Photos from week starting 20th June

There has been an amazing transformation in the space of this week.  The rooms in the house now have solid walls and ceilings.  It is fantastic to walk into each room and get a real feel for the space.

At first the hallway felt very grand in scale (Peter said it felt like a hospital corridor) but after a few hours we felt more comfortable with it - it is certainly one of the key architectural features of the house.  However, we have realised that one of the consequences of deleting the false ceilings on the west side of the house is that the ceilings of the alcoves onto the corridor on the west side will be at a different height to the alcoves on the east side.  This seems to unbalance the corridor and we have decided to reinstate the false ceilings in these alcoves spaces.

The hallway from the entrance door

The hallway from the lounge

The alcove outside the WC. We are going to install a false ceiling to the height of the door

The alcove to the back door.  Again we will have a false ceiling

The fireplace and surrounding walls have been received the first plaster coat

The walls and ceiling in the kitchen and dining room have been gyprocked. 

We are very pleased with the wall that acts as a divider between the kitchen and the lounge.  There was a lot of discussion with the architect as to whether this should be solid or see-through.  We think that the solid appearance looks great

Looking from the kitchen into the lounge

The duct for the range-hood has been installed

The ductwork goes across the ceiling of the pantry and then up through the roof

The hot air duct from the fireplace has been installed in the bulkhead.  This is in the study

The duct in the main bedroom

The scratch coat of plaster in the main bedroom

Plastered wall in the study

The wiring has been installed on the roof for the PV panels

The north end elevation

The roof fascia above the celestory windows has been completed

The soffit of the roof canopy has been painted

East facade

View of the garage

Photos from week starting 13th June

The weather continued to be appalling - so much rain.  Last weekend we constructed a new drainage bund between our plot and our neighbour's plot.  Hopefully this will remove any risk that rainwater from our land is causing damage to their house.

Progress on the house has mainly been about installing the ceiling insulation and preparing the internal brick walls for plastering (wet plaster is needed on these walls to ensure we make the most of the passive thermal design).

Trench and sandbags to prevent rainwater run-off onto our neighbour's plot

The north end of the trench discharges the water into the bush

Ceiling insulation in the lounge

and in the study

Insulation in the hallway

and in bedroom 3

The builder has even used left over wall insulation in the ceiling of the garage.  It should keep the car cool in summer

 

Boxing of the beam over the main door in the lounge with wiring for the ceiling wash lights

The doors have been installed in the cavity slider units

Beading has been installed around the sliding doors in the main bedroom in preparation for the wet plastering

The fireplace is from France and looks great

Photos from week starting 6th June

The focus of work this week has been finishing the external rendering and preparing the internal walls in preparation for the gyprock guys to start next week.

The south wall render is finished

As is the east facade

The expansion joint in the render will be filled with sealant and  painted over

The equipment room has also been rendered

The north facade looks great with the render finished

Render on the south wall of the kitchen

The internal doors were delivered this week and are being painted

Carpentry around the fixed window in the main bedroom

Wiring for the motorised blind in the main bedroom

The internal door frames have been installed

The bath support carpentry has been built

Window and door carpentry in the third bedroom

Connector pipes on the roof for the hot water solar panels

View of the kitchen/dining room areas

The plumber connected up the pipework to the waste water treatment unit

Another view of the east facade

Photos from week starting 30th May

Between Tuesday and Thursday we had 140mm of rain!  It seemed to be raining continuously for three days.  Fortunately, now that the house is water tight, it didn't stop the renderer, the carpenter, the electrician and the plumber from working.

The first coast of render has been applied to the blue board on the east facade

The render on the garage has been finished

The courtyard walls have been rendered

The cavity slider units that were delivered last week have now been installed.  They look great

The cavity slider unit from the kitchen to the laundry plus the maze of wiring for the kitchen

All the power and communications wiring comes back to the garage

The plumbing is being pressure tested.  The black pipes are from the solar hot water panels

On the left is the ceiling insulation.  On the right is the fireplace.  Both well packaged

The carpenter has done a test of the timber finish around the windows.  He has used 30mm thick boards which we think are a bit too thick as they cover too much of the window frame.  We have decided to use 18mm boards instead

The roof fascia has been installed on the west side of the roof

The north facade has now been rendered and the roof fascia installed