The bathroom tiling has mostly been completed. There was a bit of drama with the tiler making assumptions without asking which tiles went where but in the end we got what we wanted. The photo above is the ensuite shower area.
We believe the plumber will return this week to install the bathroom fittings and possibly the tiles will receive a final seal.
The builders have turned their attention to the ground floor and started by installing some windows. This is good as we’ve been living in semi-darkness for a while. Particularly after they removed the glass bricks that were our primary source of light in the living area.
Glass bricks gone
Plus we’ve had some inconveniently stored long windows blocking our hallway.
Windows waiting
So now we have two new highlight windows on the south side – one actually spans two rooms for the moment until they are knocked into a single room later.
And the long windows have been installed which will eventually become the kitchen splashback and a highlight window above it. Unfortunately the builder didn’t quite install the highlight window at the correct height so he may need to shift it up at some point.
Kitchen windows
It’s been pretty hard to choose the colours of the house. I’m colour-blind so I’m not much help with subtle differences in colour – particularly vast ranges of off-whites. But we found a house that has the same roof as ours and we liked their exterior wall colour so Rozita asked them what it was. You’ve seen the roof colour before of course and the internal and external timber is white.
The photos may not accurately depict the colours and your screen may also not be calibrated correctly so what you see is an indication only…
Well, the builders have descended. They’ve mostly finished upstairs and handed over to the plumber, electrician, painters, tiler and whoever else turns up (I think there were 9 people working at one point). Meanwhile they have turned their attention to our current living quarters. I’ll talk about some of what they’ve been doing in a later post. But today its the stairs.
We were always told that the builders would keep to themselves upstairs and one day a hole would appear in the ceiling and the stairs would be installed. So the hole has indeed appeared and this was accompanied with the complete gutting of our bathroom – which has literally vanished in the space of a day, just leaving brickwork.
There’s a gap between the floor and the ceiling which is a known hangout of a local rodent so Rozita has been worried that it will descend to the ground floor. Maybe it has already, maybe it hasn’t… Anyway we’re down to one toilet/shower now so you can imagine the extra family stress in the mornings. We almost had to send Kayvon out to use a tree this morning…
This is what it looked like a few days ago:
Original bathroom
Within a couple of days the builders added gyproc to fix up the walls. In these pictures you are looking upwards from the old bathroom through the hole in the upper floor. In the top left you can see the corridor jutting out with ends of the timber floor poking over the edge.
Apparently the stairs should be ready in early February. So I guess we’ll move up shortly after that. So the next three weeks should be interesting…
The builders have been working on architraves (around doors and windows) and skirting boards plus odds & ends and tidy-up. They have also laid the timber for the hall floor so it has time to acclimatise for a couple of weeks before being permanently fixed, sanded and polished. The electrician also returned to make the switch & plug plates ready to install after the painters have finished.
We seem to have a problem with our door handles or latches as they don’t fully open into the door. So when you close a door you can’t easily open it again…
While most other people in Sydney were enjoying some time off over the Christmas/summer break, the gyprockers arrived. At least six gentlemen emerged from a small car then proceeded to spend the next two days constructing walls, ceilings and cornicing to our top floor at a rapid pace.
While they were fast, they weren’t tidy, leaving our garden coated in plaster – hopefully the builders will clean up after them…
The cornicing is ‘New York’ style and includes more detailing than the standard ‘Cove’ style that is the basic standard that many people use.
It was an exciting moment for us to walk around the rooms, getting a better feel for how they’ll turn out.
Upstairs each of the bedrooms will have a feature wall which is a v-groove panel, often associated with the Hampton style.
The doors are Shaker doors, also associated with the Hampton style.
You can also see the brushed chrome door handle.
The wall and door in the photo have not been painted yet. I’ll write about colours soon.
On Christmas Eve we invited the builders to lunch – from the left: Dan (not a builder, but enjoys a good lunch), Anthony, Mark (the boss), Rhys and Paul (the electrician). They’ve got a week off now and will be back on the 4th. Much of their work upstairs is apparently done now so Mark has organised the gyproc guys for next week (walls and ceilings) followed by the tiler and a couple of visits from the electrician. The stairmaster (a skilled stair professional as opposed to the mechanical stair lift) will measure, create and install. They still need to lay the timber in the hallway and the plumber will to finish off the bathrooms. The final tasks will be wardrobes and carpets (I think).
We’re hoping to move upstairs by Australia Day…
Meanwhile the builders will move downstairs and the fun will really start…
We have new rear deck doors. The frame is huge so the builders had to carry it through the neighbour’s garden where there is easier access then they hoisted it over the fence to our back garden.
As you’ll see from the before/after photos, we have changed from hinged to sliding doors, from wood to aluminium and also enlarged the doors.
The enlargement gives the room more light and makes the already high ceilings look higher.
The only problem we have is that the ventilation from the cooker isn’t quite a efficient. Hopefully this will improve once we have some more windows installed in January.
Happy Christmas!
Exhaust ducting for the extractor fans, doorways, wall insulation and some attic flooring.
Stay tuned for some big advances over the next few days…
Scott Renovation 