Blog #20:

We reach a milestone today with our 20th blog. Hopefully, I don’t clock up too many more milestones!

Seems like the quiet before the storm, with preparations in place for some major transformations in the coming weeks. Cladding and plaster are scheduled for the week after so this week and next week have been spent preparing for that.

Berry Refrigeration where onsite Monday and they have put in the return air boxes, transitions and most of the pipe work for the air conditioning.

Return Air is a grille or vent that pulls the air from the home and returns it to the unit where it can then either heated or cooled and distributed throughout the house. These need to be located centrally and can be in a wall or in the ceiling. They are not attractive so ideally the location is discreet. In our case we needed 2 and elected to have them in the ceiling, one hidden behind a bulkhead in our drop zone, and the other in the passage down the kids end.

My mate Matt from Adelaide has designed the system and is the supplying most of the ducts and fittings. This will arrive this week and then Berry Refrigeration can install the ducting before the plaster goes up. The tricky part with our house has been the limited roof space over the main living area to run the ducting. There has been some concern as to whether we can fit the right size ducting, but after some FaceTime calls and back and forward between Matt and Darren Berry we think we have it sorted.

Matt Wilkinson Plumbing did their rough-in on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A plumbing rough-in means that all water supply and drainpipes have been run through the wall frames and all pipe connections have been made.

To do this accurately they needed the plumbing fixtures, and these were delivered to site on Tuesday by Swan Hill Dahlsens. Our homework was to confirm heights and locations for all wall mounted fixtures and in our case, it was only the handheld shower and mixers that required some more thinking.

It is common to have a handheld shower head as well an overhead one. This seems a little extravagant, however I was persuaded mainly due to cleaning purposes (as I often clean the shower😉).

We went to the house on Tuesday night and got the handheld showers out of the box and played around with various locations. We found that matt black doesn’t cope well with being dropped on concrete, so we may need to replace one component of the handheld shower, or put that one in the kids bathroom. In the end we elected to have it mounted on the side walls near the mixers.

I met with Matt Wilkinson on Wednesday and showed him where we wanted them, and discussed septic tanks, gas bottles and hot water – riveting stuff. Looks like we might go a heat pump hot water service rather than solar, after realizing that the solar panels would not be fully hidden due to the required angle that need to be mounted on.

Tuesday we also met with Scott Wishart at Kerang Custom Joinery. Scott is moving north so we are lucky that he can fit us in before he goes. Topics for discussion where:

• Cupboard/drawer colours – they will be white, but do you know how many shades of white there is?
• Handles or no handles. We want a minimalist style, so our choice is to either have a slim pull handles or just a recessed lip and no handles. I think the white pull handles might be more minimal than the gap required for the recessed lip.
• Laminex bench colour for laundry
• Type of timber for our vanities, day bed, drop zone & study desks.
• Robe setups.

Not much happened onsite on Thursday and Friday however things were organized, and some timelines set. In preparation for plaster and cladding we look forward to the following this week:

• fixed windows being glazed and glass sliding door panels being installed
• Alfresco ceiling going up
• Decking arriving and boards adjacent to cladding going down.
• AC ducting going in.
• Electrical rough in compete.

We had some homework to compete for Matty Coates before he can finish the electrical rough in before he finishes with Laser next week. This included Wall light heights and locations in our bedroom and on the garage, and exhaust fan and pendant light specifications.

As I write this, we are fresh from another visit to Conidi Tiles and Lighting, this time to nail our lighting. A productive meeting too, with all lighting and fans selected. We have kept the lighting simple as we think there will be enough going on, so it doesn’t need to be the hero. The pendant lighting over our meals table and reading wall lights have been the sticking point, but we think we may have this resolved. A bonus was to take the mrs out for lunch and debrief about the state of play.

And that is a wrap. 20 down…. a few more still to come. I hope you have enjoyed the journey so far. I think we have. I keep reminding myself to be patient and enjoy the process, as the anticipation is normally half the fun.