I'm wondering if we should get our stairs sanded & stained as well, before the carpets are installed. It's a matter of finding out whether a dark stain on the stairs (to match our front & rear doors) would be too dark - will check with Tina on that first. Be nice to have it done before carpets go in upstairs, for a neater finish.

Anyway, I grabbed a meat pie and sauce (the bakery around the corner does the best homemade beef & cheese pies with huge chunks!) and had lunch in the kitchen, daydreaming about how in the not-too-distant future we'd be in the kitchen cooking up a storm, watching TV, and just living the life in the house we've been dreaming and planning for the last 2-3 years!

No trades have been working the last few days, so I just wandered around, trying to see if there's any defects we need to keep an eye on for our final inspection. I don't think I'll bother our SS with anything I find at the moment, as there's still their own QA inspection and window service to be done, and there's still a lot of internal fitoffs to go. Anyway, here's a few minor things that will probably get fixed before our final inspection.

I've heard a lot about this window service thing, which is where all the windows get inspected and fixed before handover. A lot of our window frames were damaged externally during bricklaying with dents and scrapes, so they'll need to be fixed. Also, some windows are sticking or not straight. For example, this is the family room window: at the top there's a big gap, while at the bottom it's closed. Hopefully easily fixed with the window service.


And another example of window damage: in Bed 2, there's a nail protruding from the frame straight through the top frame. D'oh!


Then there's this issue which might be harder to fix: the ensuite window. I remember the bottom wooden frame for this window was removed at frame stage so the bath hob could be tiled right up to the window frame, but it appears the carpenters forgot to reinforce the bottom edge of the window, as now there's a pretty big bow in the window. Left unsupported, this window could just... fall! Needs fixing; but will probably require removal of some tiles, supporting/fixing the window frame, then repairing the bath hob, re-waterproofing, and re-tiling.



Now this isn't really a problem yet, but the manhole hasn't been put in Bed 4. Normally the manhole to the ground floor roof is in Bed 3, but due to our particular roof design, it needs to go in through Bed 4 robes. Pretty quick & easy job for the carpenters to stick in this manhole, but needs to be done before the electricians come in for fixing, as there's lots of wiring in the ground floor roof they'll need access too. And don't mind the apparent white lines in the robes, it's a reflection of my camera flash against the painted architraves!


Back to the ensuite, the shower niche and around the hob appear to be missing grout - but I've been told the plumbers will do some siliconing, to allow for flexing/movement of the tiles, rather than grout. Hopefully this big gap in the shower niche will be fixed too!



Internal doors: Rumpus room door has a huge crack in the bottom edges, looks like the door is coming apart! Needs to be repaired or replaced. Also the ensuite WC door has horrible dry patches all over it, and a big scar across the master bed door from the inside, both need repainting.


And finally for the day (long post, huh?) the bathroom sink is meant to have a light switch (for a light above the mirror) on one side, and a powerpoint on the other side. However, the electricians were meant to cutout on the walls prior to tiling, so the tiler could leave a cutout for them to get access to the wiring. But since they didn't (forgot?) to expose these switches, I'm not sure how they're going to locate them with the tiling all done! Anyway, not my problem to fix, they'll figure a way out.

Ultimately, these issues are all relatively minor and pretty obvious, and should be straightforward enough to fix. I'd be surprised if Metricon's Quality Assurance people didn't pick these things up before our final inspection, if a layperson can detect them!

And ultimately, we'd rather have all the little things fixed before we get our house - I know for sure that once I'm aware of something that's not 100% right, it'll annoy me forever until it gets fixed!

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 176: Garage internal access door delivered

Our missing Balmoral-2 internal access door was delivered today; now all the doors throughout the house match!


T&T

Day 169: Getting ready to fix our floor joist problem!

No work done on site today... we think... but here's some details of little things being fixed up.


The front door frame was installed during frame stage, and our brickies bricked up around the front door, but there was a little gap above and on the sides of the door frame. Above the door frame now there's a strip of timber cut to size to close in the gap, and there will probably be a couple more on the sides to close over the other gaps, and all will be stained to match. And the steel lintel above the doorframe should be painted too, but all these little details can be fixed anytime. Similarly, the internal access door from the garage had gaps all around, but have been closed in with more timber - looks much better and best for sealing out draughts!

Now, finally - the main item identified in our independent inspection is being attended to!

The upstairs WC next to the main bathroom - the wase pipe was cut through the top beam of the floor joist, as you can see above. This cutout is just over the kitchen island bench. The same thing happened with our ensuite shower waste pipe, but that was fixed prior to plastering. In this case, the plasterers came in too soon and plastered over everything before this could be fixed - but now with the error exposed, when the carpenters come back to fix up a few other little things (including the kitchen window reveal) they can rectify this error; probably by adding a reinforcing thingy around the cutout in the joist. And once this is done, then painting can get underway asap!

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 160: Doors & skirting installed, fixing inspection items

Carpenters on the job today, with almost all the internal doors hung.

First of all, our front door has been installed- a Corinthian 6G in 1020mm wide. Will be stained dark, with a 750mm pull handle and mortice lock.

Next up; home theatre doors. I actually wanted the doors hung opposite to how they are in this pic: if you look closely, the right door has the opening handle, and the left door has the mushroom stop.

I did mention to our SS that I wanted the doors hung the other way - admittedly on the floorplan, they're drawn to this specification. I wonder if it can still be fixed - would involve moving the mushroom stop to the right side door, taking out the handle mechanism from the right side door (and filling in the gaps), and putting it on the left side door.

Upstairs now, this shows the upstairs linen closet. For some reason we had to choose totally different handles for linen doors (we chose rectangular handles that match the vanity handles) as you can't put the door handles you use on normal doors. No big deal I guess. Can also see the architrave & skirting all around too.

The other thing too is that the internal access door is a plain flush door, but we specified at our colour appointment that all doors are to be Balmoral-2 design - we think someone at M head office counted the number of doors wrong! Will contact our SS to see if the missing door is going to turn up soon.

In addition to doors & skirting, a couple of the inspection items are starting to be fixed, yay!


Above, Item 17. The noggin in the wall of the kitchen, below the stair case, has been removed. A small square of plaster has been cut out, and the noggin replaced. Should be pretty easy for the plasterers to seal it back up. In addition, all the data cabling etc is poking out on the left side of the pic - this pic shows the fridge alcove, and the data cabling should be on the other side of this wall in the walk-in-linen. Easy enough to plaster over though.

Another item has been attempted to be fixed...


12. The sewer waste pipe over the kitchen area has been installed through the top flange of the smart joist. The manufacturers of the ‘Smart Joist’ do not allow cutting out of the top flange as noted on their ‘SmartJoist’ hole chart. Recommend the manufacturers supply a rectification design for the damaged floor joist.

Looks like the carpenters aren't exactly sure where this sewer waste pipe defect is, so this cutout in the ceiling is in the wrong spot. To make it easy for the carpenters to find the spot, they should go to the upstairs WC and poke a long drill bit directly adjacent the the waste pipe, and where it pokes through the ceiling is where they need to fix the defect - but I don't want to tell anyone how to do their job, so maybe we'll just sit tight and see how they go about fixing things! Ultimately the ceiling and kitchen needs to be replastered as most of the defects are in this area so the end result will be good - we hope!

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 118: Carpenters back on site, facade taking shape and more internal work!

The electricians didn't come back today; but we had great progress with the carpenters back onsite getting busy. First of all, the facade is really starting to take shape! Carpenters have almost finished installing the weatherboard cladding to the first floor facade - just the very top level to be added!

Of course, with the sun setting earlier and earlier everyday, this photo is a little dull - I didn't even go to the house today, as by the time I get there it's already pitch black, but Tina normally gets there just as the sun sets.

Up close, we can see more detail of the cladding. Vertical timber studs are fixed to the studs behind the weather wrap, the weatherboards are secret nailed to the studs, with the corners fixed with a vertical timber piece.

