Upstair & Roof Framing

Today, we saw the ladder fitted in the open area to the upstair, finally, we can climb up to the first floor to have a look.....  Wow, it's so high up there, the view is incredible!  We can see our neightbours backyard... hmm hope they don't catch us starring at them.




Looking down from the ladder upstair



Looking to the rumpus

Viewing from the front

They also stared on the roof trusses, so exciting to see this taking shape.



Upstair with wooden roof frame

 

Going back downstairs I noticed that the sliding door to the alfresco open the wrong way (left to right instead of right to left).  Common sense prevail, why would someone need go to the corner and open the door? It's easier to have it open from the kitchen area. Anyway told the site worker and called our site supervisor straight away, he said he will order the right door and it installed. To be added to the issues list for tracking.


 

Wrong way sliding door to the alfresco





Windows are here!



What a surprise to see a delivery of the external windows and sliding door for alfresco. Hope they can be installed quickly before the predicted rain this week.

Stack of windows

Framing for upstairs has started. Haven't had a chance to go up yet as there was no ladder in sight.

Framing upstairs

Framing - Day 5

Day 5... and the framing process continues

Ground floor taking shape very quickly. There was a crane early morning to deliver the steel beams for the front porch and alfresco. With the alfresco, it will be open space but the top will be bricked off to become a large WIR for the Mrs :-)

The joists have also been completed, started on the ceiling panels.

Front porch with steel beams

Alfresco with steel beams

  

Looking into the house from entrance

  

Kitchen and living room

Close up of steel beams

Vanity Basin Issue Resolved!

During our colour appointment it didn't dawn upon us to consider upgrading the vanity to the ensuites. We thought the standard basin was good enough and not worth forking out the extra $$. 

However having read other bloggers who posted pictures of their finished vanity basin, we realised that the standard basin is not what we want for the following reasons:

• look & feel - prefer to have mixer sitting on top of the basin rather than benchtop, standard basin also looked like a oversized "bowl"
• messy & spillage - having the mixer on benchtop would invite spillage as well may cause rotting of the benchtop when they leak

Pictures below shows the standard Imperial Avon 400 and the upgrade model, Valentino Stepped Vessel.


Standard Imperial Avon 400



Valentino Stepped Vessel

Next step was to email our BC, explained the situation and asked for the upgrade cost. What a shock to hear the upgrade cost was $135. It was unbelievable that PD would charge much higher upgrade cost when my brother who is building with PD and others from the forum mentioned their price was $92. Big difference when there are 6 basins to be upgraded.

Went back to our BC, who by the way, have been providing great assistance to us throughout the build process. In the end, she mentioned something along the line that there was a mistake made in calculating the difference from standard to upgrade. So our upgrade cost was $92. Hallelujah! This was a great outcome for us.

Just a piece of advice for those who are negotiating with your BC, know what you are after, do some research and when discussing with PD, mention the facts and be humble with her, you need your BC to be on your side to help you throughout the build stages.

Day 3 of Framing

Day 3 of framing, they have been busy today, more framing have been setup. Now the living room, alfresco, theatre room, laundry can be seen.

 Looking at the living room from the kitchen

 Alfresco

Looking at the entrance from the living room

Money Money Money

Received the first invoice from PD for the completion of the slab stage. We have 7 days to pay otherwise interest get charged.

Day 2 of Framing

Framing continuing on Day 2. More skeletons of the ground floor completed. The study, guest room, ensuite and dining room are now taking shape.

Study and Guest Room

 

 

 

Looking into the guest and study rooms from the kitchen area

Timber

 

Drove by early in the morning and notice we have timbbbeeerrrrrr.......

Yay! Large deliveries of timber scatter everywhere. This means the slab should be dry by now for framing to start. Interesting, delivery docket says it's from Bunnings wholesale yard....

 

Timber deliveries

By the afternoon noticed that work has already started and a rough outline of the slab boundary done. I decided to take a quick stoll and for the first time set foot on the slab. You can't believe the emotion that was going through me, I am actually "walking" in my house for the first time.  I can see the outline of the downstairs room. Wierd though, the space feel kinda small.... although we had not seen a Waldorf 44 display before, in our mind we had a rememberance of the large space from Waldorf 48.

Outline of the house

Another Levelling

Things are moving fast these few days. Today, someone was onsite with a bobcat to fill the surrounding of the concreted slab with soils and flatten the site more.  Great job!

Surprised Early Concrete Pour!

What a surprised when we drove by the site in the morning to see the concrete slab being poured today rather than the scheduled day (tomorrow)!  We're impressed with the fast and effective way that every contractor (tradies), who didn't know each other, but co-ordinated well to come at the right time to put their acts together for our house building!  The credit has to go to the slab base supervisor! Got the camera out quickly and snap few shots while the guys are busy working on the conrete pour.

Guess after today, we'll have to wait a while to get the next job done while waiting for the concrete to dry up.  Not very sure whether the extreme forecasted hot weather is gonna help..........or make the slab crack?

Slab preparation

Lots of activities today. Workers were on site preparing the slab, boxing in the house boundary as well putting in waffle foam. So far everything looks ok, but I'm not a slab expert. Looks like there are still some unfinished work which will be continued tomorrow....

Pipes In!

There has been no activity for the last 4 days which seemed like an eternity to wait until today!  The plumber has been onsite and laid out the sewer pipes finally!

I had a concern that unwanted objects may accidentally fall into the pipes as not all of them had been sealed off. However I didn't want to touch them just in case I don't get blamed for tampering their stuff.

Also got a call from the base stage supervisor who advised the work is on track and expect slab pour to be on Thursday 14th Feb.

Site flattened

That was quick work. Next day after concrete poured for the piers, the site has been flattened with soil and the concrete holes are not obvious now.

Moon craters

Drove by this morning and noticed workers busy drilling holes everywhere. This is amazing!  We were told those concrete bored piers are to strengthen the foundation of the house, in total there are 50 holes > 2m depth filed with concrete!  This is where the site cost get spent.  Our neighbour who just finished building with Carlisle Homes told us their site cost was only $20K as opposed to ours $35K, but they didn't have these concrete bored piers.........

This landscape looks like craters on the moon........

Fence Up! Power In!

Today we went to the site and saw the fence was up and the electricity meter was in.  Great start!