It seemed like a bit of a quiet week last week. The main things that were accomplished where installing the skylights and working round the building changing the lower roof from our original tiles to the steel we chose. This lower roof is clearly visible from the 1^st floor window holes.

We’re having problems with the electrician. We got him in early to get a quote for the work that isn’t covered by the builder’s contract. He took ages to respond and came back with a crazy amount. We are semi-sitting ducks for this as he will be doing all the basic electrics for the builder so it would make sense to have one electrician doing the whole job. However I’ve raised it to the builder to sort out and worse case we’ll just get our own electrician to do the extras.

The good news is that we finally committed to most of the bathroom gear, at least for upstairs. This included a bath, two showers, 2 mixers, 2 vanities, 2 toilets, 2 basins, 2 taps, 2 towel rails, 2 toilet roll holders and a hand towel holder . For the record, the brand was mainly Methven which provides a 15 year parts and labour warranty which should be a pretty good  indication of quality.  Plus we ordered the new fridge – a Mitsubishi workhorse which was the right size and had excellent reviews. We bought it all from Harvey Norman as their prices were best.

The roof trusses have gone up and even a few walls have been installed:

The end of the week was exciting. By the end of Thursday the builders had completed the new under-floor and sealed it (from the weather). I told the kids there was a swimming pool upstairs:

Then on Friday a cheerful gentleman rang our door bell a little after 6am with a delivery. The kids and I didn’t quite know what to expect when opening the door at such an early hour but found no-one on the porch. We looked around and they realised that there was someone in the porta-loo in the front garden. Once he emerged we explained that the builders didn’t turn up for another hour so he’d better go away. We went back to sleep and according to the builders, so did the driver (the builders woke him up when they were ready for him). So the frame were delivered:

So what are these frames? Basically, the framing company take the architectural plans and in a few weeks turn them into timber. At this stage it’s just the internal and external walls but the roof structure should follow next week. The frames include windows, doorways and even cupboards.

So by the time the kids were ready to be picked up from school, we had the framework of our new 1st floor installed. Walking up the corridor, into the bedrooms and bathrooms, it was amazing how it brought our plans to life. We didn’t take the option of creating 3D plans in the design stage (the draftsman was too expensive and I lost the link to the offshore company that would turn 2D to 3D for $20) so this was the first time we could really visual our plans. Now we know what we can see out of each of the windows and whether people can see in to the bathrooms! Maybe I should do a walk-through video, but for the moment see if you can tell what’s happening from the photos: