It's All or Nothing

It felt like there was nothing happening for so long but that's all changed! I finally have more to look at than where the pipes are - Dale took so many photos of where all our water and gas pipes are in the walls for future reference. I might appreciate it later when he doesn't drill through the gas pipe but there are only so many pictures of frames and pipes you can look at and still be excicted!!

But in the last couple of weeks the bricks were finished off then they were cleaned

and both garage doors are on. It looks great! I can't wait to get the front door now!!

So much has been happening, it's all exciting again!

Dale keeps working but it seems like nothing is happening!

Everytime I go to the Block lately Dale is keen to show me what's been done. So I eagerly take the camera only to find that I can't get a decent photo because it doesn't really look that much different!! Like the built in wardrobes he spent a day building I show up and the only thing I notice as being different is a tiny little wall I can't photograph (all the frames just blend in together on the picture). So I am resorting to showing you a photo of the termimesh!!!
And how our backyard is so overgrown it's beginning to blend in with the view!!

At least Leilani's having fun...definately worth photographing if I do say so myself!!!

The eaves were another boring thing to look at, think about etc. I did notice that they are huge and I have to paint them!!!

The great news is our new brickie has started and is nearly finished - YAY!! Hopefully by the end of tomorrow all the "wall" bricks will be done then by the end of the week all the window sills will be done too. Then all we need to do to get to lock up is finish the cladding between the split, put the window in up there, fit the front door and garage doors and a little bit of capping. It seems so close but when I write it down it seems like so much!!

The first half of the cladding at the split - I wish I had of chosen the Surfmist colour now. Oh well maybe later....

It's so good to see the brickies working I feel like something is happening again.

The Right Tiles & the Front Door

I put the wrong picture up the tiles are actually this colour:

It reminds me of the water in the Whitsundays which goes well with our bricks (like that should ever be a consideration when you're talking bathroom tiles!) which are also inspired by the Whitsundays being called Daydream.

Well if I can't live in QLD I may as well build my house like it! LOL

This is the front door we are thinking of:It's a Hume door and its 1200mm wide which is bigger than a "normal" door.

Wadda ya think???

The Kitchen Guy and Bathroom Ideas

We met with the kitchen guy on Monday. We already had a plan which we are pretty much sticking to. The local radio station had an Auction late last year and we bid on and won a $15,000 kitchen (installation not included) which we paid $7,500 for so we are pretty happy. The kitchen guy said our kitchen is pretty basic so we should get everything under cost but it may be extra for soft closing draws but we're still hoping we can get it all under the $15,000 limit.

This is the colour scheme I am liking at the moment. What do you think? Leave a comment and let us know. You can see a bigger picture here: http://www.polytec.com.au/thermo_doors_introI just love the dark cupboards with the white and the red splashback is gorgeous!

Now we are at the stage where I can see the rooms and how they "fit in" to the rest of the house I am starting to really think about colours and finishes. I've always loved a plain white bathroom and kitchen but now that I'm actually getting closer to choosing I'm loving black and white and colours!!

We've already bought the feature tiles for the bathroom.Whilst I was flicking through the Ikea catalouge I noticed a bathroom that had wood features - I can't tell you how far away from what I would usually like that is but I love it - I can't find a picture of the bathroom online and my scanner isn't working but if you have a 2009 catalouge it's on page 268 or if you're really keen the Ikea website (http://www.ikea.com.au/) has an online catalouge. Here's a taste:At the moment I am loving the idea of the aqua feature tiles with white walls and the wood shelving and accesories. I am a bit nervous that the wood and the tiles will be too much??? Am I crazy or will this look good?

Anyway, that's where I'm at with the house. Dale is still working over there all the time doing all the little things to get ready for the next stage but nothing major - all the rooms are still in the same place!

Until next time.....

Brickie Trouble

Why is it that every trade seems to bag out the others? You'd think they'd have some sort of tradie bond!! Each trade seems to say that the other trades did a bad job or didn't think about other tradies. So much whinging!!

We are having a bit of trouble with the brickie - he has decided the job is alot harder than he thought - the scaffolding is too far away from the house, the slab is not even, there isn't enough room at the sides of the house etc etc etc. So he now wants a daily rate instead of a per 1000 rate.

We are currently looking at other options ie. new brickie and getting quotes in. We just can't afford such a big blow out and it looks like there are other brickies around who don't see the problems in the same way ie. not problems at all. Unfortunatly this will delay everything by several weeks as the new Brickie can't start for another 3 weeks. Oh well there is still plenty to do!! Here are some more photos.

Looking past the dining room window.

Looking back the other way down the side of the garage.

The bricks are not as nice wet.

Our bricks dry - note the mortar colour is just like Surfmist!!!

We Have Bricks and a Pantry!!

The scaffolding went up on the weekend in prepration for the Brickies...

The brickies came today and started on the Home Theatre room (I really need a better name not sure it's really a Home Theatre perhaps TV room!!). After a last minute grilling from me last night Dale was happy to see that the grout colour is a perfect match to the Surfmist colour I want the garage door to be (at the moment anyway!). The bricks and mortar are still quite wet in the photo and it doesn't help that Dale waits until he leaves (he got home at 9pm!) to take the pictures.

I was very pleased to see my pantry just about finished. I have a much better perspective of the kitchen now. It's a lot more "boxed in" than I thought it would be but am happy to see that it is still inclusive of the whole downstairs area so I'll never be left out if I'm in the kitchen :)

I think I'll need to go out and take some more pictures in the natural daylight!!

The Garage Door I Still Can't Decide On.....

No photos today, I've hassled Dale that because he has been taking the camera with him everyday that we will have hundreds of photos of our house and no photo's of the children to look back on - so he's left the camera at home and I've only taken photo's of the kids once!! There is a reason though, I've spent the last few days trying to decide what colour garage door I want.

It should be easy when you consider that I had already decided. When we started I was going to have blue garage doors but as the building has progressed I've changed my mind - bad idea. When you drive up to the house all you see is this massive blue roof, I think it would just be way too much to have the garage doors the same.

Then I thought we could have the charcoal colour that matches the window frames until I found out they don't make garage doors in that colour (we could get them painted that colour but I just don't trust paint on a garage door that is going to get the full western afternoon sun everyday).

Then I found the homeone forum (http://forum.homeone.com.au/) which I now love and someone suggested we have timber or timber look doors. At first I wasn't at all sure but then I Googled it and LOVED the look. Which is great but I needed to see it in real life. Took a while to find somewhere that did the wood look (real timber is too much hassle to maintain and is way too expensive for us at the moment). In real life the door we saw was AWEFUL it looked like a painted brown door and it wasn't even a nice brown.

I kept looking and found some that I really like but it's nearly 4 times more expensive than a standard roller door. So now I am thinking of matching the garage door to the grout of the bricks which is going to be quite light.

I am not making a final decision until the bricks are finished but am leaning towards the colour Surfmist. Here are the colours blue roof, Surfmist Garage Door and the bricks (don't have the charcoal window frames but you can see them in earlier posts).

Anyway the brickie starts on Tuesday so it won't be long and the decision will have to be made. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.