Our Home Adventure Blog

Week 6 Update

homeowners09 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:43:19 +0000

We have progressed again this week, the front has been fully rendered, eaves are starting to be done and the entire house has been completely plastered. Enjoy this weeks pics:

Eaves are going in

More of the Eaves

Kitchen Benches!

Ensuite Basin shown here

Hope you enjoyed the tour for another week,
Home Adventurer

5th Week Update – Lock Up Stage!

homeowners09 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:08:51 +0000

We are coming up to the end of week 5 next Tuesday and its amazing that we’ve already hit Lock Up stage. This is great news, however, it also means that from here on in, it means that getting in is getting to be tricky. But its great to see our house only after 5 weeks!

The obvious thing to us was the front door! Before anyone freaks out, that green is not the colour we’re getting, its just a base paint.

The other noticable changes from last week is the completion of the brick work, heres a variety of exterior photos.

The other defining feature of this week is the plaster inside

Garage

Looking from Alfresco through Study window down the hallway to the front door

In the hallway above, you can see the cutouts, which we plan to put some artwork in, to jazz the hallway up.

The bedroom at the back of the house

I hoped you enjoyed another weekly installment of our house,
Home Adventurer

4th Week Update

homeowners09 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:22:38 +0000

We swung past our place this morning and were greeted by a house donned in brickwork. Yes, we have bricks, not quite finished, but 75% there. The insulation bats are in as well. Our builders are quick!

We are starting to see a few things that were not 100% sure about. Like there is a window in the Lounge room which doesn’t open, but the one in the study does open, this is in reverse to what we saw in the display home and our building plans. But in essence, I think we prefer this mistake as we can open the rear sliding door and the alfresco sliding door to create a wind tunnel effect, but then when we’re in the study we can open the window there for fresh air, without it, there would be a tiny window external facing that we would have to open for fresh air. The other odd thing is the ensuite and WIR, there is a pipe which looks to be part of the shower in the ensuite but it protrudes into the WIR, so we are hoping they’ll cut the pipe off and do something with it, but we are not sure what.

Enjoy the photos.

South Westish Corner of the House

The Dining Window that Doesn't Open

North Side of the House - The Lounge

Pink Bats Insulation in Lounge/Dining Area

Heating Ducts (I Think)

I Don't think the "W" in WIR is meant to stand for "Water"

3rd Week Update

homeowners09 — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:18:49 +0000

It is the end of the 3rd week. When we began our journey, we thought that the house would be built in around 4-6months. At this rate, it looks more like the house will be ready around Xmas/New Year time, maybe even earlier. It is very exciting, we visited the house today and went through the display home as well for inspiration. We are starting to think of all the things we need in the new house, all very costly, but all projects that we can do over time.

Today when we went to the block, we saw that the roof was completely tiled, and about 70% of the windows were installed. Strangely enough we saw that the bath tub and shower basin were installed in the bathroom. We also have a laundry door. Enjoy the pictures.

It is coming together!

The Bricks! Nice Colour!

Our Roof Tile Choice...

Laudry Door... I never thought a door would be exciting to me!

Bedroom Windows

Beautiful view from our study out into the Alfresco area...

Bathtub and Shower base in the main Bathroom

I hope you enjoyed our latest photos,
Home Adventurer

End of 2nd Week – Frame UP!

homeowners09 — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:01:08 +0000

We took an excursion to our block yesterday. We were sent a sneak peak of our frame by our neighbour who is just as excited about our place as she is. Her house starts building soon too.

With the frame up, the house is starting to come together, check it out:

Framed Front Facade

Check out more of our photos…

To continue with our tour of our framed place, I’ll take you through the front door and you can look down the hallway, first room to the right that you see, is the study, their is an area behind that, which will be the outside alfresco area and behind that is the main lounge/dining area.

Front Hallway looking at Study, Alfresco, Dining/Lounge

This next picture was taken in our main bedroom which is in the front right of the house, and the picture is of the small ensuite.

