I am SO EXCITED!

Matthew and I have just been over to the house, and it has really come along such a long way - in just a day! I feel so much more excited about it now! Probably helps that I've just finished work for the year too! Yay!

As promised (sorry its taken me a while loyal readers...) here are some more photos. I've gone for a detailed set. Above is a sneak peak of the ensuite off the master bedroom. I'm really pleased with the floor - and I absolutely LOVE the tiling! They look absolutely fantastic!

Here's a close up of the loo in the ensuite - though you can see the lights are still to be installed.

And well - had to show you this! My fantastic wardrobe! As you can see, its absolutely enormous! You may not be able to fully appreciate how big it really is from this picture, but I can assure you, it's big. And it gets better... There's TWO of them!

Because I know you appreciate my sense of detail, here's a close-up of the architraves and scotia. We've gone for a traditional approach, with colonial style architraves, and the style-ly scotia.

And here's the second bathroom - with bath. Only half the glass screen is installed here - hopefully the rest of that goes in tomorrow. Once again, tiles look great!

And I can't believe we haven't put up a picture of the spanky front door before - so here it is! It's a lovely glossy black, with a stonking great door handle. V. cool.

We went over to the house tonight to pick up a light fixture that turned out to be the wrong colour, and the electricians have gone to town! Most of the fixtures are in now - and the electricity has been connected. Its really starting to feel like a home now - and the lights look great. The under-cabinet lights in the kitchen are cool, and the pendant fixture in our bedroom (the one we bought back from Sydney on the plane...) looks absolutely amazing! The entry deck is very nearly complete - so we will actually be able to get in to the house from the footpath - and it looks great.

Can't wait to move in.

The sense of excitement is palpable...

Well, actually it's not, but I thought I had to say something like that... I have to admit that I am starting to get a bit excited about the house, but there's still so much to be done, well its hard to be too excited. I am kind of enjoying the furnishing things though - curtains, etc. Would be great if we could buy all new furniture too...

We are VERY nearly there! Last finishing things are still going in, and hopefully we will have electricity today. The final part of the deck is being built, so we might actually be able to use our own access off the footpath to get into the house soon - rather than having to use our neighbour's driveway.

Apologies to loyal readers about the lack of pictures recently! I have taken some - and will get them up soon! (Need advice from my technical director on resizing etc...)

Scaffolding's down - the countdown is on!

Well things have moved on quite a bit!

The scaffolding has been removed, and the house is looking quite good really - if I do say so myself! It fits in with the neighbours pretty well too.



And here it is a bit closer - colours look great, and I'm really pleased with the windows too.


The builders are really not that far away from finishing now. The interior painting is largely complete except for touch ups and some other bits and pieces. The tiler is coming in to do the bathrooms, and the electricians are starting their final fix too.

House should be finished before Christmas!

The kitchen is in!

Only one cupboard door to go!

The bench-height windows certainly make more sense now.

Week 16 (where did the time go?!)

Isn't she gorgeous?! The finishing touches are going in place. As you can see, the finials are now in place - though a little more painting to happen before its all done.



You wouldn't believe how big those things look on the ground - they're over a metre long - but really pleased that our local finial supplier convinced us to go for the big ones! They really do look in character with the house, and I think the size is just right.

The roofers are putting the guttering in and the downpipes - which are square -and there's STILL a bit of work to be done to complete the flashings on the skylights.


And this is how the plasterer gets round - and gets up the stairs to reach the high bits! clever!

More photos to come soon! The kitchen is going in, so we'll have some more pictures to show you it in all its glory!

Keep away witchy-poo!

The finials have gone up on the house! Cool! That should keep the wicked witches of Mt Victoria away...

And...

The kitchen is going in! We have photos - will go up soon - but I just have to say it is looking absolutely fanstastic! The benches are lovely, and the finish of the cabinetry is suberb. It'll be finished early next week!

The house is getting it's clothes on

Well after some feverish activity (well I think it's been pretty fast!), the house has been painted!

It's a little difficult to appreciate the actual colour from the pictures, but it is in fact a pale grey, with a darker tone of grey as the highlight - classic we hope! The soffits are bright white to match the windows. Very pleased that the windows blend into the house now - its starting to look really good.

No finials yet...

Roof is basically complete now - though apparently there is still some minor work to be completed. Some of the flashings are not yet finished, but it looks like its nearly done.

And the most exciting bit - the gibbing and plastering has been finished in the pavilion at the back! The skylights look absolutely fantastic! The sunlight just floods in through the skylights and fills the room up with light - it really does make a huge difference to the room.

I think it will look even better once it's painted!

Week 12 - Hooray, the windows and skylights are in!

Well, after much waiting we are now pretty much watertight! In 2 short days all of the windows and exterior doors were fitted.

It is amazing how much outside noise it immeadiately cut out with double glazing.


Still not painted ... but much closer now!


We have different windows in the "old" and "new" parts of the house - white in the "old" cottage and silver in the "new" pavilion.



