Stairway To Heaven?

The stairs are being installed today and the rails should go in tomorrow once everything has had chance to set. It's looking brilliant.There is a plywood cover on each of the treads to protect them from damage that may happen due to tradies tramping and stomping all over them; much to Sandy's relief.
The doors, architraves and door jambs also arrived on site today ready to be installed at the end of the week. The kitchen cabinets will be arriving in the next day or two and the wet areas get waterproofed this week as well. I know all this as the SS called this afternoon just to say Hi and update us on progress so in a nutshell everything looks as if it is going to plan and happening on schedule. Fantastic!

Timber Stairs Installed

View Up The Stairs

Stairs From Living Room Opening

Banister Rails

Doors

More Progress Photos

I told you I had lots of photos for you so here are some more.

Scaffolding Being Erected

Please Empty

Stairway No Ladders

Looking Up The Stairs

Scaffolding Ready

Scaffolding, No Ladders But Lots Of Photos

The scaffolding was delivered and erected yesterday ready for more insulation wrap, bricks and cladding to go on the second floor. The cornices have been finished off and look very neat and professional. The house looks huge inside now; erm well it is after all but the place is filthy dust, screws, plaster, wood shavings, cigarette butts (!?), food scraps, empty bottles of soft drink and general building debris everywhere. Will be giving that a good sweep as we don't want rubbish under the gyprock when the architraves get fitted. Outside looks like a bomb has hit but we are learning to turn a blind eye, anything other than building rubble we pick up and put in the bin as we don't want litter all over the place. Yes we are totally anal but it is our block of land and we don't want it becoming a cesspit.

I really wanted to go upstairs and have a proper look around but hang on a minute where are the ladders? Oh oh they've gone along with the platform scaffolding that goes over the void where the stairs are to go. This is the first time since frame that we can stand and look from the bottom to the top of the house. The hallway and entrance areas are huge and judging from the space now the ladder platform is gone the staircase will be as well. It's awesome to be able to appreciate the scale of our yet to be home and see how each area downstairs will flow. We are already planning where the furniture will go. Sadly we won't be off buying new pieces as for now we will make do with what we have and make additions and changes along the way. With so much in storage I can't even remember what half our things even look like any more.

Now for the progress photos be warned there are quite a few.

Entrance

Living Room

Kitchen and Dining Room

Garage Brickwork

Yummy Bricks

Outdoor Room Ceiling Plastered

Stacks More Bricks

Looking Out From The Family Room

First Floor Bricked

Family Room

Looking Across To Kitchen and Dining Room From Family Room

Hallway, Opening Into Living Room

En suite Bath

En suite Shower and Vanities Plus WC

Bathroom (Should Have Made That Window Bigger?)

The Boy's Bedroom Note Access Hatch Bottom Right

Cornices

Cornices and Wet Areas

Phew the plasterers are gone and the house feels much better now its been cleaned up.

The brickies are like machines, I can not get over how much they do each day. The scaffolding should arrive today so that up upstairs can get blue wrapped before more bricks and the cladding goes on. According to the SS there is some capping that needs to be be installed once the bricks are finished. And as this is made to measure it can only be ordered once the bricks are completed so that means a short wait and no more progress outside until that arrives. No problem there as there is plenty to do inside.

This house just doesn't stop! At this rate we will be in by Christmas (not that we have put a deadline on it to be in by then). When we popped in it was great to find the wet areas have been boarded and the cornices have been started, just a lovely guy on his own who reckons it'll take him two days. He told us he likes to work by himself then there's no one getting in his way or making a mess. I agree. It was refreshing to see him take so much pride in his work....now why can't all tradies be like that?

I will post some progress phots over the weekend.

Next

The house is zooming along I can't believe how much is happening. The bi fold doors have been rehung to be as flush as possible - it looks like we will have a lip of around 3mm which we have decided we can live with. Apparently Duce have changed the way these doors have been constructed and we have ended up with a different sill shape to what they expected.
The bricks for the first floor are nearly complete and another load of bricks has arrived. The first delivery was only half of what we need. We plan to gather up as many unused bricks as possible to use for some retaining walls for the garden beds at a later date. And the gyprock has been plastered.

