Construction Week 3: I'm All Fenced In, Plumbed and Electrically Charged :)

26 April 2017 (Wednesday)

We are now on week three and it seemed that things are moving along quite well...

As you can see, thirtyseven is all fenced in and form were build around the perimeter.  MrK spoke to one of the concreter and he said tomorrow the plumber will come in and install the pipes needed for the whole house.  Friday the metal mesh will be put in to have the land ready for pouring the cement for the slabs.... things are indeed moving along woohooo!

27 April 2017 (Thursday)

We have an electrical appointment today and on our way to that appointment, we passed by our land as we normally do and as promised the plumbers worked there today and they have installed the pipes to get it ready for the metal mesh to be put in tomorrow and slab pouring hopefully by Friday... full steam ahead.

We came out of our electrical appointment with South West after just an hour and a half (that was really fast) as MrK and I have already discussed what we needed for them to do.  Despite our best effort to just stick to what we consider essentials, we still walked out with a bill of $1800 ouch! Mind you, we did not asked them to install any downlights (we think $130 for EACH downlight is rather steep).  We are doing it after the handover.

We did asked them to put some provisions for the two front pillars for two up down lights which we will just ask our electrician to put in but it still costs us to have those put in.  There are certain things that would be hard for our electrician to do after the handover so we thought we will just turn a blind eye and pay them to do it.

This is not yet set in stone anyway.  We will still review them should we have a change of heart and hopefully there will be no need to add anymore except those downlights.

That's been what's happening today. Thanks for joining us in out journey and see you in the next post :)

Construction: Week 2 - Poke a Hole (Piering)

Its a glorious day to do some piering ... upturn that land shall we :)

It was already getting dark when hubby returned back to the land to find more details ...

And these are what we have now ...

Piering to slab is now the stage that we are entering for this week... Because our land is just a stones throw away from our house, I am sure hubby will be there most of the time to see what action is happening.
Holes have been made on the land and all the holes have been filled with the cement slurry. This concrete piering will support the slab but as always hubby is raising concerns (hubby can react to things so prematurely as I'm sure these guys knows what they are doing)....  

He now wish to ask our service officer at Beechwood as to why some of these holes (pierings) does not have a full cement on them while others were at ground level... I guess another email for me is on the to do list tomorrow when I get to work :)
With a bit of luck, we might have a slab by the end of next week!

Thanks for joining and see you in the next post :)

Construction: Week 1 - Cut and Fill

This week is officially the first week of the 27 weeks of the house build.

Nothing much happened since last week's cut and fill made to the land.  Meanwhile there's some action happening in our next door neighbour's construction as now they have erected some fencing between our two properties.

That's all for now and see you in our next post :)

Of Light and Sink Talk

Now that construction is arms reach, I thought I'd do more mental notes for the house so I wont forget just in case I get bogged down and get more confused during the construction process.

Today. I decided to think about the external lights and this is what I am planning to get... yes I used the possessive word "I" as MrK said I can be in charge of those ...yipeee

I've chosen this up down lights. Minimalist yet stylish and definitely functional. Something like this.

I am thinking of this simple up down light.  Nothing flashy but functional.

Glad to have found this at Bunnings:

An issue that I raised with Beechwood this week was the configuration of our sink.

After visiting a friend who just moved in into their lovely new home, I happen to admire her sink.  Just like her, we have a stone benchtop (which was an upgrade on our part). 

She asked me how ours will be like. 

I said something like this:

But she convinced me to ask if we can have something like hers (wasn't able to take a photo) similar to this:

I tried contacting BWH stating that this was not discussed to us during the colour selection appointment when we spoke of other things.  But unfortunately because we were apparently in the construction stage, any variations will cost us $1000.  Needless to say, we dropped the idea.

It would have been nice to have a benchtop without a stainless steel sticking up but never mind.

So whoever is reading this and you are still in the planning stage, just perhaps discuss this option if you like.

Anyway, that's it for now. Thanks for joining us in our journey and see you in our next post.

Countdown begins...

We can't wait for 10 April to arrive.  The K family is really counting the days 'till we see any movement in our little patch of what we will call home soon.

Imagine our surprise today. 

Any work on our land is suppose to commenced on Monday 10 April 2017...but look at what we found today after an impromptu visit to our land after I arrived from work .

Ijust wanted to take photos before work starts but we found our land has already been benched.

Or perhaps BWH is taking advantage of the good weather and did some work after so many days of rain... thanks #beechwoodhomes for being so efficient.

Bare land no more ... work has truly started and we couldn't be happier

 

the kids weren't even supposed to get out of the car as we were thinking this will be a five minute visit ... the kids in their pajamas and trying to share the joy with us

 

Someone was sneaky peeky ... And have you seen an antique porta loo --- where here it is...but I am not complaining because once you see a porta loo in your site, that means work is imminent.

We will try to see and get a glimpse again on Monday and see what they have started.  For the meantime, we are calling our electrician and will make an appointment for our electrical wirings for the house.

Thanks for joining us in our journey and see you in the next post.

