8. Furniture Shopping

Dining Table

After looking around for a couple of months, I've ordered a dining table from Bespoke in Richmond. It's recycled Tasmanian birds-eye blackbutt (I think), quite an uncommon timber. Note sure about buying a big dining table just for me, but anything smaller would look wrong in the space.

Sofa

The sofa solution is proving more difficult. I did find a fantastic colour which really popped against the wall colour (card sitting on the sofa). At over $7K for just one it's beyond my budget (I probably need a 3 seater and a 2 seater). Beautiful quality though, quite droolsome to sit in.

This one is under consideration - affordable & I don't mind it, but it will be more conservative, particularly considering the floor timber colour. (Wall paint sample card continues to be especially difficult to render in these pics. Above shot has a more accurate paint colour, despite the sofa below being spot on in my monitor.)

7. Frame Wrap & Roof

By 15-Aug frame was wrapped and the roof had been tiled, although a tiler was still at it on the Saturday that I went for a look.

Tiles

Front view. The garage (on the right) has temporary framing where the door will go. The developer required low profile tiles on all builds (an extra $2K+) but I'm hard pressed to notice the difference from the street.

Back view. Just love that sticky clay - I'll really need to find out how to prepare the soil before I grow much on it. The camera position is about at the back fenceline, so not a lot of landscaping area. At least they seem to be prepping plenty of drains around the outside.

Wall Paints

I got some sample pots and painted a few cards. The Cold Steel is quite dark blue/grey, it looks brighter on my monitor here. All paints are Solver, which is the only brand Boutique offer.

• Cold Steel is the main wall colour throughout the house. Ceiling & skirting boards are white & all floors except wet areas will be timber laminate.
• Coalmine is the wall colour in the music room.
• Hunt will be the wall colour in bedrooms 2 & 3.

This is the same colour (Cold Steel), to give you an idea of the difficulty I'm having getting a proper render into the blog.

Roof Tiles Front view. The garage (on the right) has temporary framing where the door will go. The developer required low profile tiles on all builds (an extra $2K+) but I'm hard pressed to notice the difference from the street.

Back view Love the mud!

6. Frame

Timber Frame

8-Aug-2014: A week after the slab was poured, the frame is up and all of the double-glazed glass doors & windows are in. The frame should be wrapped next week. This is the home office, entry door to the right:

The view at the back of the house (I get to call it 'a house' for the first time). Outdoor area on left leads into the dining room, living area at the right.

Slab QA The independent inspection was also done. It picked up a couple of minor issues such as the outdoor area having excessive slope towards the building, demonstrated by the water pooling in the pic above. This pipe is for the bathroom sink drain but it's supposed to be right in the wall. It's actually in the adjacent bedroom. I'm assured it's easily fixed by the plumber.

This is a view from about where the sofa wil be towards the kitchen. Fridge cavity on the right, the pipes are for the island bench with kitchen bench & oven going on the wall behind it. The other side of the wall is the laundry.

Unfortunately the nice views of green fields will be smothered in a year by houses & fences. This land was released for sale in July. This is looking out at the outdoor living area form the dining room. Back yard is tiny, my fence will be about where the wire fence is here.

5. Slab

Slab Pour

The slab went in 31-July, which was a surprise as the state was slammed by bad storms in the afternoon. Some defined areas such as the outdoor living seem much smaller than expected, but that seems to be a common reaction when people are at this stage of the build.

I've got an independent inspector going in next week to do their checks. It's probably unnecessary (particularly for the slab) but because I'm 90km away from the site, I figure it's a relatively small investment in some QA.

The clay really turned into a bog with the rain. Thakfully they seem tpo be preparing plenty of drains for both sides of the house.

Seemed so small looking at the slab that I went home & checked the plans. It seems huge when paced out in my current flat - go figure.

The other surprise was how tiny the yards will be. Trying to fit in the 'mandatory' trees & shrubs specified by the developer would be laughable.