Eaves haven't been completed, only a little bit left to be done, and the weatherboards to the rear of the house haven't been started yet. Not much left for external lockup now!

And on the inside, the carpenters have fixed in the double cavity sliders to the study and ensuite. Photo below is the study doors.


They look FANTASTIC - but then again, we're biased :) The doors are 720mm wide and 2340mm high each, and while you can see the routing for each of the two panels at the moment, the doors will be painted Dulux White-On-White.



Also , the bathtub to the ensuite has been delivered and installed. Might have to obscure that window, or the neighbours will get a heart attack watching me in the tub. Not sure what that blue tube is for.

Also, the bathroom bathtub has been installed... sitting on some spare bricks.

According to MyMetricon, internal lockup is due to be completed tomorrow 20.4.10, and lockup completion is scheduled for 23.4.10. Need to make contact with Monique tomorrow, as we need to organise our independent lockup inspection... maybe as soon as next week?

T&T

Day 113: Cavity doorframes & doors delivered

Delivery of cavity doorframes & doors today.

We've got a set of double cavity doors to the study, and double cavity doors to the ensuite. Each cavity door gets its own prefabricated frame - guess they need to be installed as part of lockup, as plaster will be laid over the frames.

Aso got 5 doors delivered. One was a plain flush door, which we think will be installed to the garage access door temporarily. We also got 4 cavity doors, Corinthian Balmoral 2 in 2340mm high. There's a few deep scratches and gouges in the doors, which we expect will be filled in prior to painting. The tall doors are an upgrade, but match the high ceilings exceptionally well! Highly recommended for anyone increasing ceiling height to get tall doors too. Plus Balmoral 2 doors are solid wood construction, unlike standard doors which are thin MDF on either side, separated by a cardboard honeycomb inner layer.

Also waiting on one more cavity door, which is a custom sized 1020mm wide Balmoral 2 door, which will close off the open plan rear area from the front of the house.

T&T

Day 112: Bricks cleaned - first floor

Got to the site about noon today to check out the brick cleaners working up on the first floor.


Pretty messy & noisy job, with two trucks out the front pumping the acid wash up to the cleaners, who were in full protective gear.. well, except for the unlucky bloke on the scaffolding :)


Metal capping to the first floor brickwork also installed in preparation for weatherboard cladding. You can also see the difference between clean and uncleaned bricks. The cladding was delivered in the afternoon, so hopefully it'll be installed sometime this week. Looking at the top of the balcony, seems to be missing a row of header bricks at the moment... also the torn weather wrap needs a little closure.

Finally, the bathroom bathtub has been delivered, as well as a few other little goodies - in particular the Gainsborough 750mm double pull handle for the front door! Love this upgrade, it'll look brilliant when installed!

T&T

Day 111: Lockup carpenters on site

Got a voicemail from Monique this morning for our weekly update. Apparently the lockup carpenters are working on the eaves today, and hopefully will start on the balcony floor and cladding for front & rear tomorrow!


A minor job, but an important one - the bipart sliding doors have been installed in the frame. They look great already, can't wait to get them stained!



Also a very elegant sign from Slattery & Acquroff stairs! Check out their website for some of the stair designs on offer, many pictures of stairs from Metricon display homes. The stairs we chose is the Contemporary 17 design - cantilevered with stainless steel balustrade and continuous handrail, which we will stain dark to match the front & rear doors.

At the rear of the house, some timber framing has been installed outside the wrapping to which the linea board (weatherboard cladding) will be fixed to. You can also see the eaves installed, and when they're painted they should match the Surfmist fascia well. Plenty more broken tiles on the roof... but with a lot more work to be done above the roof, all the broken ones will be replaced after work is complete.

This view looking up at the front shows how the eaves have been installed -the lockup carpenters fixed extra battens under the roof trusses, to which the eave plastering is fixed to. Only a few more sections of eaves to be installed tomorrow!

Finally, went back at night to see how the house looks - things are moving along well, and I think I'll spend my day off tomorrow hanging around the front, watching the carpenters work! Monique thinks the lockup stage should be done in a couple of weeks, right on time for the end of April.

T&T