Mental Notes: House Inspiration (Again)

I was opening one of the catalogue from all the shops which normally fill up our mailbox on a weekly basis and found this interesting thing from Aldi which may be something that we will need in the new house.
As early as now, I am already planning the things that we need and where we will possibly get them.  I had this thought that being on special I need to get this mailbox as we will never know when it will be available again.




But, as I normally do, I would see if the same thing can be found somewhere else just in case I would not be able to get the Aldi mailbox as I am more concerned as to where I will put them temporarily since we wont be needing it for a couple of months from now.
Look what I found from our handy dandy local Bunnings.
Since this is available all year round, I decided to just leave it until we need it.

This letterbox (whose background looks like our house except that our brick is dark) is what I think we might go for and is ditching the idea of the brick one ...


Pebbles and stepping stones another thing that I have to remember and Bunnings is one of the place that we can source that from but I am still in the lookout for other places that we can source these on a cheaper price.




  

This is what we think would be how our side of the house would look like ... MrK would really be a handyman to pull off the things that we want as I am not prepared to pay someone else to lay them all. hahahah.

That's all for  now and thanks for joining us in our journey towards building our humble home.

10.04.2017

Though I don't want to be excited, why can't I ... when Beechwood already informed us that on this date is the day when our land will start to thrive life and movements when construction starts.

We are happy and should we say, excited too...

Thank you for joining us in our journey of building our humble home.

Kids Room and Hallway inspirations

Knowing that we decided not to fork out $230 per room should we try to change the colour of any room aside from the Shale Grey that we opted for our internal walls, which I do adore, I decided to head back to see some inspirations from the net to see how we can spruce up a grey wall to give it some personality.

After seeing these photos (plus more) I realised that its not that bad after all... I was really scared that it will not suit in our kid's room but these photos proved me wrong .

Trying to find that gorgeous pendant light too

I became excited on the crafts that I can do for the room .... Those photo frame is already playing in my head on how I will make it.

An inspiration for my little man who loves to read books

Now I turn my vision to our hallway.  The very first thing that people will see when we open our door, when we invite them over and I want it not to be too formal but something inviting and interesting.  Putting an art may not be everyone's interest so these ones might probably a good one to start with ... because I know, at some point - perhaps after a year or two, I will change it again to something more interesting for the time.

 

 

That's it for now and thanks for joining us as we journey to building our humble home.

Colour selection done!

Today, we inch forward to our most awaited construction of our humble home.  Today, we went for our colour selection ...

Here were what transpired today ... not complete yet as we still have to do our electricals (as soon as we book it) as well as tiles appointments (which will be done nearing to the construction laying the floor)

Externals:  Bricks (from the Austral Wilderness Range: Blackbutt, Tile roof:  Coal in Classic, Window frames:  Surfmist, Maroka Render:  Surfmist, Gutter and Downpipes:  Monument, Fascia:  Surfmist, Garage: Monument (*as advised by our colour consultant)

Manor Red (middle) will be the pop of colour that I was wanting to have - and that will be for our external door.  I had to convince MrK about it but our colour consultant agreed with my choice so I'm happy... at the end of the appointment MrK warmed up to it :)

I originally had set my mind on a Taubmans Foxtail but since our colour consultant wanted a soften ambiance, she suggested this Apache Stone colour which is not far from our original wall colour in mind.  It is in between that Flotsam and the popular Stonebridge... Happy with that :) ....
Note:  I could not accept our colour that the colour consultant advised after I have set my mind on this really nice warm grey (Foxtail) as I realised that from the review that this Apache Stone is really having a brown undertone in it so i called Beechwood the following day and changed it to Shale Grey. Love it.

Another changed plan. MrK sort of set his heart on this Caesarstone stone benchtop called Piatra Grey but because we are not willing to fork out another $4500 to what we already put up as an upgrade of $3800 to use for all our kitchen benchtop, we had to let go of that thought and be contend with one of their grey stone in the standard range called Tornado from their Quantum Quartz supplier. I think its not that bad.

Having it together with our Classic White no -handle cabinetry (which I originally planned for a Polar white but our colour consultant said this white is too "on your face" when harmonised with all our other colours I decided to approved her choice)

Carpets for all room.

Being both cooking and baking fanatics, MrK and I agreed to upgrade to a 900mm freestanding cooker.  Meet our new gentle giant in the kitchen.

This is our external door (with almost the same tri-lock door handle system) but in Manor Red (see pic below)

These are the upgraded door handle locking system choices that we had ...

And this was what we chose.  Both MrK and I pointed at it at the same time so I'm glad we were on the same pace.

I was also able to convince MrK to upgrade all the doors in the house from a plain one to this painted crisp white.

The profile of our cornice that comes in our standard range.

These are the handles that we can choose from but we decided not to upgrade as this can be changed after the handover and the fact that it will not do anything aesthetically to our cabinetry as we opted for a no-handle cabinets on the top so the standard range in brushed chrome style will only be used on the bottom which again can be changed after the handover

Garage door profile (right)- Slimline woodgrain finish in Monument - a bit darker than the one on the left.

Today, we signed our building contract and sealed all our choices in as well. We wait for the five days cooling period then awaits the bank's go signal (letter of commencement) then happy days starts soon.

That is it for now.  We shall update you when we have our electrical appointment come up soon. 

Thanks for joining us in our journey and see you again soon.