Sunset shots

We went tree shopping today. . . which is always a bit of an impulse-buy situation for Phil and I. . . down to Downes Nursery (Theresa Park . . . just down the road from us. .. CRACKING deals on most things green.)

Picked up another Eucalyptus Robusta, Brushbox and a rather nice Acmena Smithii (which we're not going to prune, so hopefully it will grow to tree-proportions). Photo is from the alfresco (hello Beau). . . we'll have some privacy from that road in about a year I think! (I hope).

The ficus' are looking a bit sorry. . . they dropped all their leaves in the frost. . . poor trees.

I finished the SPICE RACK!!!!!!

Long time, no posts. . . sorry about that, been a bit busy. Obviously though, I haven't been busy making the spice rack, otherwise it would have been on the wall about three and a half months ago.

But finally, I got it finished this week, and now I am able to present to you . . . drum roll . . . THE SPICE RACK! YEAH!

It's actually 600mm wide x 1200mm tall. Houses all of my fifteen million bottles of herbs and spices nicely (most of which are well past their use-by date I might add. . . must start cooking at some point soon!) It's hung on the pantry wall, made of pine with a laminate board backing, and painted in satin enamel, in the same colour as the pantry shelf wooden bits.

More photos to follow of other stuff. . . soon. . . honest. . . if we get anything else finished.

Trench

We put in some extra drainage, to take the water away from the front of the house. . . not as difficult as it looks!

Night Light Shots. . .

I was there late on Saturday night, working hard (while Phil went to the Bulldogs game). Took a few night-time lighting shots.

The garage external lights (one of the bulbs isn't working). . . with flash:
Without flash:
Theatre room downlights

Cutout downlights:

Front up/downlights (with flash):

Without flash:

Alfresco downlights on full dim:

And blazing bright. . . the stage!!!

Busy weekend

Well, a busy Saturday! We'd planned to finish off dog-proofing the back fence on Sunday, but it was an absolute scorcher, so we opted out.

Got the TV bracket up in the theatre room (only about $65 from Selby Acoustics). Went up a treat, I can't believe the same thing costs about $200 in Bunnings. . . here's a piccie. . .

Also finished fixing up the shoe shelf in the WIR, so now it no longer wobbles. . . repainted the wall behind the shoe shelf and the new wooden bits I used for the fixup.

Painted the render in the garage.

Did the final coat of varnish on the handrails.

Phil mowed the lawns.

Finished cabling up all the data lines.

Then on Sunday evening we sat down at the back fence, watered the trees and had a couple of beers.

Job's a good 'en.

Nearly there

It's pretty darned unbelievable, but we're nearly there. . . just one week away from handover.

I was at the house this morning, all the door handles and fittings were sitting beside each relevant door. . . (well, actually, they had the privacy and passage handles mixed up on the ensuite and master bed, so I just switched them). . . door stops were positioned next to the door handles. . . the cheap white plastic things. . . so I collected them all up and gave them back to Tom when he popped by. . . (we've ordered some nice black and silver door stops online, they should be here any day. .. didn't want them putting the wrong ones on!) The chippies should be in tomorrow to fit everything, and hopefully get all the remaining chippie stuff finished. Also, they're fitting the front door handle! Yay! Must remember to take a pic.

The gyprocker was arriving as I was leaving, so the kitchen bulkhead should be plastered and corniced today.

Dale the tiler was adding the finishing touches to the alfresco tiles and will also hopefully have tiled the splashback in the laundry.

Bob was painting the front wall with bitumen sealer for the fill which is going to be dumped against the wall on Monday (Jeff said something about putting an aggie sheet (whatever that is)and some brick rubble in between the wall and the dirt, with a channel at the bottom to drain the water away somewhere safe.) Goodo!

We have to finish off our little bits of painting and finish fixing up the back fence over the weekend, hopefully I'll have time to seal the grout in the ensuite too. . .

Aircon goes in on Monday. Earth is also being moved around on Monday (hopefully) with a few more truckfulls of fill being brought in. . . hurrah! More dirt!

Alarm and ducted vac install is finishing off on Wednesday.

Kitchen benchtop goes in (hopefully) on Wednesday.

Vanities and toilets and plumbing (hopefully) get done on Wednesday too. (Depending on when the vanities arrive).

Clothes line should be installed on Thursday or Friday.

Bamboo flooring goes in on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Handover is Friday! Woohoo!

Carpets going in a week on Monday and Wednesday.

We should be doing the "big move" on Tuesday.

Dishwasher is being installed a week on Wednesday.

Foxtel is being installed two weeks tomorrow. . .

There are an awful lot of "hopefully"s in there, aren't there?

Theatre room painted and electrics installed

We finished most of our painting over the weekend. . . including the theatre room! Yay! Sparkies installed 7 downlights in the coffered ceiling. . . two at the front, two at the side and three along the back. . . on three different dimmer switches, mainly so we can just have the back ones on low if we're watching a movie. . . good thinking Jeff! (Well, you didn't imagine that we'd think of anything so ingenius would ya?)

Exterior lighting

Up/downlights installed . . . 6 along the front of the house and three outside the garage doors. . .

