The grey and white starts coming together......

 

We are in the last few weeks of the build. Only 9 sleeps until our final walkthrough! The walls are painted, bathrooms fitted out, final fittings almost done (which all takes a lot longer than you would think!)  and the house is coming together. Its fantastic to see all our choices coming together and it all seems to work thank goodness. 
 

We keep trying to label what style we are trying to go for. Sophisticated beachy with a bit of industrial country? Maybe when all our belongings are in one place (for the first time in 16yrs together) we can figure out what works for us and this house! Bring on the enourmous garage sale!!

All of the house will be done except final light fittings and flooring by handover and then we will schedule the flooring in and electrical (a good friend of ours!) asap.

 

We are starting to get driveway quotes and yet again have to apply to council to get a tree removed and some drainage sorted so we can get a turning circle in the driveway. Nothing is quick and easy and simple but we will get there. Darren is getting really good at talking to councils now so feel confident we will get what we want!

 

Here are pictures of lots of grey and white.....

Testing out the bifolds....going to take some work to turn the garden into a garden from a building site!

A/C unit and huge water tank....and neighbours extension!

Kitchen fit out all done ready for flooring
http://www.polytec.com.au/products/kitchen/

Outlook from kitchen benchtop to garden.
http://www.caesarstone.com.au/colour/5110-alpine-mist

Too many things here to be happy about...tiles, oven. benchtop...
http://www.earp.com.au/

Cloakroom (love the door handle too!)

Master ensuite shower with stone mosaic niche

Trying to escape out those lovely doors!!

 

Fingers crossed we don't have too much to be completed and fixed on our final walkthrough so we can move in!!!

 

Hopefully pictures of a bunch of keys coming soon!

 

 

 



 

Scaffolding down cupboards in.....nearly there!

 

2014 comes to a close and the end is in sight! We went up to get a measure and quote for the plantation shutters and found not only had the remaining scaffolding been removed from the Alfresco plus the Kitchen/Bathrooms were being installed. Unfortunately whilst we were delighted with the progress we did discover that Montgomery have got our bathroom cabinets cupboards mixed up meaning both the main bathroom and ensuite are incorrect. With Montgomery's offices shut from late December we are yet to discuss what we can do next to rectify or compensation for this mistake.

 

Official completion date is still mid March but with the Tiling commencing in early January we are still really hopeful that we can get in earlier (fingers crossed for February). We have finished purchasing light fittings which we will be installed after handover and flooring has been ordered - Embleton Beachhouse Bamboo ( http://www.embelton.com/bamboo-flooring/embelton-bamboo-colours ) for all the living areas and Redbrook Green Bilby coloured carpet ( http://www.carpetcourt.com.au/carpet/redbook-green/mountain-view.html ) for the bedrooms/study.

 

 

Alfresco area without the scaffolding

 

Polar double bowl undermount sink

Caeserstone Alpine mist bench top....beautiful!
 

The wonderful knobs....biggest longest decision in the entire house! Ridiculous!
 

Pewter cup handles

Kitchen looking out to alfresco
 

Main bedroom ensuite cabinet....completely wrong colour!!!!!!!

Looking out to kitchen diner from the Lounge

Coming in the front door looking to the rumpus, glad we have the little wall there to hide all the kids mess behind!

Downstairs toilet sink...so mini!

Lovely big windows in kitchen diner. So glad we chose to put these in, brings in so much light.



Family bathroom, cabinet the wrong colour again but might actually look better.
Shower and toilet alcove behind the sink unit.


 

Saturday suprise....

We popped up for a beach day at the weekend and thought we would have a look at the house.  After not seeing it for 2 weeks were hoping for a bit of change and to our suprise there was a Ute and 2 guys working on site! We were over the moon but not so sure they were so happy about the beautiful day outside and being inside plastering! Maybe our supervisor is trying to get us out of his hair and finish a few weeks early! Its looks great inside and great to see again its lighter than we thought it would be and Im sure will just get better with plaster and paint on!

The children labelling their rooms! (Aiden with a bit of help from Sadie)

The kids bedrooms from the rumpus looking toward our bedroom.

Rumpus windows. So nice looking onto bush, so relaxing.

Kitchen on the right and family area on left. Loving the big windows.

Looking in from outside the lounge 

Alfresco roof finished! Last bit of scaffold to come down.

Trying to figure out what to do with the level of the garden!
Where did you say you wanted the football goal Darren?

Back to the front door.

So close now its getting exciting! Kitchen install starts in 2 weeks...there are no words for how excited i am about that. Then xmas new year and in Jan we will know our definite completion date. Fingers crossed for mid Feb!! No harm in being hopeful......please santa!!  

Doors on, Roof on....surely we can move in????

 So again I havent updated anything for a while! Its been a busy few months and we are getting so much closer to getting the keys!

