Blog #28:

Been living in a blogger’s paradise the last 2 weeks, no shortage of content. After the COVID slowdown of the previous fortnight, we have gathered real momentum as we roll towards completion.

The builders have run out of things to do, so have been working elsewhere this week. Our project has been their priority and Kristian and his small team have worked on it almost exclusively. We have had progress all the way through, so we are grateful for this level of service. We have always got on well, however our sibling relationship is seeming stronger than ever: I am nice to him to keep him at our job, and he is nice to me, so I pay him.

Still on the list to do is the tile splash backs in the laundry and pantry, and installation of timber slats on our portico ceiling, kitchen bench, and powder room vanity. They are waiting on the timber and joinery before they can complete these tasks.

The first week they competed the general carpentry (skirting, door furniture, shelving, tiling, etc), lined our bed head ledge, clad our entry feature wall, and built our portico deck. VJ panelling to our ledge, interlocking metal cladding to the entry feature wall to match and carry through from the garage, and composite decking for the portico to match the back deck.

The site was a hive of activity on Friday afternoon. Builders were building the front deck, cabinet makers were installing cabinets, plumbers where plumbing AC drains, concreters were boxing up footpaths, bobcats were leveling, and painters were scoping. I took off the afternoon from work to do some landscaping with my father-in-law Dennis. When the semi rocked up with the instant turf, it was scenes reminiscent of the Block. Dennis commented that he could see the dollar signs racking up. I quipped that he was the only one here not being paid.

The instant turf has transformed the back. We laid 150m2 of Mallee Kikuyu from Advance Turf in Swan Hill which is about 7m wrapping around our deck. Preparation for this included hiring Rob Farrer Bobcat hire to level the back yard and put down a layer of mallee loam. We built our floor level up so we could grade all surrounding surfaces away from the house to assist drainage.

Dennis and I commenced the turf laying, and later gained the help of Jess and the kids once school was out. The laying was pretty pain free and a nice job with instant reward. Thirsty work too, and the beers were that little bit sweeter with lawn as the backdrop rather than dirt, building materials and rollie pollies.

Our day bed and kids’ desk have been installed. Initially we had planned desks in each of the kids’ rooms, however after more thought decided we did not want the kids spending too much time locked away. We therefore opted for a single desk tucked away near the kitchen for them to use for study, but more so as a place to put down schoolbooks and charge devices.

The day bed has had some use already, and some of the kids enjoyed sitting on it watching me slave away top dressing the new grass. I did get some help, fortunately.

McKnight Concreting has been back to pour more of our footpaths, this time around the west side of the house. They cannot do the front until our downpipes are in, and these are proving to be a stumbling block. We have some Vestis Aluminum downpipes to match our walls, and these are in the shed. However, they need to be folded to suit the eave overhang, and this is where we are stuck.

The boy’s bedroom robes are in and we have ordered carpet and blinds. We met with the blind installer, an installer of blinds, not a vision impaired installer, on Saturday morning and ran through our options for our ensuite plantation shutters. It seems a shame to cover up our black window frames so have decided to leave one of our ensuite windows uncovered. I hope no perverts read this blog.

This week the painter Andre Brown has been there and completed a lot of the preparation, as well was giving half the inside of the house a coat. He will compete the work in 2 halves, to limit the time that painter’s tape is on the polished concrete floor. The polished concrete came with instructions to protect it during the last stages of construction, and Andre has been heeding these. He is starting with our end and will have that done first so the kitchen and pantry joinery can go in once he is finished and it is ready.

Have been talking to our electrician Matt Coates about moving some power points and installing some recessed lights on the edge of our deck. Oversights by us and it may prove too difficult to get the deck lights in now. We thought that these may be handy as a safety measure to avoid trips down to our lower deck. Have also done some research on speakers for our alfresco ceiling and have settled on a Sonos sound system that includes 2 speakers, an amp, and a sound bar on our TV. This system can be added to later if desired however will be a good start. Matt will supply and install this as part of his fit off.

Give us two weeks and the painting will be almost done, and we will very close to moving in. that means that I may only have two more blogs to write.

1 thought on “Blog #28:”

  1. Dennis & Tops Greenwood

    looking good, you are about to reap the benefits of all the hard work and decisions that it has entailed.

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