Building our dream home.. walls no longer bare!

VJ · Apr 09, 2009 4:29 pm

Thanks anny, gweluphome, wonderland, petal, MKR, erinleigh, HTB, Kara and Bam.

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Congrats for the Driveway.... finally no more muddy shoes....

Are u also doing back of the garage and alfresco at the same time as ur driveway with J?

If yes then ask him for free polish for ur driveway in an years time.,,, (he does it for few clients) coz u are doin quite a bit with him..

anny,
thanks for your recommendation. we had 5 quotes for the driveway and we chose Joe even if his quote was in the middle range. that's because of your recommendation!
As you can see from the photo, we also did the back of the garage and alfesco in coloured concrete (charcoal). The alfrsco was supposed to be in plain concrete, as we are planning to put in outdoor tiles or pavers (we saw nice ones in Austral), but he made it coloured, same as the one at the back of the garage, as according to him, he would only order two types - exposed and coloured.
Hmmm... will ask for the free polish when he comes back to seal the driveway.

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Looks fantastic, VJ - I've always loved your home, and all of your choices!!! You must be so thrilled with it all! Love exposed agg - gorgeous! ....can't wait till I get a driveway!

petal, the feeling is mutual.. i've always loved your home too (and all of your choices)! ::smile::

just wondering why you still don't have a driveway? it took us 3 months to finally have a driveway... but it's due to budget ::lol::

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You poor thing, things always seem to go wrong for you, well hopefully its starting to look up.

wonderland, i think it's part of the building experience... but hopefully, after our builder fixes all the 3-month maintenance issues, everything would be great!

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How nice is it to have a driveway?! I love the part out the back of the garage where your clothesline is. Looks great

HTB, it really feels great finally have a driveway.. and we will soon enjoy it once we can drive on it next week. still have to let it dry for a few more days.
About the back of the garage, the purpose of the concreted area was to enable another vehicle to be parked there in case we would need it in the future (or if we have visitors). Did you see my clothesline? Love it to bits! Very spacesaver but big enough for 2 washes!

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I'm sorry if you have already written the answer to this question somewhere and I've missed it - but are your tiles polished porcelain or glazed? The rental we are currently in has porcelain tiles and we love them, we are defintely getting them in our new home. I read somewhere on this forum that it is better to get glazed porcelain and not polished, but I never found an explaination of why. Also, is it better to get rectified?

Congrats on the house, it really does look beautiful.

Kara, I think, from memory, ours was polished full-bodied porcelain.
I don't remember the other technical bits about the tile (but I can have a look if you want)... I just love them ::wink::

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Looking good! I love your bricks... not sure if Ive said that before? lol

Bam, It took us a verrrryyyy long time to choose this brick and it's good that I haven't changed my mind - still love it!

haywgl · Apr 09, 2009 9:26 pm

Gorgeous VJ!!!!

Really love the colour selections in the mix!

Another great thing to add to your gorgeous home

kexkez · Apr 09, 2009 10:21 pm

Love the beautiful driveway and path area. Still love those beautiful tiles too. I like the idea of polished concrete style within a porcelain tile.

lisanne · Apr 09, 2009 10:28 pm

Nice!! I't snice to see a darker base colour for an exposed agg driveway

donuts · Apr 09, 2009 10:31 pm

love your driveway VJ, thanks for the pics!!

I wish we had got exposed agg now ... love the colours.

ALso love the darker grey out the back, matches good old Woodland Grey fencing nicely!

dreamhome · Apr 09, 2009 10:36 pm

Looking great VJ

Did you get your exposed aggregate from Mentone Mix?

dembi_2000 · Apr 09, 2009 11:53 pm

Nice driveway and concrete. Hopefully ours would turn out nice as well. We'll be getting exposed agg on the driveway as well but plain concrete at the back of the garage.

We're also looking at concreting where the clothes line is. Is your clothesline only supported by those 2 posts? Can you please tell me where you got them?

Everything looks great!

VJ · Apr 10, 2009 12:07 pm

Thanks bel, kexkez, lisanne, donuts, dreamhome & dembi_2000.

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Love the beautiful driveway and path area. Still love those beautiful tiles too. I like the idea of polished concrete style within a porcelain tile.

kexkez,
i am so happy with our porcelain tile... no regrets at all!

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I't snice to see a darker base colour for an exposed agg driveway
Nice!! I't snice to see a darker base colour for an exposed agg driveway

lisanne,
that's what we specifically asked for.. a darker-base exposed agg. but i reckon it's still a bit lighter.. i would have preferred a darker one.. but let's see what happens after it is sealed. unfortunately, Joe didn't come back yesterday to seal it. But he's here now.. as I in now, as I type here...

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I wish we had got exposed agg now ... love the colours.

