Roof Tiles On

Last Friday we noticed that the fascia and guttering has been installed around the main area of the roof with just the garage still to be done. Also, our lovely roof tiles had been delivered.

Bristile Classic - Coal

Then on Tuesday I called past to take a peek and the roof was on! Yay! They haven't done the garage roof yet so the only way I could get a good view was by standing a fair way back on the rear and left side of the house. 

From the left hand side. Master bedroom is top right, looking out over the front of the house.

From the back - you can see one of the two whirlygig vents that will extract hot air from the roof space.

I love how the dark guttering and light fascia have come up. It's a bit hard to see because of the scaffolding but it looks really smart. (Sorry the online pics of the colours weren't very accurate the other day. In reality they are turning out exactly as we had hoped - so far!) 

We're not sure why the garage roof and guttering hasn't been done. It's all lying in a pile on the far side of the house. Maybe they have to wait for the main roof scaffolding to come down to get to the garage roof properly.

We've got an appointment with the electrician early next Monday morning to discuss installation of our pendant lights. He said he is starting rough in then, so maybe the plumbers will be starting soon too.

I'm hoping to see some wall insulation and bricks really soon! Maybe next week.......

Frame Complete!

The frame has been completed within our SS's expected time frame - yay! 

The scaffolding is in place for them to start work on the roof, and the guttering and fascia has been delivered.

Here's a recap of our external colours as we may start to see some of them next week:

Roof Tiles - Bristile "Coal"

Guttering -  Colourbond Woodland Grey.
(The Window Frames and Garage Door will also be this colour.)

Fascia - Colourbond Dune
It was chosen to match the lighter render on the top storey of the house which is Dulux Stony Creek. Hopefully it does!

The render colours were chosen to work in with our feature stacker stone.

Ground Floor Render - Dulux Namaji brings out the darker colours in the stone.

Top Floor Render - Dulux Stony Creek brings out the lighter colours in the stone.

You won't see any of the bricks from the front of the house but they are going to be PGH Moondust which looks lovely with the Woodland Grey window frames.

Week 6 Off and Racing

Plantation have almost finished the upper level & roof framing, with only the garage roof to go. 

With the electricians not due on site until late next week, I'm wondering what work will be done in the meantime. Maybe we'll see some guttering, fascia and roof tiles arrive soon. At least now that the frame is up there is more room for other deliveries. 

End of Week 5 - still on schedule

As planned, the scaffolding was installed on Friday to allow the carpenters to erect the second floor framework. Andy took this picture over the fence on his way home on Friday night.

So far I have resisted the urge to go around and check if they are working today. It is going to be quite hot this week so I imagine they might start even earlier in the mornings to avoid the heat. The kookaburra's started up with their laughter and chatter at 3:51am this morning, so they obviously decided that the day had started already!

Tomorrow we take delivery of a chest of drawers that we ordered back in September, so tonight will be spent making room for it! Currently Andy's vast DVD and BluRay collection is spread across 4 bookcases. This new chest has small drawers just the right size for DVD's etc without looking like typical media storage furniture. We love it!

First official Inspection

We met our site supervisor this morning and had an inspection of the frame. He was very friendly and helped us to work out where to put some extra timber for our TV wall brackets and discussed levels for our rear retaining wall so that they work in with our decking contractor. 

Today he was expecting the scaffolding to arrive before they start on the top floor next week. He expects the frame to be finished by next Thursday.

Interestingly he also said he aims for an 18 week build for our style of house (not including their 3 weeks off at Christmas), so I think we are looking at May, not June for a handover, but we are still at the mercy of the weather so we will see. If it stays as dry as it has been until they get the roof and brickwork done that would be awesome. However, the weather is one thing we can't control, so we will go along for the ride and see how it goes.

Ground Floor Frame

Well, we couldn't resist heading around to the block after work to take a peek at the progress. Not only had the roof trusses been delivered, but the ground floor framework looks almost complete.

From the front - Garage on the right and Living/TV room on the left.

The Family Room windows on the back wall of the house. Andy is looking towards the back fence. Decking will fill the Alfresco area behind Andy plus extend about 4m out towards the back of the block for the full width of the house.

From the back corner - Alfresco in the foreground, then dining room window to the left, then rear roller door cavity on the back of the garage.

As I mentioned earlier, we have a meeting with the Site Supervisor very early tomorrow. I wonder how much they will get done by the weekend?

Frame update

After the excitement of seeing our frame arrive, our thoughts immediately turned to when we might see some tradies on site to assemble it. Our questions were answered when Andy received a call from our Site Supervisor yesterday.

Apart from organising our first meeting with him (before work tomorrow), he advised that the carpenters are starting today and should be finished by the end of next week. 

Yesterday also saw the delivery of the top floor framing, doubling the amount of timber on the block. In fact, they couldn't fit it on our land so they have put it on our neighbours block - not ideal but hopefully it's gone within the week. Our neighbours don't look to be commencing building for a while yet so it shouldn't impact them negatively.

Looking down our street towards our block - Timber galore! The closest two piles are outside the temporary fence, on the block next door.

So, we are looking forward to meeting our Site Supervisor very early tomorrow. The question is, can we resist the urge to go and check out the progress of the frame tonight given that we will see it 12 hours later anyway? Probably not!

Day 37 - Week 5 - Frame Delivered

I feel a bit bad calling this post "Day 37" when Plantation have had three weeks of annual leave in there, but it's the best way for me to track our progress as the months go by. It's technically only 13 working days since they started.

Nevertheless Andy called in at the block on his way home last night and saw that the frame has been delivered! We popped back around to the block together last night to admire our lovely piles of timber. It mostly looks to be pre-fabricated so I'm sure once they start work it won't take long to assemble. 

We thought something must have been about to happen as the security fence was tampered with on Monday. Since there was nothing there to steal, we thought it might have been someone trying to deliver to the site who didn't have scissors to cut the cable ties holding the gates closed over Christmas. You know how tough those little ties are when you want to undo one in a hurry! He he.

Whoever it was, they managed to put a big dent in one of the fence panels. Hopefully that doesn't happen again. We certainly don't need any extra bills for damaged temporary fences.

They've left just enough space to get in, and just as importantly, have access to the porta loo.

I wandered past the block this morning on my walk but there were no tradies on site starting the assembly. Maybe tomorrow.....

Unfortunately my professional role has me always looking ahead for possible problems and then developing strategies to avoid them. It's hard to break that habit, but I think I am finally moving from being nervous and anxious about how it will all go, to really excited.

Happy New Year!

The Christmas break came and went too quickly as usual, but for us it means we are a few weeks closer to having a new home which is pretty exciting. The builders have taken a break and aren't expected to resume until about 20th Jan, so in the meantime we have made a start on moving the huge pile of mulch that was left at the back of the block when they excavated for the slab.

The weather has been particularly hot, not exactly ideal for mulch moving. Nevertheless we have done just under half the job and hope to get some more done early tomorrow morning before it heats up. We hope that an even layer of mulch will help keep the weeds down at the back of the block during the build and also provide some nutrients to the soil for when its time to create a garden.

Mulch is hardly an exciting topic, but it has given us something to focus on whilst we save diligently and await the next stage in the build process.

Hopefully my next post contains some photos of the frame going up. We can't wait!