Put your cladding on and join me hon....

Benji continues to go and visit the site once a week... last visit we had a lot of the windows in place and some of the cladding too.  Unfortunately Benj noticed (well it's fortunate he noticed, but unfortunate that there were a couple of little errors) that: one,they had forgotten to put insulation between one of the the rammed earth walls and the external cladding and, two, they hadn't put trim around the windows.  An email to and phone call with Scott quickly rectified the problem.

Looking from the driveway:



The looking along the northern wall from the NW corner:

Ooooh!  Cladding, windows, rhino wrap and roof trusses!

(This will be) the north-facing courtyard... and Benji's super casual photography stance - hand in pocket!!! - captured in shadow:

Looking into the rafters of the living room:

Can't wait to see the cladding with paint on!

 Rhino wrap along the southern facing wall:

Edging the cladding...

Guttering in place (before the roof - which I thought was strange!) Note colour - Colorbond Jasper:

Looking up the hill at all the bright blue wrap:

Kitchen window (not glazed yet) and sliding door onto the north-facing courtyard:

Front door - revisited.

On a happier note:  We've managed to source a front door.  It won't be a lovely old recycled one (we will just have to continue to keep looking for one of those - we can always change it later if we want), but it's perfectly fine, the right size and bushfire rating, and can be ordered in by the local hardware!

So this is it:  Only ours will not be faux-timber, but painted instead.  We just have to decide what colour.  I think we'll do it the same as the trims (Dulux Natural White half) or the guttering (Dulux Jasper, a sort of gunmetal greyish brownish colour).  
              
I'll have to post about our colour selections... don't think I've done that yet!

Getting the structural engineer in to have a look...

Since construction began, Benji has gone out every weekend to have a look at the progress.  Each time he takes photos of all the new progress and of anything he's not sure about - cracks in the slab, organic matter in the soil, termite barriers etc etc.  He usually emails Scott/Leon, the builders, and asks for more info, or  he emails Michael, the building designer, to get his advice.

Last visit Benj took some photos of the roof trusses/beams, concerned about the strength of the joins (or something like that!?! - pretty hard to tell from the photo which is why I've not posted it).  He forwarded these on to Michael and to the structural engineer.  They're a little bit concerned - Michael thinks we need the engineer to go out and have a look.  So Benj emailed and spoke to Scott to discuss it.  According to Benji, Scott seems to be ok about it all and is happy enough that we want our engineer to have a look at the house after the major framework is all complete.

It's stressful and awkward.  I feel very weird about the fact that it feels like we're checking up on Scott all the time... and yet it's our life savings we're entrusting him with, so of course we have to be careful.  We don't want to cause any tension/bad blood with Scott and Leon because they really are a great couple of guys to be working with... and we don't know the accepted etiquette... or even if there is such a thing... I guess we just have to continue to be cautious and I just hope that no-one takes offence.

 

 

 

Another update... look, a roof (sort of)!



Roof trusses!

 

 

 Looking south(ish).

The lounge room.

Looking north east (ish).

The mini-verandah which runs along the southern face of the house.

The hallway, with little pop-out window seats/reading nooks. The rammed earth walls (you can see one there in the foreground) will be remain exposed and visible as little feature strips along the hallway.

An LVL beam...I don't think this will be an exposed one...if so I'm guessing (hoping) they'll sand off the green paint and black stencil!

The back deck.

Looking into our bedroom.  There will be a big glass sliding door to exit from the northern face of the house (foreground).  The rammed earth wall will remain exposed. (Each bedroom gets one... I just love them!)  A walk-in robe will be behind the rammed earth wall.

Appliances...

We now own the appliances which will service all our kitchen/cooking needs!  Benji organised it all... he really has been a brilliant organiser of housey things. 

Front door... best laid plans...

We had planned on sourcing a big old, recycled timber door for our front door, instead of having some blah new thing.  It seems that this plan has to go out the window because of the abnormally large dimensions of our front door.  Michael specifically designed the place with HUGE doors for aesthetics and air flow.  Some of these we got rid of earlier in the design process to save on costs, however, the front door dimensions are still the massive version (2400 x 920) so it has proven difficult trying to find a recycled door to fit.  What I really don't want is a big poncy/showy/grandiose monstrosity!!!

We might just end up having something new.

Renegade dumpers... Bushwalking nearby... And Timber framework goes up.

The builder has had to install a security camera at the site because someone is dumping their rubbish into the skip bin!  Who would drive all the way up there just to dump rubbish?!  Bizarro!   Benji and I were "caught" on tape coming along the drive on the Easter weekend.

After checking out the new wall framework we stayed at Grammy's, then early the next morning set off to do a bit of local exploring.  After a little drive and a bit of a bush walk we ended up at the Lower Portals.  The water was beautifully freeeeeezing and deep enough for a decent swim, thanks to the recent rainfall, but too cold for Grammy and S!   That evening we headed to the Dugandan pub for a bit of lawn soccer and a pub meal - a superb day!

 



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Annnnnyway house-wise.....Everything seems to be moving quite quickly now.  Every time we go out, great big obvious physical progress seems to have been made.  At the moment most of the framework for the walls and much of the decking is in place.  So we can walk through knowing which room is which... but it's strange: it is still really difficult to gauge how the house will feel in terms of space.  I sometimes walk through and think... Is this enough room?  Do we have enough space?  (Earlier on I was worried it was too big!!!!)  To alleviate my worries Benji measured up our current rental house and marked it onto a set of plans for the new place...   And it turns out, the new place is huge compared to our current, funny, little, Queenslander cottage, so I'm sure we'll be just fine.

--ooOoo--

 



Joists for what will be our lounge room floor... this will open up with big sliding doors onto the deck which you can see is just being framed up.  The joists "I-joists" seem to be pretty cool... made from engineered timber, supposedly super light weight, super strong, and more sustainable because they're made from bit and pieces that might normally be thrown away.  The things you learn!

 

 

 Good progress!  A view from up the hill a little, looking south.  That water tank is temporary only (for the builders to use).

And now looking sort of north east from a little way down the hill: