Photos from week starting 24th October

We are getting very very close to the end now.  The big milestones this week were completing the driveway and removing the site boundary fence.  For the first time we were able to drive up to the house just as we will when we are living there.  A magical moment.

View from the start of the driveway; you get a glimpse of the house  

and  then it disappears 

View on the way out

Looking down from the car park.  The driveway is already getting covered in leaves and sticks

Inside the fire place surround has been fitted

The powder coated supports for the window openers have been fitted.  They look really neat

The glass splash back has been installed.
The back has been painted in Tumbleweed to match the outside colour of the house

The very special Barazza cooktop has been installed

The double oven and microwave have been installed

So has the tap in the kitchen

and the tap in the laundry

Handles have been installed on the sliding doors,

the swing doors

and the front door

The sink has been installed in the main bathroom

as well as the bath

The sink has been installed in the en-suite

as well as the shower

The strip light has been installed in the study (this is an uplight into which we can clip spot lights to illuminate the book shelves) 

They have also started to install the wires in the balustrade

Looking along the east terrace where the wires will be installed next week

Photos from week starting 17th October

We must be getting close to the end because the builder poured the concrete for about half of the driveway this week.

The top half of the driveway was poured in two sections over two days

Grooves have been stamped into the surface using a reinforcement bar

The bottom half of the driveway will be poured at the start of next week

This 300mm diameter pipe is part of the first flush diverter system for the rainwater that we are collecting from the roof

When it first starts to rain the initial "dirty" water enters the big pipe through the vertical pipe until it is full.  There is a ball inside the vertical pipe which floats up to seal off the vertical pipe and then the "clean" water is diverted into the rainwater tank.  The "dirty" water is then released slowly under gravity through the small black pipe (which contains a filter) that you can see in the above photo.  It is a very clever design.

The blackout blinds were installed this week.  This is the blind headbox over the sliding door in the main bedroom.  It protrudes a little bit into the room but that is a consequence of having to change the design once we discovered that we couldn't have a combined flyscreen and blackout blind system

The blind for the fixed window is much neater as we have been able to incorporate it into the window reveal detail

You can see how the window, flyscreen and blackout blind tracks all fit neatly into the wall thickness.  A lot of detailed planning went into making this work

The ceiling wash lights have been installed this week.  These are the three lights for the lounge

You can see here the light for the dining room

This is the light for the main bedroom

This is the bench light in the kitchen.  It will be fixed in position at a higher level once all the electrical wiring has been fitted

The glass vanity unit tops have been installed.  This is in the main bathroom.  It looks fantastic

The glass has been fitted around the bath and the bath side panel

About half the flooring was sanded in preparation for being oiled

The hallway floor after sanding

I don't know if you can see clearly but our seeds have started to germinate already (in less than a week!) .  This bed contains the corn and the cucumbers

The area on the east side of the site is looking great with native plants growing 

The house looks great from the east side of the site.  Just like the drawing at the top of the blog

Photos from week starting 10th October

At last our front door arrived.  The good news is that the door looks great; the bad news is that the glass panel that is next to the door was made incorrectly and will need to be replaced.

However, the painter made really good progress inside this week and is not far off from being finished.



The front door has been installed as well as the steps leading up to it.



The front door from the inside



One of the sliding doors painted in Still White



One of the hinged doors, also in Still White



The skirting boards have been painted as well



Nearly all the internal walls have been painted - the colour is Ocean Pearl



The book shelves in the study are complete apart from the handles on the drawers



This is a little cupboard door next to the oven. 
It opens up for the full height of the unit and we are going to use it to store chopping boards



The remaining glass panels in the bathroom shower have been installed



The wall niche is also lined in glass



Fitting the flyscreens around the window openers is tricky.  The builder has come up with this neat solution of fitting an aluminium channel to the frame.



The channel will be powder coated in white and the flyscreen will sit on top of it



The ballustrade posts and handrail have been fitted along the walkway



and around the terrace



Door have been fitted to the equipment room



Some more steps have been installed up to the west terracing



The step lights have been installed



Close-up of one of the step lights



The courtyard uplights have been installed



Close-up of the uplight



We started planting up some of the raised beds



These are strawberries.  They will need some netting put over them to keep the birds off

 

More work has been done to prepare the driveway



Side boards have been installed along the edge of the driveway

 

Another view of the south end of the house with the new door

 

Another view of the north end of the house at about 4pm showing how much sun is still on the terrace and the solar panels





Admiring the house. Not long until we can do this every day