The stairs are also in! The gradient is considerably friendlier than the old staircase.



Looking through the window in the back bedroom on to the roof of the pavilion and its pair of skylights.



We also have a couple of skylights in the cottage, one at the top of the stairs and the other over the bathroom.


Next week, the electrical fit-out starts and the finished solid wood floor goes down.

Week 10 - We have a roof!

We are nearly watertight - just need some windows now. Most of the roofing and cladding is now in place.

Looking out the upstairs back bedroom window on to the roof of the pavilion

Street view - weatherboards (old style "Wellington" rusticated weatherboards) and bay window roof now in place

Inside the pavilion

Rear view - colour steel and modern-looking sleek cedar weatherboards

Looking out the window of the upstairs front bedroom

Roll on those windows and skylights!

Week 8 - Action a plenty!

Scaffolding's appeared, wall cladding's flying up - so much has happened, which is great!

The pavilion at the back - the modern extension - is clad in a square-ish profiled colour steel. It sounds kind of weird, but it actually does look really cool. The ends of the pavilion will be clad in a thin profiled weatherboard - lots of long tight lines running through it. Its very cool, and very different to the weatherboards on the front, emphasing the difference between the old cottage and the new pavilion.



This is the roof of the pavilion - it will honestly have more on it than chicken wire on it...



So we are quite close to the neighbours - though not as close as the old house; it was 20cm over the boundary. We decided it was more sensible to build this one actually on our land.

And here it is from the street - partially dressed, but starting to really look like a nice wee cottage. And no the weatherboards are not going to be that colour - that's the primer.

The rubbish pile...

Week 6 and Week 7 - now its really happening

So turns out that we didn't take many photos at the end of week 6, so we've combined the two weeks together in this post. And what a post it is! For the first time, the whole "house" structure is in place - the two levels of the cottage, the roof, and the pavilion at the rear. Cool!


You can see the shape of the bay window at the front - just poking over the top of the fence - though it doesn't have any of the roof structure on it in this picture.

Below are the photos from the end of week 7 - this one is taken in what will be the laundry, looking up to the roof of the cottage. The laundry is tucked under the stairs to the first floor, so once its complete, you won't be able to see all the way up.


This picture is taken from the back yard looking through the living spaces (can't see the neighbours' houses on the other side of the road any more). Thanks ITM Building Centre - building paper isn't that matt black stuff anymore - its more like some kind of woven fibre material - like those reuseable shopping bags.




This photo is taken standing in the front door porch area (the "Portico"), looking up at the first floor of the cottage. There's a set of three windows in the back bedroom, so should get great morning sun.




And finally, here's another one of our lovely cottage from across the road. The roof structure is on the bay window - hopefully now the neighbours will know its going to be a bay window - NOT a garage. Replicating one of the features of the old house, the upstairs bedroom window 'pops out' of the facade - it will have a large window sill inside that you can perch on and watch the world go by (or the trolley buses rumble past...)

Week 5 - Pink timber galore!

We've got a house! Well... lots of pink timber in a sort of house shape. Very EXCITING! We were just amazed at how much progress the builders had made at this point - its just flying up.

This picture is taken from the living areas, looking back at the cottage, which contains the bedrooms and bathrooms.



This is the front door! There's still a little bit to be added in, but it's starting to take shape.



Here's the side of the living pavilion - you can see the cut out in the framing for the long window that sits on top of the bench in the kitchen. The piles remaining are for the deck that goes to the front door from the street.



And here's me - enjoying the view of the backyard from the lounge. Yes, we're missing the french doors, and the roof and the floor - but still, I'm pretty happy with how its turning out.

Week 4 - Foundations are done

The foundations have been largely finished now - fantastic! As you can see in the picture below, we've got a concrete ring wall foundation at the front, which sits over the piles that I posted in one of the pictures last week. You can also see the pipes for the stormwater connections.



The entire subframe at the back has been finished - this is the living area, including kitchen and dining.


Not entirely sure what's happening here...


This picture shows the connection between the living area - the pavilion in architects' speak - and the entry area - the front door. The front door is in between the "old" cottage (well it would have been old had we not pulled it down to build a new "old" cottage that will actually stand up for some time to come) and the new extension at the back. You can see a little inset area on the left of the picture below - this is going to be a little garden, that you can see through large windows directly opposite the front door. Don't know what we're going to plant in it yet!


And finally, the whole length of the house - looking to the west from the back yard.

Its starting to look pretty good!

Exciting! We've got foundations! Photos from Week Three

Wow - all the piles are in and the subframe has started! What a lot of piles! There really are a lot of them... At least it means the house won't go anywhere!


Given the problems with the ground conditions that the engineers discovered, we've also had to have more piles put in - even under the ring wall foundations.



It wasn't really until this point that we realised the actual size of the house. It fits onto the section nicely - and we'll have a really nice, sunny courtyard at the back.


And here's our standard photo - looking down the section from the back to the house on the other side of the road.