Doors and dramas

Yay we finally have a front door! And don't be put off by the fact it is green... that's just the primer ready for painting. The kids thought it was pretty cool, we had lots of games of 'knock knock' ... 'oh who's visiting?' and so on and so on... it was a lot of fun. We don't have our glazing done on the sides yet so they are just boarded back up again until we can get that done (hopefully soon!). Note the cheeky little face peeking through the glass...

Cheeky Monkey #1!

Painting is going really well, both undercoats on walls/ceiling/cornice are finished in the following rooms: kitchen, dining, family, butlers pantry, main bedroom, ensuite, toilet and first coat finished in bathroom. Only laundry and second coat in bathroom to go and we'll be ready to start on some top coats ... can't wait to see some colour on the walls!! And oh yes the dramas - well right at the end of the day (this should have been a huge big red sign DON'T DO WHATEVER IT IS YOU'RE ABOUT TO DO!) I decided that we should undercoat our beautiful new front door (why: cos the Bunnings Lady told me I should -hrmph!). Anyway I got out the gloss small nap roller and happily started applying the normal primer/undercoat ready for the gloss door paint (why: cos the Bunnings Lady told me I should - grrrrrr!). Reason for doing it at the end of the day: so it would be protected until I was able to get back and continue painting (probably a week). Anyway, if anyone has ever tried to apply normal water-based paint to a shiny primed door you will know my pain - crappy crappy crappy application of paint. Not sure if it was the roller, or the paint, but whatever the reason it looked awful. And I was all of a sudden in a super bad mood looking at my shiny (albeit green door) that now looked terrible. No photos of that I was waaaaay too grumpy. The front door!!!! Why didn't I practice on an internal door first??

Luckily Bikeman is the voice of reason (we'll just sand it back, it will be right don't worry, it's probably just the paint on the shiny primer) and I eventually eased back out of my slump. But needless to day I'm now packing my dacks about painting the rest of the door.

Decisions re flooring ... help!

We've nutted down the flooring to one supplier and now are just trying to decide on the type of wood for the flooring. The others colours below are as follows: Walls: Dulux 'Buff It' (background same as paint chip top RHS) Ceiling and Cornice: Dulux 'Antique White USA' 1/2 strength Doors, Arcs and Skirts: Dulux 'Antique White USA' (under 'Buff It' paint chip) Bathrooms and Kitchen Lower Cabinets: Laminex 'Mocha' Kitchen Upper Cabinets: Laminex 'Angora' Kitchen Bench: Caesar Stone 'Ice Snow' Bathroom benches: Laminex 'Pure Mineralstone' in Diamond Gloss finish Tiles: As pictured, 400x400 for floors and on walls in showers and around bath Feature Tiles: white rectangular with pebble feature - between vanity and mirrors There will be some feature walls as well, a dusty rose colour in pink's room and a burnt orange in blue's. And various others throughout the house, to be decided when I finally make a decision! So now the next decision - floors. The above flooring is called Kempas, and the below is an example of Spotted Gum (showing the variations). Above: much much cheaper (about 30% cheaper) but my gut says 'too red!'. Bikeman quite likes it though. I'm a little more partial to the Spotted Gum but is it worth the extra $$? Hmmmmm.... help me!

More photos...

Well I have finished the two undercoats and the ceiling in the dining, kitchen, family room and butlers pantry. It looks so great, I keep looking at it every time I enter the room to admire my handywork! Hahaha. Can't wait for the final coat to be done, then it will look like a REAL house.

We have had lots of rain over the last few weeks. Hasn't hampered the painting too much, I've just cranked up the little fan heater to keep it warm enough to keep the paint flowing! There was a spectactular rainbow today following all the rain and sun, it was just lovely. This is the view from our front rumpus room... beautiful!

Progress! Kitchen, floor, tiling, laundry and POOL update!

Wow we've had a lot of progression over the last couple of weeks. Kitchen: ordered and will be delivered mid-October Flooring: very close to ordering flooring - definitely timber floors in a mid-brown colour, just deciding on supplier and whether to get them to install or Bikeman..... will all come down to $!! Will either be installed just before the kitchen or just after. Tiling: Met the tiler onsite to go through where tiles will go etc. Have decided on a chocolate coloured 400 x 400 tile for all wet areas on the floor, and also on the walls in the showers and around the bath. Will have a smaller 300 x 100 white tile as a feature tile between the vanities and the mirror, and around the bath. Also a small rock pebble strip between the white tiles as a feature. Tiling will be done just after kitchen/cabinetry.

