Steady Progress.

It's been a pretty busy week, and I haven't had much chance to update for a few days. The guy's have been working very hard in the heat at a steady pace.

Thursday's achievements included adding the yellow tongue flooring over the joists for the second story. This is the void which will be the staircase:



Flooring over the lounge room:



The 'end' of the second storey sitting on steel beams:



The sewerage pipe sitting in the hallway has been fixed too! As far as I know, they dug out the slab a little, put in an elbow joint to move it to the correct place, then poured a small amount of concrete back to fill up the hole. Done!!



Just for fun...



Yesterday must have been a fairly busy day for them! We have second storey external walls!!! Whoo Hoo!!!






The end of the second storey frame:



We also have had the delivery of windows and doors! There are four wooden doors, and one large stacker door for the family out onto the alfresco. Our 'proper' half glazed laundry door has arrived, but the other 3 wooden doors are all temp ones for the 2 front doors and the garage internal access door. These will be changed to the correct 2 panel doors a little further down the track so they don't get damaged. The temp doors are just to achieve lock up stage.




A pile of windows and part of the stacker door. They are all the Merino (or Paperbark) colour, with black tape for protection:



The frame for our beautiful double entry doors, complete with hinges. Although I'm not 100% happy at the metal step plate of the frame (on the right side), it will mean it will never rot, and won't ever have to be painted. I was aware of this at our Sales Consultations 'stage' 15 months ago!:






We had our weekly update phone call from the CSA Manager on Friday, who let us know of the progress. Looks as though the framers will be here until the end of next week, and the roof trusses arrive on Tuesday. We should also find out next week the schedule for the next proceedings...roof tiles and bricks!

Yesterday I was 'tagged' by the lovely Mrs B from Decorating a Modern Home, to describe 6 interesting things about me! I'll let you know the outcome after I have put some thought into it over the weekend!

Framing progress.

Today's achievements on site included straightening the walls, putting up the bracing, more steel support beams and joists for the second storey floor. It almost resembles a house...in a match stick kind of way!!

View from the front into the garage (notice the yellow tongue flooring sitting on top of the joists):



The powder room:



The laundry waste pipe which is a little bit 'out', nothing will be done about this as it will be hidden in the wall behind the built in cupboards...unlike the one sitting out by 2cm in the hallway!



More steel beams across the kitchen and family rooms which will support the end of the second storey:



Joists, and the large hole which will be the 'void' for the staircase:





I had a good look around the edge of the slab this afternoon, now that all the walls have been straightened, and have discovered a little bit of frame overhang and 'under bite' (Not sure how else to describe it!). It's certainly not major, but I will be bringing it up with the SS when we have our meeting on site once the frame has been completed.

This is all down the north wall:



The next 2 photos are of the same east side along the front. The area under the door has overhang, while a couple of metres away there is 'over bite':





This 'over bite' is towards the rear along the family room:



I also noticed this today. Anyone know what it might be??



There is still a small section of joists to place above the family room tomorrow, then I guess they will be laying the yellow tongue for the floor. I can't wait to see the second level going up, and the roof trusses erected...which should all happen next week sometime. I'm also expecting the windows to be delivered shortly!

Walking through walls....

It's all starting to become 'real' now! I can't begin to tell you the excitement I felt today...like a kid let lose in a lolly shop!! For those of you who have been down the path of building, you will know exactly how it feels to walk through the house...your house..for the first time, instead of the display, or on 'paper'!

I dropped by this morning to see three walls already standing, and by the time I drove by at 3pm this afternoon, all the ground floor walls were up, and the chippies were packing up!!!



We snuck in a little later (how can you not...), and were able to walk around the rooms and through the walls. I checked the frame around the edges of the slab for any 'overhang' and it all looks pretty good to me! There is one part where the slab is about 1cm over (an 'overbite', I guess!). Not sure if this is within 'tolerances', but should be easy to grind/chip away if necessary. Better than having to drill holes in the side of the slab, add extra reo and build up the slab if it were too short. I'll have a better look at another stage with the tape measure!

Here is the pipe that will need to be fixed:



The Living/lounge room window (Good to see it's in the right place, as this was in the dining which we swapped around. Made sense to have a bigger window facing north):



The meals area window, also facing north, which we added in:



The kitchen, with the steel beam which will hold up the end of the second storey:



This is the curve of the stairs looking through what will be the door to the under stair storage:



And the stair wall from the family room. The door cavity on the left leads to the hallway, and we will have double doors here (the ones I really should have made 10 panel french..but that can be changed later):



We even had our first 'visitors' today, and felt quite proud showing them around (although, there's really not that much to see ;-) )

Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring!

