Floors Protected...

Spent a few hours putting down the floor protection that Ivan left us in the polished areas. Should have got some knee pads because my legs are aching!!!

Got some much needed help from the father in law - thanks heaps Bobby

Anyway 4 rolls of duct tape and 40 pieces of corflute we got it all covered. Also got a few sneak peaks of the floor now its been half polished so we can go looking for kitchen colours tomorrow and Monday - very happy with the results!

Kitchen & Laundry

Decisions Decisions...

Got our kitchen and laundry plans and have to pick out colours and make sure that we are happy with everything. I asked Fairmont how long I had and they said 2 weeks would be fine to get back to them... we want to wait until we see the floors finished before we pick the colours we want.

We are not making any changes to the design as we are very happy with the layout. We love the island bench and its about 3.5m long. Also added the wine rack next to the fridge with a bin draw at the bottom. Also has 19 drawers which is good as well.

Got a couple of downlights under the cupboards and a concealed rangehood.

Below is the layout of what we are having

arial view of the kitchen

front view of the back area and inside/outside of the island

3d image and the fridge/wine rack

laundry cupboards/bench

Frames Up

Well it is starting to look more like a house now... We have frames going up and suspect we will have a roof as well tomorrow. Only swung past this afternoon for a quick look and pretty impressive to see what can get done in just a day. Makes a difference when you can see walls as you can visualize where everything is now.

I have to go to site on Saturday to place all the floor coverings down on the slab to protect Ivans work. He dropped over the coverings at our house tonight before he flew back to Perth.

view from the front

windows

centre of the house - kitchen left living right

this is the doors to outside

garage

Initial grinding completed

Well the grinding pre frame is done. Whole slab looks white and very dusty for now. Ivan poured out some water in the corner and it revealed his work... Looked amazing and photo doesn't do it justice

Spoke to John (Site Manager) and frames going up Thursday - bricks booked for Monday. Will start looking like a house soon.

Very early in the process but here is what we have so far.
Looking at it the white quartz has some shimmer and should
look amazing when done

Riding the Luck Swing

After the events of Saturday and the weather looking excellent things were all ready to be done today (Sunday) so that our builders could get onto the frame on starting Monday.

Took Ivan a coffee over in the morning and all was good and he was ready to go. He told me to come back in a few hours and we could see the exposure of the concrete. Went back over at about 12:00 - Ivan let me know that the grinder was broken and he had been on the phone for 2 hours trying to get it working with Tech Support Husvarana.

Things have just not gone our way this week...

• Raining all week so can't get on the block till Saturday
• Bogged on site 3 times due to heap of rain and soft topsoil (Saturday)
• Generator broken down (Saturday afternoon)
• Grinder broken down (Sunday morning)

I am just going to put this out of my mind and get into work tomorrow and let that occupy my mind and wait to hear some good new from Ivan - He was told Husvarana are sending a replacement first thing.

UPDATE: Get the call that Husqvarna have a brand new machine for Ivan to use and he is on site getting it done. We are back on track and finally the luck has turned... Just no rain please!

Nice new machine - We have progress!

Horror Morning... Great Afternoon...

What an amazing day - would go as far to say that it was one of the most memorable days I can remember.

Here is a summary of the day

• 7:00am - Ivan was to be on site with his equipment and generator to grind the slab
• 8:00am - get a txt from Ivan to advise he was bogged as the ground was very soft and muddy
• 8:30am - in the car off to Bunnings to get tow rope to save Ivan
• 9:00am - Arrive on site and generator (massive power generator on trailer) is bogged due to all the rain and MUDDY as!
• 9:30am - 2 attempts to get the generator on site and bogged both times. Ivan calles Coates Hire and requested a machine quote to crane the equipment onto the slab - Coats hire want...... $1000 to do it which is far from what I can afford!
• 10:00am - Ivan goes to Kennards and gets a heavy duty trailer to try and make it easier to get on site instead of the crane options - again the ground is soaking wet and muddy and very bag - cant even walk on it  - that bad
• 10:30am - New trailer arrives and again.... gets bogged and have to tow that out as well
• 10:45am - Frustrated and have no idea what to do - head up to the Glenmore Ridge Park opening and run into Matt (client of mine that I did a home loan for 2 days ago!!!) - also building in Glenmore Ridge and explain the story. Matt says "I can get a crane here in 30 mins!!" - not what you know its who you know
• 11:00am - Me and Matt drive to Emu Plains to get a truck with a crane on the back - drive back to site and crane the machines onto the slab - watching in amazement!
• 11:30am - Ivan on site grinding, I am thanking Matt to no end and standing back in amazement on what had transpired during the day.. Matt thankyou so much....!!!!!
• 4:00 - get a message from Ivan that the generator has Sh*t itself and Coates are coming out at 7am to fix it...