Laundry: prices have come in a little higher than budget for the laundry, so working on different ideas for finishes to bring the price down a little. Very close though... Pool: We ordered our pool! It's very exciting, should be with us mid-Oct as well. My that's going to be a busy couple of weeks! Now, if only we can get the sun to shine :)

Painting Pics

Some painting pics - more has been done since these photos were taken, however the whole family were struck down with the lergy over the weekend so we all chucked a sickie from the house - Bikeman included (that just shows you how sick we really were!). First photo is of my new best friend - the electric roller. Brilliant little beast, stick the tube in the paint and switch it on and away you go - no more stopping to cover the roller in paint. Saves stacks of time, especially when doing the roof. Roof not done yet in these pics, and the back part of the house hasn't been touched at all yet (that part's still the same!).

The entrance way

From the theatre toom looking back towards family/kitchen/dining. Nice and light now!

Rumpus Room

Master bedroom

Will keep updating as we move through ... I'm working room by room as it gives me more of a sense of 'completion' - so far both coats of undercoat on both the walls and the roof have been completed in the butlers pantry and the dining room ... looks great, can't wait to start on that final topcoat! More painting tomorrow if the weather is warm enough - it just has to be warmer than 10 degrees, surely it could be that (although it is Romsey .... brrrrr!).

Painting Party!

We were lucky enough to have a wonderful group of friends to help us out last weekend with some painting and verandah building (cleverly disguised as a 'painting party' hehe). Bikeman co-ordinated the 'Testosterone Team' outside, who concentrated on putting together the verandah which is now nearly complete. The 'Persistent Painters' worked really hard inside getting through as many walls as we could. By the end of the day we'd been able to put the first coat of paint on all of the walls in the front section of the house, so it was a great result! Huge thanks to the following helpers: Boyle Clan, The Sandhurst Crew, The Evans duo, Mr & Mrs Reichy and Doo-Bah for their hard work all day. Also big thanks to Nanny C for outstanding babysitting duties, and also to Bish (aka Mrs Reichy) for providing the most mouth-watering lunch you've ever seen provided on a worksite. We are very lucky to have such wonderful people who are willing to give up their time to help us out, so thanks to you all. Also a big thanks to Pops, he's been up helping Bikeman nearly every weekend for the last 3 or 4 and we really appreciate your help - x. No 'finished' photos yet - it was too dark by the time we finished (6.30pm) and we just wanted to get home, cleaned up and get the kids to bed! We were absolutely exhausted after such a busy day. Here are the progress pics and I'll post some finished ones tomorrow. Putting up the REALLY heavy steel lintel that sits on the verandah posts outside the garage. That was a work of art in itself really - executed beautifully by the boys with much thought into ladder placement, ballasting (the girls!) and how it was all going to work. If that beam was going down there was no way anyone should be in it's path. The idea was to lift the beam then put the bolt through the holes in the wood and the steel - fingers crossed they lined up ok. After a couple of little hiccups the job was done and the lintel was safely in place. Whew! Mrs B doing a beautiful job of painting the walls in the rumpus room...

Evans 1 doing the high bits in the theatre room ... the first room to be painted, very exciting!

Evans 2 doing the low bits in the theatre room...

Doo-Bah and myself moving the split jamb doors - wonderful invention, the architrave comes pre-prepared around the door frame and the door is supplied, hung and with the strike in place - takes about 1/2 an hour to install instead of many hours of chiselling, measuring, cutting - brilliant! Made specifically with owner builders in mind, I might add. Thank god!

The 'Ballasts'!! Holding the ladders down so that when the boys lift up that super heavy lintel the ladders don't tip over down the hill. Scared? Yes we were. Specially when Doo-Bah's head got stuck on the wrong side of the lintel. I was glad when this bit was over!!

The 'lifting of the lintel'. Took 5 super strong blokes and still it looked bloody heavy. Did a great job of getting it in place without a) dropping it or b)taking off any fingers or heads. Well done guys!

