Landscaping

I haven't written for a while now because nothing has really been happening. Apparently the painter got held up on another job and so was a week or so late starting on ours. This means that it is extremely unlikely that the tiles will be down before Christmas and so it will probably now be another month before that happens. 

We are planning our landscaping at the moment... well starting to at least! We are going to get the site cut pushed back a bit from the house below and onto a bit more of an angle so we can put in some terraced garden beds. We will also get a flat bit to the back left corner for the kids swings and some lawn (hopefully). We plan to put a shed in the back corner below and a rainwater tank to collect rain from the roof. We will plant a veggie garden and fruit trees along the back. We will put another rainwater tank against the side of the house over the other side. 

This is the side facing west. We will extend this cut back another couple of metres and angle it more... again to plant some terraced beds and lots of creepers to hold it all together. I'm really looking forward to seeing if I can remember anything at all from my agricultural science degree (other than how to drink beer of course!). 

Ready for Render!

It seemed that not a lot was done in the last week. They may have been working inside, but we are past lock-up now, so we can't go in and see what's going on. We received our bills for lock-up and fixing on the same day, so even though it was  a little daunting, it's good to know that they are actually further along than we thought! Today they rendered the facade and al-fresco. This is the base colour. I guess the feature colours will go on in the next few days. It's starting to look a bit flash! We are meeting with our building inspector on Saturday morning to have a look through and a chat about the progress. Can't wait! 

We've been away again for a bit over a week this time, and when we got back yesterday we went straight to the site to see what had been done. 

The brick work is pretty much complete. The facade needs to be rendered and the tiles etc need to go on. To say that we need to do a lot of landscaping is somewhat of an understatement! 

The en-suite basins have been fitted. 

The bi-fold doors are in. The black colour is protective plastic. They will be silver. 

They have also spent a lot of time finishing off the plastering, skirting boards etc. The internal doors are nearly all in place as are some of the wardrobe doors. 

This is how it looks from a few doors up the street. 

And So It Goes...My

This is completely nuts! We now have most of our cabinets installed. I drove past this morning and again this afternoon for a peak and couldn't really see a lot of progress. However, on closer inspection after dinner, we noticed that they had been extremely busy!

I have an appointment with our supervisor tomorrow morning. I can't wait to hear what he has to say about the progress. We are very impressed.

The vanity in the en-suite:

Vanity in the powder room:

My beautiful kitchen: 

Liquid copper cupboards:

Getting Our Hopes Up Again!

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!! When we went past this evening, we couldn't believe how much had been done (on a 35 degree day too, I might add!). The brick work is probably at least half done, probably more, and some of our cabinets have arrived! The french-doors have also been fitted to the en-suite, and they have had an all-round tidy up too.

So now, we start wondering..... will the house be finished before we have to move out of here Mid-Feb? 

Here are some cabinets, mostly for the kitchen I think. I can see the wine rack sitting there on top. I hope they are going to fill it up for us! 

Part of the kitchen bench I presume: 

French-doors in the en-suite (and the spot for the spa, which looks a bit small to me, but anyway):

Brickwork almost complete along the back of the house. You can see yesterday's dry mortar down the bottom. Blonde me was worried that we had two different coloured bricks. Oh dear! 

Standing in the back corner looking towards the al-fresco and the street: I am pleased with the way the guttering blends in with the bricks and still manages to suit the tile colour. The mortar is a bit lighter than I would have liked though. In the photo you can see where its light at the bottom where it is dried and darker (and looking better) at the top where it is still wet. 

They're Here!

Our bricks arrived yesterday and already the brickies have done a great job putting them all together in the shape of a house! We were very nervous about the colour, but we love them. However we had a close look at one after everyone had gone home from work and they look like a basic red brick with a nice coating painted on. I guess the take home message from this is that one should be a little more thorough when selecting bricks. We saw a wall of them that looked good and went with that alone. A smarter purchaser would have asked to look at some individual bricks to make sure they were suitable. Anyway, as long as the coating doesn't peel off, or chip, we will be very happy. The plasterers have also been exceptionally busy over the last week or so smoothing out the walls and roof... it looks great! 

The bedroom:

Looking at al-fresco and meals/ kitchen:

Standing in the kitchen looking over meals/ family and into rumpus:

Austral Chocolate:

The view from out the back:

Wondering

I'm not much chop with the horses,

but I am willing to have a bet.

Today I sit here wondering

have our bricks arrived there yet?