In Bedroom looking into ensuite

From the Alfresco area looking back to the kitchen, the long opening in the kitchen wall is actually our window.

From Alfresco looking at Kitchen

From the Alfresco area again, looking back into the Lounge/Dining area, I’m surprised at how large the area is, even though the whole thing looks small in comparison to the finished product.

Alfresco to Dining/Lounge

Finally a picture of the house down what will be our backyard, which is more of a sideyard.

Looking down our sideyard

I hope you enjoyed our little tour of our framed house. Tiles have been already delivered, so maybe the roof tiles will be on by the end of the week. Fingers crossed. Its going very quickly…

Til next week,
Home Adventurer

Building Plans – Layout of Land

homeowners09 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:00:13 +0000

This is part 2 of my building plans special. Not such an epic read as Part 1! Read on…

Position of House on our Block

As you can see, our house is on a block of land that is almost the ideal “North Facing”. Why is North facing ideal? Well, where we will live, the Sun rises in the East, circles around the North and sets in the West. So a North facing dwelling provides you with the ideal amount of sunlight.

The Alfresco area is almost facing perfectly, as it will catch the afternoon sun as well as provide many romantic sun sets in which my wife and I can enjoy! Furthermore, because its facing northerly, in Summer, during the stinking hot periods, the wind is a Northerly and will blow into the Alfresco area and provide a nice place to enjoy summer without it being a hot stuffy area, and we also have a nice ceiling fan in the Alfresco area to help provide even more circulation on days where there is no wind.

We were originally sold the place in this layout, but once we received the first draft of our plans, they had mirrored the house so that the garage was set on our existing crossover, which we suspect was due to convenience for the builders. This layout didn’t suit our home however, as the afternoon sunlight would not illuminate our Alfresco area which would be on the Southern Side of the block.

The other thing that we like about our block is that the width is generous, we still get a yard on the NW side and can utilise this side of the backyard well. We do not like corner blocks, although they are large, they seem quite hard to on-sell and there are general superstitions surrounding blocks on the end of a T-Intersection or Corners. Plus I think you need to have the right house for a corner block. We saw the same house as ours built on a corner block, it looks ok, but I don’t think it suits it.

The other main interest is, our Lounge and Dining area gets sunlight throughout the day and the bedrooms escape direct sunlight, should you want to have an afternoon nap, you won’t be competing with the sun directly shining in.

Its our little bit of land and we love it.

regards,
Home Adventurer

Building Plans – The Floorplan

homeowners09 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:57:14 +0000

Why are we so excited? Well, we’ve had a sneak peak at the end result, and what is that?

I’ll write a couple of posts explaining the plans and what we saw in the plans that other people might find helpful when looking for the right plan to suit their needs. I’m not suggesting that I know it all, of course I do not, this is after all my first house, however, my wife and I have families whom have built several times and we have drawn upon their wisdom and hopefully we can help others.

Floorplan

I will begin with the floorplan, as this is the most important component, if the layout doesn’t suit your needs, then you will be forever cursing… Above is our floorplan and the key is at the bottom so you can see what all the symbols are.

The Lounge and Dining area are largish together, but are small if you look at them individually as their purpose. Currently we do not really do a lot of fine dining and as such we will use this space as a large living room with a dining room table which will be squished in the back corner. The only other thing to take note of, the TV can only go in one way in this particular house, there is a section that is essentially indented, to allow for a tv unit and tv. In the display home we saw, they have a row of cupboards above the fake TV to give you plenty of storage for the masses of DVDs that everyone is suppose to have.

We do not have kids, however, you never know, so we have 2 spare rooms, 1 which we will have for guests and one for storage. They are not huge, but large enough to fit our spare Queen size bed. We saw lots of plans with 2 and even 3 bedrooms in our price range, however the rooms were so small our queen bed wouldn’t have fit. The cupboards themselves have sliding doors and a shelf with clothes rail, the one thing our house doesnt come with is clothing shelves, not even in the master bedroom. This was a trade off we settled with. We also made sure we didn’t get the option to have mirrors on the cupboards, it may seem like a good idea, however, I get the feeling that we would be forever cleaning the mirrors!

