Photos from week starting 22nd August

The timber flooring was delivered this week.  It is a hardwood called Tonka and it is Forest Stewardship Council certified (http://www.fscaustralia.org/home).  We bought it from a supplier called The Woodage (http://www.thewoodage.com.au/) who we would recommend to anyone wanting to buy FSC certified timber in NSW.

The timber floor planks have been stacked in the lounge so that they can acclimatise to the humidity in the house 

The boards look a bit pale at the moment but they will darken slightly with age

The fireplace has now been installed

All the doors have been undercoated - this is the sliding door from the kitchen into the laundry

This is the bathroom door

The builder has been working on the carpentry for the canopy outside the dining room window

The canopy provides shade from the high summer sun

The earthworks to form the terracing on the west side of the house are rather more significant than we had anticipated.  Each one of the timber posts has been concreted into the ground!

The ground for the rainwater tank slab has been dug out but hasn't yet been poured

View of the house from the west side that shows that the chimney has now been fully installed

And the rainwater tanks were also delivered this week

The 7 tanks will give us 30,000 litres capacity

The slope of the block wall at the end of the swimming pool has been extended of the terrace so that the handrail of the pool fence can have a straight slope

We also went to a nursery and bought 120 native plants to use on the site

Photos from week starting 15th August

I am back after two weeks in the UK and there has been a really good amount of progress since I left.

Week starting 8 August

Ian is still away so only a brief update again this week.

Lots going on behind the house:

Inside, Matt has started laying the ply underfloor for the timber floor

the Centor screens have been installed:

and the fireplace is in the process of being inserted:

Cheers!

Week starting 1 August

Ian is away this week - so I'm filling in!

Not much happening inside the house this week except for finishing off the tiling - here's how the bathroom floor turned out.

Matt (our builder) inserted ply into the spaces where we're waiting for the next lot of windows from Sweden and the front door from the UK - so that the house is now 'sealed':

The bulk of the action though, was outside - with work on the small terraces at the back (west side) of the house:

 ... and the driveway:

... and retaining walls at the front (east side):

Photos from week starting 25th July

It was a very exciting week mainly because all the scaffolding has been taken down and the overall appearance of the house has finally been revealed.  Apart from the colour of the outside walls, which are currently white but will be finished as grey, we can now move from imagining what the house will look like to seeing the reality.  It is really amazing.

Our tiler, Norm, has also made really good progress and has virtually finished the interior floors.

The photos below are a walk around the outside of the house.

A close-up of one of the rainwater heads

All three rainwater heads have been installed

The tiling in the kitchen & dining room has been completed

The tiling in the lounge has been completed

Tiles in the laundry

Tiles in the courtyard

The walls in all the rooms have been undercoated.  This is the study where you can see the full profile of the roof

It is great that the landscaping has started on the west side of the house

Also they are getting ready to install the low retaining walls alongside the driveway

On Saturday we went to a timber merchant in Mittagong, south of Sydney, to look at FSC certified timber.  We have chosen Tonka for the inside floor boards (the three samples at the front) and Spotted Gum for the timber deck along the walkway on the east side (because it is classified as a non-combustible timber).  We were intending to use Fibre Reinforced Plastic grating for the walkway material but unfortunately there are no suppliers in Australia who can supply this with the fire certification that is needed for a bushfire zone.