Like I said the day went from bad to worst to good and back to bad and Ivan took it all in his stride - Without Matt coming to the rescue nothing would have happened and wasted lots of $$$ with hiring equipment with no result.

Have a look at the photos - Had to take some to back up this story..... Can you believe that I got a crane???

Matt & Emma - Clients of mine that saved my day!!!! - Thanks!!

Went back to the site to see what it looked like this afternoon and what do we have - EXPOSURE!!! Cant wait to see it tomorrow - Ivan back on site at 7:00am! What a legend!!

Only 1 day on the grind and the slab looks tops already!! It was really really dusty and you could see with a bit of water what it was starting to look like...

Glad we went with the white and gold mix as all gold would have been to much.

Some of our concrete polishers work

Here are some pics of some more floors our polisher has done. Ivan has been great and we are very confident that he will deliver a fantastic result.

Message to mother nature.... "Please keep the rain away this week"


Ivan is trying to get on the slab but this weather is not being as nice as it could be. He needs to be on the slab for 2 days before the frames go up.

3000 grit finish (what we are doing)

Closer look

On another note Glenmore Ridge is having the opening of Jacaranda Park this weekend so we will head down and have a look and the the kids have a play. I have also heard it is customary to crack some champagne when you have a slab. I figure who am I to argue with tradition and I don't need to be asked twice for a beverage or 3!

Matt from our street messaged me today and also suggested a few beers to celebrate... I think that we will get on well!!

Slab Poured and Quartz Seeded

Well the Rain held off and the slab got poured this morning - Renee drove past mid morning and they were well into it. Lucky she had the camera as she got some good shots - not bad seeing they were taken through the fence!!

Ivan our floor polisher was there to spread the quartz and apparently all went to plan. Interesting shots of the quartz being seeded out into the slab - we have had heaps of people ask about how they do it and whats involved. Also very glad that I got a 50/50 mix of white and gold quartz. I think that all gold would have been far to much.

Ivan went back to the site later in the day to cover the whole slab in plastic. Apparently this helps the slab to retain moisture longer and makes it set better and less likely to crack.

Ivan is back out there on Wednesday and will start the grinding process which should take about 2 days. The frames will get put up after he has finished.

I was really nervous about how it would all work out - mainly because Ivan and the builders concreters would be working together during the pour. The last thing that we would want for both the builder or Ivan was to cause issues or dramas and make things difficult. Looks like it all went to plan and worked out well. Can't wait to see what it looks like once it has been cut and polished!!

I have some pics below of some other polished floors that we have seen and will be interesting to see what ours looks like with the stone that we have picked. Love the seamless finish and how shiny and clean it looks.

Electrical

Fairmont asked me to confirm our electrical plans and get that back to them. We drove back over to Gregory Hills to have a look at the display home to see where they had them placed in there.

Main things we wanted to make sure when we placed power powers, TV, phone etc was that it would work with our furniture placement.

We worked that out quite quickly and made sure there were points placed so we could vacuum all areas of the house.

We also placed a gas point outside where the BBQ would be - so we can connect the BBQ to natural gas.

When we were there there was a nice young couple with 2 young kids like us looking in the home. Heard them talking about the location of the media room and the alfresco and how much they loved the feel of the house. I told them that I was building the home and I had switched the alfresco and media around as well.

Showed them the plans of our place and they really liked them as well. It was funny to hear that they had looked around at lots of builders and were confused on who to go with - flashback to what were were feeling 4 months ago!!!

