Day 204 – Flooring in

Happy day 200 to us.  This build has flown. It was just the other day I was celebrating a slab, or 100 days. Here we are at 200 days and we are nearing the finish line.

The builder’s toilet has been removed from the front yard. It is funny the small things you notice. I can now see the size of our front yard a little more now that the site has had a clean as well.

We managed to move the house forward 1 metre more than the old house was and this is the first time I’ve been able to see the front yard area.  It is a neat and tidy space that gives us a front yard of around 5 metres.

The builder has kindly left me 8 pallets of our bricks that will hopefully be useful for all the hard landscaping I have in mind.  Now the only catch –  I need to move them and hand stack them as they are potentially in the way of the landscaping!

Internally the site has been cleaned and all rubble removed. The protective seals are off the windows so daylight now floods in. The frosting is now on all the required windows.

The tapware and all wet areas are finished off; taps, mirrors, baths, showers and screens.

The balcony has been tiled – complete with drains for too much rain and balustrades.

The wardrobe doors and mirrors are in. All robes have hanging racks and shelves. The pantry has its shelves. We are missing some shelves in the pantry that  have got lost in the final paperwork. We have an email trail for them, but we just need to work with M to see if we can buy them and get them installed. If not, we’ll hunt down the provider and install them ourselves later.

And the bamboo floors have been installed!  They are bamboo champagne. We are floorboard people. Floating floors are not to our personal taste. We love the sound a floorboard makes when you stomp, stomp, stomp.  So we started out on hardwood floors but the cost was out there. I think we were getting close to $200 per sqm once you covered laying, materials, sanding, coating.

Also, Metricon don’t offer hardwood floors so we decided that chunky bamboo would be the next best thing. Note: you can do the floor after handover, but that was way too much work for us, and most people for that matter. Also, you then get handed all the skirtings to put up yourself! No thanks!

Bamboo is as tough as nails and durable as all get out- just don’t leave it wet!  It doesn’t like dust and sand which seems to sandpaper it very quickly out of shape. Looks like it will be a shoe free house

Bamboo can also be sanded three or four times during its life. It can also be patched and coated again.  There are also lots of products that can be applied to hide any scratches that may occur. Double win!

Bamboo has come a long way from the weaves of the past. Today, bamboo flooring is made from compressed bamboo. It has tonnes of pressure put on it to create a really strong brick. It feel heavy in the hand and it is around 14mm thick.

 

These are what we call UFOs or Metricon lights. Basically you are buying the light fitting. We will replace all of these with our own lighting fixtures down the track.

 

The next steps for finalising the house are carpet upstairs and the all important certificate of occupancy is booked for next week.

It is finally starting to look and feel like a house; a house that has taken four years of dreaming, hoping and working towards. Sure we’ve had our ups and downs but this house of bricks and concrete and glass is no compound or dwelling. It is house that will be loved and will very soon be filled with fun, laughter and memories.

 

Day 185 – Tiling and painting all done

Boy was today fun. Not only was it my birthday – not that exciting – but because I got to visit the house. She’s getting very, very close!  The painting is all done. We chose clay pipe ¼ for the walls. We needed a softer colour to ease the bling of the champagne bamboo floor, which will be very striking.

The painters have done a great job and the house is starting to look like a house. The tiling is complete. I was a bit nervous about the selections but I can sleep well tonight. The Metricon standard tile range (free with the home)  – via Beaumont are very reasonable we felt, but others have said it is limiting. We found the colours we liked. We chose two floor tiles, saltbush and a grey one. The grey tiles are in the wet areas downstairs and the softer saltbush in the bathrooms. We went white tiles on the walls. We added floor to ceiling tiles in a few spots as it was not much more ($300 per wall).    Your allowance is $30 psm. It is very easy to get carried away and find dream tiles in the $50 -$100 range. I heard one couple hit a $15,000 tile bill. Ouch. All the electrics are in so I went around playing with light switches and fans.  All the circuits and power points are all correct. In fact, I can’t see a single error. Great work team Metricon. I’m a big fan of the double quad boards in the pantry that will become our appliance shelf. No more searching for the blender or juicer or coffee grinder of ice cream machine etc…etc. The quality teams have added a heap of red dots where they are not happy with something small. They have good eyes – red dots are everywhere on paint touch ups, scratches on things. Some are almost microscopic. I’m so happy to have the quality team really pushing the fault identifying. Better now than later. The teams were installing the toilets, sinks and taps today. Shower screen and mirrors next week, along with wardrobes and shelving. Bamboo flooring starts next week, and carpets the week after. Balcony wire to come. But really, we are ALMOST there. You could live in this house now – I’ve lived in worse! Little Pig, little pig, let me in!