'Unofficial' site meeting.

This morning on my daily drive by, I discovered a car, with the occupant in it, parked outside the block. I turned and parked on the crossover, got out and took a couple of snaps. The occupant got out of his car and introduced himself. Turns out to be our Site Supervisor! We chatted for about 10 minutes before we went our separate ways!

My suspicions on the misaligned pipes were completely correct. The laundry trough one will be fine with just an elbow joint in it and hadn't been marked with pink paint, but the sewerage pipe from upstairs I was more concerned about had been marked.



Not quite sure how they will fix it, but it's marked so it will get done.

The temp fencing went up on Saturday, and we also have a new sign on the front of it. Apparently, the neighbours have complained (not sure about what...), so they have erected a sign with "Please shut gates at all times", "No unauthorised entry to site" and "No power tools before 7am".





I also queried the pooling of the little amount of rain we had on the slab. It just happens to fall right in the middle of the hallway, where the floating floorboards will be installed. If it is with in their 'tolerances', then they won't fix it, but if it exceeds it, they will have to. I will have to go to the flooring shop and see if any levelling compound has been included in our quote...might have to get that added.



The carpenters weren't on site as this stage, as they had to complete a job somewhere else, but on my afternoon drive-by, they were there nailing the big jigsaw puzzle they had laid out, last week, together.





Another thing I mentioned, was the slab for the porch is level with the ground, and I wasn't sure it was supposed to be. Apparently, it is, and it can be covered with 100mm driveway concrete to the front door, so the step down isn't as far.

Looks as though tomorrow the walls might be standing! The roof trusses are due to be delivered on Tuesday, so soon it will at least resemble a house!!

I asked the SS if any leftover materials could be left on site for us. He said there is usually a 5% wastage of bricks calculated into the house, but with the Daniel Robertsons, there is often no wastage as the bricks are so good. We might end up with quite a bit left over!! They will leave only half a dozen roof tiles for us (for an emergency), and any opened internal tile packets we can have. Anything that is not opened gets returned for a credit.

I also discovered that the SS was responsible for building the houses out at the Lyndhurst display center. He hand picks all of his tradies and sticks to the ones he knows and trusts. Fingers crossed we get a display quality home...

Blink, and you'll miss it.

I can't tell you how surprised I was to do my daily drive-by this morning and see a flurry of activity! I thought I was surprised yesterday!! The chippies were busy cutting wood and mapping out the walls on the slab. I returned several times during the day, but I didn't take any pics until after they had left. I did catch up with them, and they said it would take about 7 days to complete the frame...wow!!

Another delivery. This time the yellow tongue used for the floor of the second storey, and some rather large steel lintels:






Looking down the hallway from the kitchen, to where the double front doors will be:





The next 2 images are of pipes that appear to be in slightly the wrong spot (according to my untrained eye...). The first is the laundry trough outlet, and it's sitting in the middle of where the wall should be, and the second is one of two sewerage pipes from upstairs. They didn't seem to line up on the slab, and my suspicions may be correct, as this one is jutting out slightly into the hallway:






I won't raise it until a little later...at least first thing Monday morning ;-)





This is our curved stairs drawn on the slab!



Interesting reading material left by the chippies mixed up with a site plan! They were very kind enough to provide the newspaper for me which they left behind!



I don't anticipate they'll be back until Monday sometime, after they finish another job. Not sure when the temp fencing goes up either, but it will be soon, unfortunately...

These guys are quick!

I visited 3 times today during the day, and each time there was something new to look at and photograph!

On my daily trip after the school run, I was hoping to have a nice walk around each of the 'rooms' on the slab, and get an idea for where the windows will be, and what sort of an outlook they will have. Instead, there were 2 trucks parked in the street, and a tip truck in the driveway! The bobcat had been through and back filled soil around the slab, the toilet had been moved, the rubbish cage emptied and the meter box had been installed!

The tip truck in the driveway then emptied a large amount of road base/crushed rock onto the drive, and the bob cat proceeded to smooth it all out. The guys also swept the footpath a little (although rain would work wonders...)







I then returned a little later to enjoy my walk on the slab!





Later that afternoon, I went back (as you do!) and there sitting in the garage and across the portico slab were piles of wood for the frame!!













So...who's up for a slab party tomorrow night?

I must also apologise for my abundance of duplicated images in yesterdays post. That's what happens when you try to do too many things at once when you're tired! ;-)

I wonder if anything will happen tomorrow, or whether the chippies will start fresh on Monday?