Monday, May 28, 2012

The New Addition

A new family member joined us this month. No, it's not the baby! Lil' Gemma has been growing fast and is fitting in quickly. She loves visiting the building site, a puppy chewing paradise!



Saturday, May 19, 2012

More progress this week

Lots of progress on site this week!  The guttering and roofing was installed on the rear pavilion this week.  We chose a colorbond roof and gutter in shale grey with white fascias.  I'm sure the roof looks good, but from just about every angle, I can't see it! Lucky I put so much thought into the colour.

New guttering

Gorgeous sunshine streaming into the bedrooms
 The retaining wall is now well underway and should be complete within the next week.  Thank goodness! A new level was added this week to manage the cut behind the kids bedroom area on the next part of the house.  It looks great and will be a top spot for a clothes line.

Little retaining wall behind the next part of the house
The Great Wall of China
 A great moment this week - enjoying the sunshine coming in the new windows.  It will be bliss!

Sunshine in the Study

Monday, May 14, 2012

Cladding and Concrete

The last week on site has been frantic.  The cladding went up on the rear pavilion, the roofing was ordered, the guttering arrived, the steel for the next section of the house was ordered, the next nine piers were drilled and concreted and beer o'clock on Friday afternoon finally happened.  What a week for it too, the builders look bedraggled by Friday afternoon. 

We finally chose the cladding early last week - Weathertex classic smooth.  It is hard to settle on cladding out of the catalogue! The cladding wasn't quite what I imagined, but I like it anyway and it is probably more suited to a modern house design than what I thought it would look like.  I had pictured a much more traditional cladding with more definition between each board, probably because that's what I think weatherboard looks like!

Rear pavilion with the new cladding going on

 Pavilion looking great on the slope in amongst the trees.  I still think blue would look good!
The bay window on the front of the pavilion will be finished off in a fibro cladding.  A bit of a risk perhaps, but I have seen some great examples of it out in Killcare and MacMasters Beach.  Overall, my hope is to create an exterior that is a little bit casual and rustic.  More cladding photos to come later in the week!

Concrete piers for the next section of house


The louvre window in our bedroom looks fantastic

North facing louvre windows in our bedroom


Local ferry passing by in the evening


Tuesday, May 8, 2012

It's all happening this week

We've had the busiest week yet. The retaining wall is now half finished, the framing for the rear pavilion went up, windows are in and the view is spectacular!