I was a bit envious to hear that their block size was 700sq+ so they wouldn't have an issue fitting any home on their block.

We had a bit of a chat and they asked about our experience with Fairmont so far and how they were to deal with. We let them know how happy we were with our experience so far and talking to them reminded us of when we first walked in the home.

I hadn't been to the display home for at least 2 months and going back re-affirmed that we had made the right choice.

Rain Rain Go Away....

Slab is being poured on Monday.... weather permitting....

Weather looks like it will be touch and go and could get some rain... hoping its just some light drizzle and nothing to bad over the weekend. Keeping everything we have crossed and hope that all is fine.

Aggregate - Polished Concrete Floors

Here are some pics of the quartz we got for the slab... They are Gold to White in colour and cant wait to see how they look when they are done.

Bit of a nightmare getting the rocks to the site. Got a trailer from Kennards and asked for one that could hold 1 1/2 tonne of rocks. Tells me no problem and drive to South Windsor and find a large warning on the other side of the trailer that says "max 400kgs"

I ended up getting the other trailer load in white rocks to mix with the gold ones.

So 2 trips later I had the rocks, washed them with a gurney at the car wash and shoveled on site. We had 2 of the trailer loads below to do. Thanks Dad... See how good it is that your retired now!! You get to help me do all the hard work!

Plumbing Done - Waffle Pods & Rio Done

Working late tonight and couldn't help driving past the block to see whats going on.

1. Fences are up
2. Plumbing done
3. Waffle pods and rio for slab have been delivered

Met the site manager John this morning as well - nice bloke and seems pretty easy going. Said that the slab would be down on Monday. You know what that means.... we are getting close to a frame!!

Went back the next day and took a few photos...

Framework up for Slab

Well things continue to progress along with something happening every day. I drove past the slab late this afternoon and was great to see the framing done for the slab.

The slab is being poured on Monday so i guess the plumbing and the pods for the slab will be done over the next couple of days.

I have a great job to do tomorrow to get ready for Friday. I have to go to South Windsor to get 1 1/2 tonnes of Aussie Gold quartz pebbles. Picture of the pebbles are below. They are being seeded into the slab when it is poured so that they are revealed when the grinding is done for our polished concrete floors. We are confident that the gold to white tones will come up nicely and mix in with the rest of the colours.

Fairmont Homes Wins 2011 Design Award

Just wanted to say congrats to Tom, Dan & the team at Fairmont Homes for winning the 2011 Design award for the St Thomas 30 - which is the house that we are building.

Obviously we loved it enough to build it and I am sure that it will be a popular home.

House Stuff

Well we have been slowly scouring over sales and also ebay and have purchased a few items that we need for the new house.

When we sold the old house our fridge had had it - so in our rental we borrowed one form mum and dad that they have had for years.

So we have been looking for a new fridge and found the exact one that we wanted. Its a Jenn-Air and fits the kitchen perfectly. Its cabinet depth so it doesn't stick out and we love the stainless steel vents on the bottom and the pull out freezer.

Also when we sold our old house the built in BBQ went with it. So we had to replace that as well. Gotta love Ebay. Found an awesome built in BBQ which is exactly what I was looking for and drove to Bondi to get it.

Thanks Stockland

It was nice of Stockland to send Renee some flowers this week. They called to say that they saw our building blog and were happy things were going well - Renee loved them. I am going to call Stockland and let them know that the Blog has been done by me and not Renee... Tooheys New - BEER ECONOMY please... hehe

Just kidding about the beer - Thanks heaps to Sasha (land sales office) and the team at Stockland. They were all great to deal with and would deal with them again without any hesitation. They are a quality company and more importantly are quality people.

Piering Starts

Works seems to be rolling ahead quite quickly which we are very happy about. Got an email from the builder to say that piering was starting today and plumbing would be dug in tomorrow.

We drove past the block this afternoon and sure enough the machines were there digging holes for all the piers. I put a few photos below. The concrete was poured later in the afternoon.

It was also good to see the house slab marked out in white as well so were could see where everything was going to be.