We weren’t fussed about the spare bathroom either, the bathtub is one of those things that you can only sit in, so being a tall bloke, that automatically rules me out of ever using it and my wife likes lying in the tub, so she shares similar doubts in its usage. Again, this was a trade off for us.

The kitchen is great, this is something that we loved from this particular design, there are plenty of cupboards low down and above the window there are cupboards running along the top. There is essentially 2 pantries in the corner and just enough space for our fridge. The sink faces the hallway and better yet, you can see out to the alfresco area and with the doors open, you can still talk with guests as you prepare nibblies or drinks. The only downside to the kitchen is the location of the gas cooktop, it is next to the window, so it means that we will not be able to put curtains in the particular window. We did get an idea of how to work around this issue from the display home, out of the window they have placed a modern styled fence that is checkered with different colours perspex to provide that extra bit of privacy, should you need to dash to the kitchen in the middle of the night and only be wearing your PJs, or worse!!

The Alfresco area is fantastic. We’ve seen a lot of building plans in our investigations, however, some areas that companies call “Alfresco” are merely outdoor areas which use to be called “Patios”, I believe that the true difference between the 2 is the fact that our Alfresco area is concealed underneath our actual roof line from the house. This means that you get some shelter from some of the elements. Why is this better than a Patio? Well, say you get a strong sun or a heavy downpour of rain, well, in a Patio, the roof (if you even have one) is usually made of a perspex substance that lets the suns rays burn in and the rain can easily find its way in. Our Alfresco area only has one way the rain can come in and only direct sunlight from the side can come in, reducing the amount of harmful UV rays. It is protected by the other 3 directions as they are part of the house wall. The way we’ve got our house on the block of land makes full use of the Alfresco area, we’ve maximised it for the afternoon sun to shine in, this way it allows for early evening entertainment during the Summer months without having to call it off at 5pm due to lack of sunlight… The other component of the Alfresco area we love is the ceiling fan, it will be handy for summer!

With our particular floor plan we wanted to have an area for our PCs, we have two of them, and we have laptops also, so a dedicated area for the computers is a must for us. Most floor plans don’t have a study these days, so we were looking at plan after plan with 2 or 3 bedrooms to help eleviate this issue for us. However, rooms were either too big or they didn’t offer much natural light with just the one window. In our floor plan the study gives us ample light, as there is a large window facing the Alfresco area and another smaller one facing externally of the house, this we expect will bring in lots of natural rays from the sun without blinding us and adding to the glare demon that we computer heads desperately hate!

The Laundry is quite large, this can only be a good thing! The double car garage has an internal entry and doesn’t require you to go through any other room, it pops you out straight into the main hallway. This is important to me, I’m not keen on having to go through bedrooms or other rooms in the house, especially coming in from doing some gardening or some other messy activity, only to pollute carpeted areas with dirt… Not only that, I can dump dirty clothes straight into the laundry without making a mess in the hallway either, great for when the weather turns our dirt into a muddy clay substance.

The master bedroom is quite nice, with a Walk in Robe (WIR) and an ensuite. We think the WIR will be quite small and the lack of clothing shelves will be an issue for us, but we will compensate with furnishings, either a tall boy or some temporary drawers… The ensuite is a little cosy, the toilet is directly behind the door and we think that it may pose a problem, but we will wait and see once we move in. The shower, although tall, is just tall enough for myself, however the standard shower head could only be placed at a level that is under my armpits due to building regulations. We got around this particular issue by upgrading the tapware and got fancy european shower heads, basically you can use them like a handheld hose device, or you can have them hooked up like an ordinary shower. For me, this gives me the ability to not shower like Quazi Modo.

