Pebbles progress ...living and loving

The Pre-Start went pretty well, and I guess this is mainly for myself - the colours we have chsen. Feel free to comment.
The house is a "Durack Heritage 2005" by WA Country Builders. We have changed most of the windows to long awning types and have all round verandahs instead of a car port.
Counting down for plan approval & commencment of building now!


Main colours throughout Internals

Ceiling /Cornice - White

Walls - Wattyl SS2 Calm throughout by builder (we will decide later on any feature walls & do it ourselves down the track).

Skirting / Architrave - Wattyl Stalactite

Windows / Reveals / Frames - Dowell Windows White Birch

Exposed Beams - Stained Jarrah (single beam raked ceiling in living)

Doors - Wattyl Stalactite

Window Treatments - Clear Glazed

Flooring - Tiles: Arizona Stone Avorio F14 to living, dining, theatre, rumpus, hallways, kitchen
Bathrooms floor: Leman Anthracite 200x200 (laundry & toilet floor the same)
Bathrooms wall - Leman Marrow 200x200
Border - Palatine Cremamar TN/TC (item 1507) @ 2m (above shower)

Carpet TBA for bedrooms & office


Kitchen: Formica "Pure Marble" tops & "South West Jarrah" Cupboards
Bathrooms: Formica "Valencia Marble" tops & "Silver Strata" Cupboards


Externals
Roof - Colorbond Dune

Gutters - Dune

Fascia - Dune

Bargeboards -

Downpipes - Dune?- rainwater tanks

Eaves - Dune

Soffit to underside of
Eaves, Verandas & Portico’s -

Posts - Oiled Pine Bush Poles

Beams / Rafters - Oiled

Masonry Walls - Midland Brick Florentine Limestone

Cladding -

Balustrade -

Windows - Dowell White Birch (mostly awning windows)

Doors - Front Entrance: Corinthinan PMAD 03 painted in Dune with desert sand glazing (glazed features either side)
Side Door: Corinthian 1BP1 in Dune
Laundry Door: Corinthinan 1BP2 in Dune

Paving: Midland Brick:
Middle: Limestone
Small (middle) Border: Pewter
Outside Border: Charcoal

Pebble….this all looks good to me! Well done.

Thankyou for using my formate, it makes it so much easier for me to go through your selections quickly.

Good luck with your home, sounds lovely and I’m sure it will come together very well.

Thanks Michelle,
I know you are the Guru on this forum! I've certainly trawled through some of the threads for inspiration, albeit a bit harder now that we are back on slow old dia up!

For me the main hurdle was choosing the kitchen colours. We changed the initial chioces (laminex) after we saw a picture of a kitchen in the Formica brochures, and of course the samples seem to look different in life! Originally I went with some stone pattern bench top and off white cupboards, but in the end I think it's probably best not to stick with the current trend. Ahh besides we're in the country! I suppose on that note we should have go real jarrah, but oh well!

The kitchen cupboards in our shed (were here when we brought it - I'd say they're 2nd hand anyway - a reno sale) have ugly yellow tops in combination with jarrah like but darker cupboards. I just keep telling myself that the house choice WILL look much nicer!

Oh the most painful part is that everyone is now waiting on the plans to be approved by the council (ie bank, builder, us) and we are still waiting for the final variations pricing to come through!

On the house front we're definitely looking at using an independent inspection service (Housespect). Living on the block is a good thing I guess but I'm probably not the type of person to want to intrude too much (hubby probably will ask more questions than me!).

First though I'm looking forward to some action. I'll keep you all posted - or create a blog as others have done.

Thank you Pebble……

Buy the way…do not stay away from your builder and his crew!
Get in their face everyday, make sure everything is running how you want it.

The upside to being in their face everyday……………..they do the job faster to get away from you!!!!! Which is a good thing!

But honestly, the builder will appreciate someone there to answer any questions he has at the time, this make the building process move smoothly, and all are happy, which again makes for a smoother build.

Of course, if you have any questions we are all here for you!!

Have fun and enjoy your building experience.

Ah, I suppose you're right, I'll probably find myself going over for a yack & offer them coffee etc - that way they'll be more inclined to do a good job!

But yes I imagine just them knowing that the "owners" are watching their every move would be a good thing. I'm just more "easy going" when it comes to things, although believe me I can be critical (just ask my husband!). He's more of the "stay on their backs to get it done" type, he is currently doing a great job chasing up the builder for the final variation costs, and he gets pretty annoyed when things take a lot longer than they should.

Hmm I suppose that makes us a good team - he can push & I can sweeten

Although I'll have to be sure not to yack too much as it will stop them doing their work!

And yes I'll certainly be coming here regularly & most definitely with issues I'd like some opinions on. For a start at least I know that the internal bricks aren't going to look that crash hot with the mortar (as I found from someone elses post) so just little things (or big things I suppose) like that are really good to know already. But there are other things like tolerances around windows etc etc which I'm not sure if I'd even notice.

I do look forward to taking photos of the progress.

An update

Final plans & everything was signed on the 19th. So I guess I can start the 10 month count down!

It's been bucketing rain this morning though, I guess the earthworks won't be too keen to start asap. No action as yet, hopefully in the next week or so - the builders reckon the house pad should be laid within the month!

Wooohooo, now it's getting exciting!

congrats pebble. Hopefully we'll be at prestart in a couple of weeks. yippee can't wait.

Looking forward to watching your progress.

How excitement.......


I checked out the plan/pictures, on the net of the house you are building, very nice. Are you going to be getting a nice fireplace like in the pictures between the two rooms?

oops, sorry Michelle - forgot to use it when asking for your opinion on my jasper garage door

Not sure if I've said already, we're building the Durack Heritage, it's slightly smaller & different to the Durack 2005, mainly the kitchen & orientation of bedroom wing. I'll have to find out how to get the latest plan up here for you - looks great with the mods we've done.

We wanted a wood heater rather than a gas fireplace (plenty of free wood around here and on our block), so we ended up going for a large Ned Kelly Wood heater for something different. BBQ's galore in Vic shipped it all the way over here to the west for us, sitting in the shed and waiting as we speak. We both decided against a built in style, although I do think it looks good how they have done it.

The double door style ones were too expensive really, and the Ned Kelly is just a bit different, hopefully a nice focal point. We couldn't really decide between radiant and convection (radiant looked better but probably not as suitable), so the Ned is good as it's a bit of both.

Here you go....


http://www.woodheaters.com.au/



Quite different from "the Carousel" wood heater that we first liked! We quickly discovered it was pretty expensive and more decorative than functional, function over form is important as it will be our primary and probably only heating source. Morso is another really nice brand, but once again expensive and possibly not quite big enough for our place. Other than that we would have ended up with one from Saxon, the only brand that makes them thick enough not to require fire bricks.

HI Pebble I'll be waiting for your first test runs of this heater. Since you'll be in your place a month + before us I'll be interested in how it goes. did it take long to get it shipped over?

I think it took about a week (less than two anyway). BBQ's galore in Busselton was kind enough to take the delivery for us, and my husband then picked it up from them. We did buy the little Norseman Lumberjack for the shed off the Busso store though, so I didn't feel totally guilty for asking them!

If you're really considering one of these I'm happy to give you details of who my husband dealt with. It seems like people have really only just started to catch on this brand and sales are starting to pick up. I'm not too sure how long they have been around.

The Ned is reasonably tall, so looks like it will hold a reasonable amount of wood to keep it going over night. The Norseman we have tends to keep hot over night, but not really enough to just chuck a log on in the morning, I'd have to keep stoking it every 3hrs to keep it really going I think.

Do you have to put in your plans, before going to council, that you want a wood fire?
I would love one myself, hubby not so keen......I know that they are trying to phase them out and make people get gas heating, at least in the 'burbs, not sure if our council would appreciate wood fire or not.

thanks Pebble. wa *ountry builders didn't seem to care when i commented that we'd decided we were not even going to have a gas connection at all now. Guess I'll see what they say at prestart. Yes there is a big push to ban them in the "burbs" but no such push where there isn't mains gas.

Still deciding atm as to which brand to go but if it only took a week we have plenty of time to wait and see. I thought it might have been something like 6 weeks for delivery. We really can pretty much wait until you've tested yours out You are bound to be in at least a month before us. We have to have a hearth. Haven't decided if we'll have one bricked in or have one of those little built ones that sit on top of the flooring. Can't have the fire directly on cork or wood flooring.

Yes I imagine it would be different in the suburbs. Our particular design already came with a hearth. And here in Nannup wood fires are pretty much a norm in the township itself, we do after all have a timber mill in the town, and us being rural (15k's out) it's even more of a non-issue as the neighbors are hardly going to complain about smoke pollution.
We had a gas heater in the last place we lived in, and one gas bottle lasted us about 3 weeks. At $120 a pop it was certainly very expensive! So here not being on a gas pipe it was definitely a no thanks for gas heating. However I must say the gas price in Cobar NSW was probably through the roof compared to here in WA.

I can see why some councils in the 'burbs would kick up a stink, the smoke pollution is noticeable in the township itself as it sits in a valley. But even so wood heaters are being designed differently these days too - for example when you shut it right down the air isn't completely cut off, it can't be whereas I think in the old days you could. Not to mention there are models that do double & triple burns etc. So they are a lot more efficient, designed not to "smoulder" as much. And they have to pass certain emission ratings too. I guess the downside to all this is that you burn more wood, but of course you also ge more heat, so it's not a loss.

Kexkez, BBQ's galore in Bunbury had a nice selection of heaters. It's quite funny, my husband went there first, and then we all went together another day. I think he expected me to see them all & say yep I love this model (whichever one it happened to be) he was so put out because I couldn't decide there and then and didn't find any of them ideal. I liked the Wallnut, but it probably wasn't big enough, the other Saxon I liked was radiant only (can't remember the model name but it had decorative glass), and well the bigger ones just looked too big.

In the end we liked the Ned because it's a bit different, it's a combo of radiant & convective and I can still cook on it or at least boil the kettle. I'll let you know how it goes.

Ahh at the moment it's raining, I don't think the earthworks fellow will be too pleased paritularly if he's looking at starting soon. Mind you if this keeps up the partly dug out house pad might well turn into a 2nd dam! Lots of clay here!

thanks for that.. we checked out the range in hearth house and found the lady sales person was really helpful. we didn't get to bbq's galore. we'll have to take a look at their range. we also had a longish chat with the sales lady in the solahart shop because they also had some wood heaters and we were originally considering having the piping installed from the wood fire to boost the the solahart. she was kind enough to tell us it wouldn't be efficient because of the distance betwen where we wanted the fire and the solarhart. She suggested a couple of places closer in the house that would work but they weren't where we wanted to fire to go.

In Canberra I had a good friend, they had a wood stove in their kitchen that they used to have going in the winter. It must have had one of those hot water things connected to it, and I always remember they used to be saying "someone go have a long hot shower cos we've got too much hot water" either that or it was actually getting too hot.

Great systems but like you say if you have the heater in the right place - their bathrooms were upstairs so it wasn't far for the water to go. With ours being smack bang in the center of the room I didn't even consider it.

From memory it was Hearth House that had the double door one, albeit too expensive for our liking. The other double door we considered was the Jarrahdale, but Hubby said he didn't like it at all when he saw it in person (in Perth).

If you like shopping around, BBQ's galore in Bunbury do have more on display than the Busselton store. There is also another store in Busso (can't remember the name) that stocks more "upmarket" models - well I think but once again can't remember the name, maybe Scandia.

Okay since I wasn't too sure about copyrights etc I didn't want to scan & post our detailed plans. So here is a pretty rough sketch up of the place we are building, including some of the main variations from the original.

Alfresco will be facing South & looking up a sloping hill. The bedrooms end is to the West and so no windows, this is good because it's the side of the closet nieghbour and where the HWS will be going, also will have a large water tank on that side not too far from the house.
Front verandah and all those windows (green) face north and looking down a hill / embankment . All are awning windows, even the barhroom ones, with the exception of the toilet, laundry & kitchen). Should make buying curtains pretty easy since they should all be the same size!

And I imagine we'll be using the East entry the most as that will be where we park the cars. We may eventually ad on a carport (probably as a seperate structure) if necessary.

So here is the Original

And our version.


Progress wise we are still waiting for earthworks to start. Had some trouble finding people, so a bit of a delay. Hopefully things will come along soon, otherwise I'll have to get the shovel out

The house is going about where you see the hole in the ground, and that's pretty much the orientation (camper is on the East side)


And here comes a shameless plug = That All Terrain camper is up for sale (I've put it on Ebay) if anyone happens to be interested.

Your house plan looks great Pebble, and what a great aspect with all the trees!

You've probably posted this elsewhere, but how big is the block?