The biggest change really was submitted the section 96 to Gosford council to apply to get the BAL lowered to BAL40 from BAL FZ (Flame zone) so we didn't have to have bush fire shutters installed on all windows (back and sides) and the bi-fold doors. We completed another bushfire assesment with more accurate details than on the original plans as the house was actually situated over 9m from the bush and our original submission off the plans was only 7.6m (the fact we had an asset protection zone and rainforest shrub were the biggest factors not accounted for originally by the previous assessor). After about 4 weeks we received confirmation that the Rural Fire Service had agreed to lower our BAL rating as per the supplied bushfire report. So $25-30K saved and no ugly shutters on the house! Pic below

So by mid October the colorbond roofing was all installed. It was amazing to see it and see all our colour choices come together and look better than we had imagined. Making all your decisions on the look of your house from 3x2inch samples and 1 sample brick was a scary and exciting decision.

Roofing : Woodland Grey

Downpipes and fascias : Aspen Snow

Eaves : Surfmist

Cladding : Aspen Snow

Scaffold still up for painting the cladding and roofing the alfresco

View from the front of our neighbours.
Really pleased with the colour of the roof,
looks much lighter in the sun without the glare of being white!

The 18th November was our walk through with site supervisor. All went really smoothly, we prepared questions prior to the walk through and these were all answered with ease by the supervisor. It was great to finally see the house without the scaffolding (excluding the alfresco which is still having the roof finished off) and to actually be able to walkthrough the house (yes the stairs are in!) to see how the house flows and how big each room is. We still have concerns about the light with so many trees surrounding the house but making the decision to install large windows in the kitchen/dining area has paid off meaning the property is still light and this should only increase with the plasterboard and painting. The building process has been quite in-personal which has resulted in the home still not really feeling like ours, having to ask for permission to access the site or allow contractors through to get quotes adds to this. It has probably been tougher for us as we have been so particular about every decision and selection which means ensuring that everything is done exactly as we envisaged without having free access to the site.

Beautiful double front doors!!!

View from the kids rumpus room to front door, garage on right, main bedroom on left.

View out to the garden from family room, Pillar in the middle will be the start of the island bench.

Kids bedrooms. Can just see the AC ducting and electrical rough ins starting.

....build it high!

So I havent updated anything on here for a while. Progress all seemed to be going so slowly for a while with horrendous sydney weather and delays with contractors so we havent been up to site as often and stepped back a bit. It gets very disheartening going up and seeing no change. Especially for the kids, Sadie doesnt really understand why its taking so long.
As I write this the upper level frame and brickwork has been completed, as are the roof timbers and the fireproofing for the roof (due to BAL40/FZ restrictions) and Im realising that quite a lot has been done! darren worked out we are now two thirds of the way through the whole build...22 weeks into a 36 week build.  Heres a little image of what has happened on site over a year....

House at the top, garden underneath! 

Ok so some pictures of progress, not much say as apart from weather delays its been pretty smooth running.

 Brickwork completed on lower level. Frame for bedrooms upstairs...Sadies window overlooking the garden!

 View from the main road. Can see the pillar for the alfresco roof, still another to go.

 Brickwork still to go but frame for the top and double height porch with the lovely 3 small windows! 

Space for the garage, just waiting for the flooring....but you can see all the underhouse storage 

(or mancave if Darren can make it happen!) 

Roofing timbers! Amazing to see the shape of the house and size! 

 Close up of the Northbridge bricks along the side of the house with the garage windows we both completely forgot we had put in!!

Back of the house. as much as I love a nautical stripe they are not purposeful and hopefully will wash off, 

bit of an aftereffect of the days of rain! 

 I Love these windows above the front door, and will have claddign down either side.

Brickwork completed for the top level, and ready for cladding around main bedroom windows.

 I love this view, from the bottom of the garden with the (treehouse) tree in the middle! Slightly scary as no idea what we are going to do with it all and how we can make it fun usable and easy maintenance! Going through the process of figuring out what our options are for decking (not a lot and $$$$$$) and landscaping! Getting very frustrated with Central coast mentality and noone ever getting back to you with quotes!

 The white on the roof is the fireproofing as required by the RFS due to BAL40/FZ requirements. the actual roof will be Woodland grey colorbond but Im really liking the light roof. Makes the house look so beachy and light. hopefully it wont look so dark when all the scaffold is down and front door and cladding on etc.

Next step roofing, electrical and plumbing and then we get to meet the site supervisor and have our first official walk through and gets lots of questions answered re timeline and access over the crazy 6 week xmas shutdown. We have just submitted a section 96 to Gosford council to reduce our bushfire rating from FZ to 40 so we can hopefully go without bushfire shutters. I don't believe they will be that practical as all manually operated and Im definitely  not staying around to wind them all down in a fire and will improve the look of the house drastically. Hopeful we will get the reduction out in place as it seems to be valid for other houses nearby that have recently renovated (and are closer to the bush!?!?!) Fingers crossed!!!

Im thinking I might start a new thread with all the info re bushfire dramas and restrictions etc as its a complete minefield and would hopefully be of help to anyone going through the same absolute headache. But worth it to get the beautiful outlook and privacy we will have in the end.