I can't believe it's been a whole month since my last post! And less than 4 weeks till Christmas. We've had more than our fair share of rain just when the roof to the old house was to be replaced so that has set us back a bit but today the sun was shining and we've had builders, roofers and electricians here getting us that bit closer to the finish line!

We now have the interior walls painted, the scullery installed, we've fixed the ceiling panels that were different colours after liming (that would be a royal "we" as Mike did all the hard yakka).

Here's how we're looking today:

Below is the scullery which is half a kitchen and half a pantry so we can slide the door shut on it and hide all the washing up when we have people over..

New roof going on the old house..

She's still mighty ugly at the front but after we've changed the windows, stairs, railings, garage door, bagged the brick, added a timber slat pergola and landscaped it should start to look alright. Phew exhausted after saying all that, never mind doing it!!

Gyprock, oh, gyprock!

It's ridiculously exciting to see the gyprock on and the shiplap cladding finished, starting to feel like a real house now. Today we tiled the scullery (an enhanced form of pantry with oven, cooktop, sink and dishwasher included to hide all the mess from the open plan living area).

Here are some pics..

And this is the view from new to old, still with the final join to be made...

Well we're into finishing touches now and everything is looking brilliant. There's plenty of timber, including new guinea rosewood doors and louvre windows, hoop pine ceilings and eaves and silver top ash shiplap cladding on the fins to the outside and the lining the interior of the outdoor room. Although the concrete floor is concealed by builders debris at the moment, it will have a re-buff after the gyprocking and painting is finished and will look sensational! Today we made lock up of the back area. Some of the join to the old house is complete, a little bit more to go and we are at full lock up. Bring it on!

Freshly installed today is the cladding to the outdoor room (below) and the fitting of the HUGE back door, you really need to get your abs into it to get it open!

Below is the view to the existing house which will have the built in back porch knocked off (going with it Lucy's temporary bedroom) and the brickwork will be rendered and painted grey and a new colorbond roof installed to match the extension. The existing house has always been ugly, but never more so than now, right up against the new section.

Below you can see how the ceiling steps up the block. The exposed parts will be clad in gyprock as will the internal fins which match position of the external fins.

Below is the first of two joins to the existing house, this one clad in colorbond and the next one (to the right where the porch will be removed) will be clad in the Silvertop Ash shiplap.

Approaching lock-up!

After a 3 week holiday for the builder we were excited to have him back on site to get things moving again. The main thing achieved was the installation of the HUGE new guinea rosewood sliding doors and windows. I know I say it every post but things are really taking shape now :))

Next step is the hoop pine ceilings and then the builders can start on the bridge which will join the new house to the old. All very exciting!

Starting to take shape..

It's getting pretty exciting now! With the framework going up we can finally start to visualize heights and space after gawking at 2D plans for over a year!

One of the architects more *interesting* ideas was to design the roof with 6 different elevations so the building will "hug the block" and not overshadow neighbouring properties. This means that the ceiling is higher at each level as you move up the slope of the block: the kitchen is lowest, then higher in the dining and higher again in the living room and outdoor room. To make more of a feature of the ceiling variations it will be clad in hoop pine rather than gyprock. When we asked the architects what they thought about changing it to a flat ceiling (like everyone else!) they encouraged us to stick with their idea, so here goes nothing!

Side view (see variations in height of back walls)

Above will be our 'outdoor room', which will have a plywood ceiling the same as the interior. There will be a kitchen across the back with uplit black bamboo planted behind the kitchen to form (my concept of) a living artwork. The floor has just been jack-hammered and re-poured and still needs to be polished the same as the interior floor. The below shot shows the general idea for how this room will be furnished. Got the table from a great store called Habitat :))) and managed to track down the awesome Hedgehog chandelier light which will hang from the ply ceiling.

 

 For the love of buddah, please let the rain stay away so I can get out of the grotty, pokey and generally useless 1960's kitchen sooner rather than later! And if that doesn't send me loopy, sharing a bathroom with 3 teenagers almost certainly will!

Out of the ground...finally!

A fair bit is happening after a few stuff ups and delays. The concretors mucked up the slab to the courtyard by letting it dry with a big dip in the middle which mean't it had to be jackhammered and re-poured. Also the surface to the open plan living area was not done particularly well and we ended up needing to get a concrete grinder and polisher onto that and now it looks magnificent!

Here's some shots of the recent progress...

Earthworks and retaining walls..

Formwork & rio..

A big team of concretors turn up - unfortunately none of them wearing the 'quality control' hat :( and even worse, not one bit of eye candy amongst them :(((

Mr Stress-Head watching the concretors (for good reason as it turned out)..

After sucking up some additional expense, the grind & polish..beautiful!! The left-hand side which is not polished is to have a teak deck over it.

Let the building begin....DAY 1 has finally arrived!

Well blow me down. The builder, concretors and a few other guys turned up bright and early this morning and starting putting out string lines and moving heaps of dirt around. I guess that means the excitement begins!

Here's a pic of ground zero...

Interior design progress

Here's a sneak peek at our living room. First we have an inspiration board followed by an interpretation for our space.

I'm loving the wall unit idea, which conceals the TV most of the time when not in use. Never been a big fan of the TV dominating the living space. Naturally we are having an Ecosmart fire from our store (www.habitatliving.com.au).

Looks like a nice spot for a refreshing champagne or two...

Battle weary...

Had hoped to have turned a sod by now but, alas, no movement at the station due to builder delays, tree issues etc. Finally were about to make a start this week, when our builder discovers a major problem with the design: if we build it the way the architects have drawn it then we would basically have to levitate the cars into the garage. The garage slab has been drawn about half a metre below the surface of the lane at the back where we would be entering. Unless you have a monster truck there ain't no way of getting in.

Even more stunning, the architects don't seem to be acknowledging their part in any of this. We're absolutely gobsmacked about the whole thing. The yard has been completely chopped up. The rain has descended. We have no back fence or privacy. The whole thing has to be redesigned and go back through dreaded council :( :( :(

The architects have moved quickly to redesign the garage to be higher than the rest of the extension. Not quite as streamlined as before but not terrible.

Newsflash! LMCC town planner sets down his cup of tea and does some work!

Yayyyyyyy! The DA was granted yesterday! Woohoo!

In other breaking news, the landscape designer I engaged back in September still hadn't started our landscape concept the other day so I suggested he have a nice life. The new guy starts Monday morning (www.michaelcooke.com.au). Some of his gardens make me swoon!

House hit with ugly stick gets new front facade!

Our designer Mel has come back with a new front facade concept for our currently butt ugly abode. First off is a collage of inspirational images with the general vibe Mel put together based on our brief (includes a shot of the extension to show how it all ties in). A modern Asian aesthetic is the order of the day, with good tie in to the extension being essential. There's nothing worse than those extensions that look like they've landed from Mars!

Above is alternate perspectives incl. colour options for driveway (we'll be going with grey)

And lets not forget how ugly we are now.....