The master bedroom is quite large, ample room for our Queen Sized bed and even a King Size if we wanted to go down that path. We suspect we’ll get a tall boy and in the future we may even get a TV for the Bedroom and it can sit on top of the tall boy. The room is quite well lit, there are 3 windows on the front, and one on the side of the house, this will ensure that we get some light for as long as the sun is out.

The other cool things in our floor plan are the cut outs in the entry way, if you look hard at the plan there are 3 cutouts on the opposite wall from the master bedroom, in the display home these were painted with a green colour and lit up. Obviously being lit up is not a standard feature and we could not justify the cost, so we are happy to have just the cut outs which we will paint at a later date in a different colour to the wall itself. There are also major cutout sections in the corner near the garage entry, where the display home had a vase standing, also painted in the green feature wall paint. There is also another one in the dining area near the kitchen.

So thats our house and some of the reasons as to why we picked the particular home we have got. We know that we won’t get it 100% right the first time, nor should we, but we think that we have had a good long look at the design and thought about how we live and how we use our living areas.

regards,
Home Adventurer

Floorplan Key

End of the First Week!

homeowners09 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:48:02 +0000

The date is Saturday 10th October 2009, I had said to my wife that we should wait til Sunday to have a look at the block because they might be working on Saturday. She wasn’t convinced with my logic, she was eager to see what has transpired during the week. We finally agree that Sunday is the day we will go to have a look…A matter of 30mins went by on the Saturday and my wife receives an SMS. She runs back into the room and excitedly reads out the message. Our neighbour to be, across the street has seen our block and has let us know that there is something covering the dirt. Not only that, but the neighbour hinted there was more to this tale, but she wanted to leave it as a surprise.

At this point I’m watching the telecast on channel 7 of Bathurst and listening to the grumblings in my belly, it all pointed to wait… wait until Sunday, but the fever gripped me. I had no choice but to launch off the couch, quickly make myself a cereal (at 12noon), scoff it down, hang the washing, get the shoes on and we were out the door quicker than you can say “lets check out the house”!

We were in the car travelling, talking about the possibility that maybe the concrete slab had been already laid, and were left wondering what the surprise could be? It is hard to think that only this time last year we were convinced that we could not afford to move out into our own home, let alone build from scratch!

Not that I condone speeding, but I think it was the excitement that found myself doing 10km’s over the speed limit as we aproached the estate, I took the right hand bend in a style that I had been accustomed to watching in the Bathurst coverage earlier in the day. We were both trying to see the block as early as we could, looking through other houses that had already been built, but we just couldn’t see it. We rounded the last corner and finally could see it. I do not think I’ve ever been happier about seeing a slab of concrete, but I think, when it is your slab of concrete, you get a special feeling of happiness.

What did we see? Well take a look…

regards,
Home Adventurer

Our Wonderful Piece of Grey Concrete!

Up Close and Personal

Prefabricated Timber Frames

Official Start Date!

homeowners09 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:26:09 +0000

We just happened to be in the area on the Tuesday evening and decided to check up and see if anything was done. It had been drizzly all day, so we weren’t sure whether anything had been done…

To continue the surprises, we discovered that they had installed a port a loo, very essential item for any construction site! The pegs had been put in as well, plus the land had been levelled. We were very happy to see everything was finally moving!

Enjoy the pics!

regards,
Home Adventurer

Day 1!

Confirmation of Start Date

homeowners09 — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:23:35 +0000

We finally received confirmation that our House was to begin on Tuesday 6th October 2009. So we decided to go have a look at the place on the weekend, Saturday 3rd October 2009. We thought we’d take some snaps of some dirt with no expectations of anything actually there to be seen.

To our surprise we rocked up and saw the beginnings. Amazing! It was the Saturday before they were suppose to begin and things had already started. A bulldozer sat in the middle of our block and some of the pegs were in. This was very unexpected, but we were both very happy with what we saw.

Enjoy our first snaps of our house.

The Weekend Before

regards,
Home Adventurer