More internal frame, plumbing and electrical

About time I updated the blog.  Progress has been slow and steady...it's really starting to take form now.  The roof is pretty much done, but still needs a few little things to finish it off...facia in some parts and gutter in others.  Internal framing is coming along very nicely and so we can really get a feel for all the rooms now.  Plumbing is well underway and electrical started this week.

I think I'll just let the photo's speak for themselves, cos at this time of night I'm even less talkative than I usually am!

Entrance.

External feature walls near garage.

Bathroom under the stairs!  This is just for the kids to use when they're in the rumpus, but may occasionally be used by guests if we ever buy a sofa bed for the spare room!

Downstairs bathroom viewed from store room.  It's quite tight in there, but luckily we're all vertically challenged, so it will be OK for us.

Rumpus room, showing where the kitchenette will be on the right.  Store room is behind this and my sewing/utility/spare room is on the left.

Entrance viewed from upstairs.

From top of stairs, showing half wall to lounge room.

From lounge room looking into hallway.  The half wall will have glass on top of it going up to the ceiling, so it will still let light in, but not be open.

Wall niche...still undecided what to put here...

Linen cupboard in hallway.

Feature inclined wall in kitchen/dining room, with walk in pantry behind.  The pantry will only be a bit smaller than our entire current kitchen.  God I can't wait!!!!

Painted metal work in hallway.  We had a colour customised to try to get a match to the window frames (Precious pearl silver powder coated)...it's quite a good match depending on the light.  There will be windows above this beam, between the hallway and the kids rooms.

Sky light in main bathroom

Bath!!! :-)

Hot water cylinder.  It's not hooked up yet as we are waiting on the walls to be finished so that we don't have to move it for the painters.

Frames for the Apricus tubes.  We've gone with a 40 tube system and are optimising the angle for winter gain.  Hopefully this will give us plenty of hot water in both summer and winter.

Electrical in the main bedroom, with ensuite behind and skylight in ensuite.

BBQ and wood fired pizza oven to be built here on the deck...one day.

Path down from bbq area to under the house

Water tank to be installed here Monday week.

And the sunset a couple of days ago.  I stood on the deck for about half an hour just watching the light change and the rays of light hitting different clouds...'twas very relaxing!

Roof frame finished...well almost.

Things feel like they are starting to move again. I had a good meeting on site today with AE and we have exciting news...roofing starts Monday!!!! They've been framing the roof for what seems like an age...well all year in fact, so it will be nice to finally move on to something a bit more substantial!

Sorted a few things today as well, in fact I saved about $5,000 in one day. I told Tom that I don't need to work at all if I can save that sort of money every day ;). Firstly, I met with a plumber today who knows all about the wetback system I'm keen on for the wood heater (using the wood heater to boost the solar hot water in winter). I wasn't sure if it was really going to be worth it if it meant we couldn't have the evacuated glass tube system that we wanted (they are meant to be more efficient in our climate in Tassie). But there is an evacuated glass tube system that also has the roof mounted tank that we need for the wetback system. I know it's a silly thing to get excited about, but what's even better is that it's less than half the cost of the other system we were looking at. It is smaller, but if we find it doesn't do the job, then we can always add another solar system after hand over and it would still be cheaper :) The other thing that saved us heaps is me finding the perfect sized rain water tank. The designer had specified 2 poly tanks, but I found a steel tank which should fit very nicely under our deck and actually gives us more storage capacity...again for less than half the price. It feels so nice to have things coming in under budget for a change, so I have to savour the moment!

So piccies of the house as it stands now...

Internal wall between the stair well and our bedroom.

Internal walls between family room and study nook. Wood heater will go against the closer wall

And one of our neighbours, a beautiful little bennett's wallaby

Slowly taking shape

We were quite surprised to see the builders working today (Saturday), but I think they will most probably take Monday off to make a long weekend out of Australia Day.

Anyway it's good to see it taking shape. I had another "How did we not notice this?" moment, when I saw the external wall frame. It's another inclined wall, which explains why the designer put the washing machine where he did in the original plan, and which means I can't have it where I decided I wanted it...no big deal. But the front corner is my WIR and now I have no idea how they'll put shelving and drawers on an inclined wall. All I know is that they will probably charge us twice as much to do it :-(

Looking across the hallway, through to the laundry and then the WIR (there will be a wall between these of course).

Roof frame started

Roof framing started last week and they seem to be making steady progress. There are actually 3 separate roofs on the house. The first 2 are almost framed. I think they are waiting on the welder to come back from holidays for the third roof...it still needs a couple more metal beams apparently.

From the western side...



From the eastern side...

A "perty" rainbow when we were at the house the other day...And today (Thursday 21st) the excavator was back to back fill at the rear of the house. The way they've done it, most of the water should collect at the back of the flat area and run along there. Now we just have to work out what to plant here???

And more frame...

So they've started the internal frame for the minor bedrooms which are all along the back wall. The frame stick up above the beam as there are highlight windows here. These will be the only windows or the kids' rooms...hope it will be enough!


Bedroom 2 DD1 has dibs on this room.

Bedroom 3 ... for DS1 or DS2

Wall niche at top of stairs.

Bedroom 4 for DD2

And Bedroom 5...again for DS1 or DS2. The smallest bedroom...it looks tiny. When Tom and I went up and saw the size of the rooms after they poured the slab (they had the rooms drawn on the floor) we couldn't believe how small this room was and how we hadn't noticed it before. Oh well, the kids will just have to make use of the rumpus...which is not that big either *insert shrugs shoulders emoticon* We keep telling them that at least they each get their own room, which has to better than sharing like they have to now.

Powder room...will have a small vanity on the left. Bathroom is next to this on the left. AE has suggested putting up some temporary walls in the bathroom so we can muck around with the bath, shower and vanity sizes to see what works best.

More frame

Frame for the roof is coming along. This is where it stands as of Christmas. The builders finished up on the 23rd and will be back on the 6th January. When they get back, the priority is to finish the frame and get the roof on and to finish the internal block work walls. Once the walls are done, then the first grind of the slab will happen. I can't wait to see what it's going to look like.

Most of these photo's speak for themselves.

This is one of the few "issues" we have had so far, but it hardly counts really. Originally the window above the wall here was not going to be supported by a frame, but they realised this wouldn't work and so have added the frame you see. However it doesn't line up with the lower post...but that's OK as they will either remove the lower post (not needed structurally) or hide it.

And this is a repair job they've done on the upper slab. When they removed some of the "boxing" around the slab in the dining room they removed some of the slab, but they've patched it up when they poured the lower slab and hopefully it won't be noticeable when the slab is polished and with the window frame there as well.