The verandah is starting to take shape....

Miss B enjoying a cupcake!

Everyone sitting down to the scrumptious lunch organised by Bish (aka Mrs Reichy). Roast meat on the weber, roasted chat potatoes, salad, gravy and bread rolls. Followed by scrummy chocolate cake, strawberries and cream and banana cake. Mouth watering yet? It was DELICIOUS!

More photos to come soon, of the walls with paint on them. It's so lovely to see the walls with paint, seems even more real each step we get closer. Thanks to all who helped we certainly had an enjoyable time, and we hope you all did too. xxxx

Organising and Decision Making

Now we've come to the 'pointy' end of our building project. Plaster is finished, and we're trying to work through the timber floors, kitchen, paint colour (and undercoat), ordering doors, cabinetry, skirting boards and architraves. All at once! Eeeep. Thank god for being able to make decisions pretty quickly, and for good friends offering to help at our painting 'party'! Colours are pretty much decided, now just to buy a couple of sample pots and paint up some of the left over plasterboard to see how the colours look in the house. Fantastic! The hole in the floor is filled in now, and the verandah post holes at the front of the house also are full of concrete and ready for posts. No photos yet, sorry... will take the camera tomorrow for some pics. And not forgetting that at some point we have to sell our current house... so tomorrow morning will be dedicated to 'de-cluttering' and preparing for a bit of painting, and getting it ready for sale. Hopefully will have this house on the market in the next month. Afternoon will be more painting at the new house. Photos to follow sooooon!

So much going on!

Where do I start ..... we have a lot going on at the moment! So may as well start at the 'fixups'... We now have an interesting rectangular hole in the middle of our kitchen. Bikeman was able to borrow a 'demo' saw (figured out later that stands for 'demolition' not 'demonstration' as I initially thought ... hahaha) and cut this area out of the concrete to allow the pipes to be redirected to their correct location. Should have seen the kids face (Pink in particular) when I said that it was a dungeon where naughty kids have to go ... she stopped dead in her tracks and said 'it's a bit small, isn't it?'. Ahahahaha poor thing I really shouldn't torment her like that. Bikeman also took to the pit out the front with his new big boys toy. Seriously this thing cut through concrete like it was cheese. Not something you want to accidently catch your leg or arm on, or you'd be one less before you could blink. The pit is to house the sump pump which will pump the stormwater back up to the back of the block into the rainwater tank. Ended up sticking up a bit too much out of the ground so had to cut it down a bit. Very happy with the end result, should be hidden mostly by the garden.

We have holes! All ready to be inspected and then filled with concrete, ready for the verandah.

The plasterers are finished, and they did a fine job. We ended up getting them to plaster the alfresco area as well, which was great - rather than us doing it they have all the right tools and the time to do it. All ready for painting now, soooooo exciting!

And the most exciting part .... we have a roller garage door! Looks lovely, we're really happy with the colour and how it looks. Lets plenty of light in and although the controller is lower than we would have initially liked (bit of misunderstanding with the sales rep) it will work out for the best as some of Bikemans 'toys' can probably be stored up there with some fancy rigging (ie the windsurfer).

View from the front - doesn't it look lovely!

We also had Mr Split Jambs come to visit today to measure up for doors, arcs and skirts. They should be with us in a week or two so that's pretty cool too. They have a cool system where the door comes pre-hinged and with the arcs already fixed so it's just installed as two pieces and saves HEAPS of time and cutting. Great for owner builders who are time poor!

Kitchen is well underway and is moving along well considering our little L-bench mixup. Mr Kitchen is also providing a quote for my laundry and Bikemans study cuboards, so that is good. Tried to get quotes from other cabinet makers for them but they are all either a) too busy or b) we don't go that far. Geeeeez! Although had a brainwave today (courtesy of a PD display home) - why spend all this money on a fancy drawer for sorting washing when all I really need is some underbench space and to spend a couple of bucks on some nice washing baskets. More flexible and much much cheaper! Man I love display homes... if only ours looked like that NOW! I'm so impatient.... Not too long now though!

Looking forward to the painting weekend - although I have a lot of prep work to do between now and then. Hopefully most of the undercoats, if i can manage it. Wish me luck!!!