OK can anyone out there answer this elusive deep and philosophical question.....
Why is it that some trades are such pigs?
The plasterers had no respect, they smoke inside your house even though the SS has told them not to (I caught them red handed and firmly gave them what for), they leave half eaten pizza on the floor, cans and bottles of drink everywhere - is it too much to put your damn rubbish in the bin?! Obviously! I wonder if at home when they finish their meal if they just toss it on the floor? Oh then there is the suspicion that they were having a beer or two on site given the neatly stacked beer bottles back in the box in the bin. Can't prove that one but my instincts say I'm right. Annoyed so I gave the SS a call and he went off because he had only told them in the morning no smoking and then had to give them a revving about the mess earlier in the day.

I'm amazed at the level of disregard this is my house you are working on and their place of work. Could you imagine if in your office everyone smoked then threw the butts on the floor, drank coffee and soft drink and tossed the empties anywhere they liked, ate their lunches then left half eaten pizza on the floor and then had a beer? Hmm just wouldn't happen would it! Amazing. In our house we have simple rules: Respect, no smoking and no alcohol so you can imagine this type of behaviour pushes a button or two for us.
Our son (4yrs old) is making a no smoking sign, along with a put your rubbish in the bin and one for respect. he's so funny he gets more annoyed about it than we do as he feels they should be able to keep the place nice.

OK rant over this is what is planned for next week:
Scaffolding for brickwork to the second storey to arrive
Upstairs gets blue wrapped
Bricks to continue
Kitchen cabinets arrive
Wet areas get prepared
Stairs delivered and installed
Garage door (I think we will be locked out then)
Cornices and architraves

Wow it's going to be a busy busy site.
Didn't get photos as I was so disgusted with the mess and didn't want to go in the house as it felt awful.

More Gyprock and Bricks

Steady progress continues to be made on site. The bricks are slowly creeping higher and higher and I must say they are doing a lovely neat job. This is good as the bricks we have chosen are fairly porous with a slightly textured surface which means they have to be careful not to get mortar all over them otherwise it will get stuck in the bricks making it really difficult for them to clean up when the time comes.
The whole house is nearly fully plaster boarded and looks completely different. We are still waiting for the bi fold doors to be re-hung (for the second time) so have told the brickies they are not allowed to work around them yet otherwise they will be having to pull bricks off and start again, sadly this message fell on deaf ears with the gyprock crew so it looks like they will have to re-do the area above the doors when the time comes.
The outside power point in the outdoor room has been set very high (it seems 1200mm is very popular in these spaces and garages for some reason) as it is it would be staring you in the face while you were sitting out there so we have asked for this has to be dropped as low as possible to make it more discrete. Other than that everything is going very smoothly, the weather is glorious and no rain is forecast for days so all bodes well for the build to continue on schedule.

Bricks Climbing Higher

A Closer Look

From Kitchen Side of House

The Front

Laundry

Kitchen

Garage

Site Meeting and Bricks Begin

Not much has happened on our house so far this week I have seen occasional signs of a tradie doing something on site, possibly some corrections to the frame but not sure what. However, it has been good to be able to simply pause for breath and have a look what is going on with the other blocks with the neighbours houses. We are enjoying watching their builds progress, working out which room is where, whether it'll be a single or double story, what external colours have been chosen, tiles or colorbond, bricks or render etc etc. It makes quite a fun game...erm really? I must get a life!

Popped by site this morning to find the bricks have been started, the termiglass is down and upstairs is being gyprocked / plaster boarded. The bricks look lovely so far, all 2 rows of them! The colour of the brick really works against the off-white mortar. It will take the brickies about 4-5 days to finish the ground floor and the they will need scaffolding to do the few bricked areas upstairs half of which will be cladding.

The Mortar Mound and Mixer

Termiglass

Gyprocking and Rolling

There's A Ceiling Up There

Bricking The Portico

Called a site meeting with the SS to go over the QA inspection, discuss our concerns (bi fold doors and gas outlet to hob) and also get some feedback as to progress etc. All went well and yes the doors will be dropped as low as possible so it looks like we will only end up with 2-3mm height difference which will be fine. The gas point is in the correct spot as there needs to be an emergency cut off valve that then attached the rest of the piping to the hob. The SS pointed out and explained a few other things to us, talked through when the pool can start, how long bricking will take and then what happens next. All in all a good meeting - feels like we have gotten off to a better start now.

Upstairs most the rooms have been boarded and the frames for the baths are in. Sorry no photos it was getting too late. Off for a quiet weekend down the cost so will not be going back on site for a few days, ta ta until next time.