12 downlights in the alfresco ceiling, a spotlight for the bbq (as Phil's a cooking star) and two batten lights (due to be replaced with ceiling fans after handover).

Sparkies have been sparking. . . I see the light!

Sparkies have been working hard. All of the power points, switches and most of the lights have been installed. They have to come back after handover and install our appliances and the ceiling fans, and we have a lot of bare battens that we have to furnish, but we're getting there!

Heat / fan / light in the main bathroom:
Pendants in the dining room. . . we shall shorten the cable lengths when we've got the flooring and table in there. . . honest!

Random shot of power points and switches:

Downlights in the cutouts:

Heat / fan / light in the ensuite:

Shower screens are in

We went for semi-frameless with bright silver frames. We loved the frameless screens but they were LOTS more moolah, and you get a big gap between the door and the frame, so lots of water can get out and splash onto the bathroom floor. . . I think not!

Double shower in the ensuite: Again. . .

Main bathroom shower:

Handover date is 26th Feb - 2 weeks today. Hurrah!

We have the bamboo floors going in on the 25th Feb, they'll probably take about 3 days. . . this will be done during and after handover, as we arranged it ourselves. . . so the rest of the house will be finished on or before 26th Feb and we'll get the keys then! (Metaphorically, as we've had keys ever since lockup). Hurrah! No more rental property!

Painters finished all they can

Also. .. painters finished up today, they even painted the front door, and I think it looks GREAT. . . but I forgot to take a piccie. . . bugger.

Will post pics on the weekend.

Balustrade well-oiled

I took a day's annual leave today so I could shove some decking oil on the balustrades. . . our friendly painter Stuart told me that we really should get the wood coated before it rained again, to avoid the wood getting water-stained. They came up great! Didn't really take that long and was super-easy. . . why doesn't paint have the same consistency as decking oil?

I forgot to take a close-up, but here they are. . notice that the alfresco ceiling has also been painted!

Oh yes. . . we only had two sections of the alfresco balustraded (is that even a word) as the section near the stacka doors is close enough to the ground to not need it. . . however, this looks crap and everyone keeps asking us "when are they going to come back and finish the balustrade? Why didn't they do it all at once?". . . so we've succumbed to peer pressure and have commissioned Boyen to do the other section. MORE EXPENSE!

Laundry cabinets installed.

I'm really pleased with the laundry cabinets. .. we went a bit "risque" and chose. .. A COLOUR!!!! So it'll probably be shockingly out-of-date in about 2 years, but laundries are a lot cheaper to furnish than kitchens, so we thought we'd take the chance. Laminex stipple seal for the cupboards, laminex diamond gloss something or other for the top. We got an extra special surprise when it came with a laundry tub, as we'd already bought one on ebay. Yay! Now we have to sell it again! Anybody want to buy a laundry tub?

We'd really like some extra wall cupboards, but they were about $550 and a bit of a luxury, so we thought we'd just wait a bit (and spend money on lots of other different things instead.) I was quite surprised at the amount of space in the laundry after the cupboards were in. . . I thought it would be really squeezy.

You can just see the laundry vac pan. . . this one's in the right place! (Steve realised that the other one was drastically wrong and corrected it before I arrived on site this morning. . .very good!)

Kitchen cabinets finished

Kitchen cabinets finished today! Here they are. . . well. . . almost finished. .. we're missing a few handles, apparently they're on backorder. . . maybe?

Here we can see where the rangehood will go. .. there're bulkheads above the wall cupboards too. Yay! Now I never have to clean up there!

Wednesday 10th Feb is KITCHEN DAY!

Oh yeah! Kitchen! YEAH!

They started putting it in today, I was there when they arrived but had to dash off to work (as they were a tad late. . . arrived at 11.15am!!!) So just caught a glimpse of the kickboards and explained where the vac pans should go. Here are the half-installed piccies. . . the kickboards look a little HUGE at the moment, as we've had the kitchen raised by 50mm. . . 33mm is to allow for the height of the bamboo flooring that's going down, the other 17mm is to add a bit of height as I hate bending down over the sink:
This is where the cooktop will go. . . rangehood overhead.

Fridge space is to the right (with our lonely little power point). Mmmmm. . . power! Must remember to take the radio on the weekend!

Here's where the two ovens will go, with the microwave on top. Peeking into the pantry to the right of it.

Dishwasher space and smaller space for the warming drawer. Sink goes right in front of the window. (Just in front of where Phil's mum's sitting. . . hello Laine! Obviously so awe-struck with our new kitchen that she needed to sit down.)

Cutlery drawers.

Oops. . . something wrong in this picture!

That's right. . . we're going to have a RAMP up from the floor to our vac pan!!! YEAH! Oops.

Alfresco balustrade installed

It's merbau timber and stainless steel wire. . . looks a bit more understated than the powdercoated steel and wire we were thinking of getting. . . We'll be coating the wood with decking oil soon. . . honest! It only goes around half of the alfresco, as we're adding more fill to the other side to reduce the drop. . . balustrades are only mandatory if the drop the other side is 1 metre or more.