ALso love the darker grey out the back, matches good old Woodland Grey fencing nicely!
love your driveway VJ, thanks for the pics!!

I wish we had got exposed agg now ... love the colours.

ALso love the darker grey out the back, matches good old Woodland Grey fencing nicel

donuts, i haven't seen your driveway.. is it in your thread? so why didn't you go for exposed agg? i love it! yes, the charcoal-coloured concrete at the back looks great with the fence & clothesline. but when i saw it today, it's getting a bit lighter in colour... i don't know if it's just me or if it's really getting lighter as it dries up.

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Did you get your exposed aggregate from Mentone Mix?

dreamhome,
no, the mix is from Melton mix (hehe.. sounds almost the same, but cheaper, i suppose). ours is just a basic mix (i think, same as TDL's).
if i have a big budget, i would have used Mentone Mix.

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We're also looking at concreting where the clothes line is. Is your clothesline only supported by those 2 posts? Can you please tell me where you got them?

dembi,
We bought our clothesline from Bunnings. We even went to a different branch (Taylors Hill) to be able to get the colour that we wanted. DH installed it. And yes, it was just supported by those 2 posts. There's this thing that you put in underneath so yu can detach the clothesline from the posts (in case you need to remove it in the future), but we don't think it's necessary for us, as we have enough space to even park a car at the back.

Concretor is sealing and sawing (?) the driveway at the moment.. will post photos later.

dreamhome · Apr 10, 2009 9:37 pm

VJ

dreamhome,
no, the mix is from Melton mix (hehe.. sounds almost the same, but cheaper, i suppose). ours is just a basic mix (i think, same as TDL's).
if i have a big budget, i would have used Mentone Mix.

Hi VJ,
Silly me didn't even realise that there was a different company called Melton mix.. I think your exposed agg. looks great and even better if it is cheaper, will have to check them out when it's time to do our driveway...

donuts · Apr 10, 2009 9:44 pm

VJ, I guess we just didn't want to spend the extra money on exposed agg that much, at the time. We would have been happy with the coloured concrete, if the colour had come out like the brochure

unfortunately it came out a lot lighter! (we thought it would be mid-grey but it came out very light, like footpath concrete :evil:

)

Anyway our driveway is not very big and once our front fence is finished and the garden is done it will hardly be noticable, so I'm not very sad about it anymore

Just seeing your pics makes me covet it!

Oh and there are some pics on my house of donuts thread somewhere towards the end.

VJ · May 22, 2009 12:40 pm

It's been quite some time since I had my last update...

So here are some photos of our latest project - front landscaping.
I mentioned in my other thread that we have a free basic front landscaping from our land developer.
This includes turf/mulch, a tree and some plants (20 i think).
They started with the prep works 2 weeks ago, and just last week laid the turf and put some mulch:

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We are going to put in some pavers from the side of the house, under the pergola going to the side gate. That's why we just asked our landscaper to put in mulch instead of turf, so we can remove it later and put in the pavers.

Our landscaper gave us a list of plants/trees to choose from (and i posted the list in another thread).. and we have yet to decide which ones to plant.

You would notice that we have some rocks at the corner of our front. Aside from the looks, we thought that it would provide some sort of protection when accident happens in our corner. According to our neighbour, there were several accidents that happened prior to our move (that's why they put in big rocks in their front garden too, bigger than ours). Just recently, there was an accident involving two cars. The car turning right to our street didn't see the car approaching, so they hit each other and the turning car went in between our front garage and mailbox (run through our water tap) and through to our neighbour's fence. So you would notice that there's temporary fencing to our side garage.
We are still thinking of replacing the rocks to bigger ones, but we haven't seen good ones yet. Any suggestion on any type of protection that we can put in? Our neighbour lodged a complaint to the council about that corner, and all they did was to cut the plants (the culprit that caused the accidents - too high, you won't see oncoming vehicles when you turn right) at the centre island. There were paramedics, police, etc. Our landscaper was there when it happened, and the good thing was the big pile of soil in our front yard helped a bit to divert the car away from our front house.

This weekend, we are going to finalise our plants and hopefully by next week it will all be finished and expect some photos to be posted here.

BTW, we were told that we won't be having footpath in front, so we're still thinking what to put in there...

MKR · May 22, 2009 2:00 pm

this looks great VJ - I particularly love the color of your mulch. I am so envious, wish we had something like this from our land developer too.
Look forward to seeing your plant selections as well, as I have started looking for ideas for our front too

donuts · May 22, 2009 2:04 pm

Wow it looks great VJ. So nice and neat

I like your letterbox.

MKR · May 22, 2009 2:26 pm

donuts

Wow it looks great VJ. So nice and neat

I like your letterbox.

i wonder how many ppl on this forum have the same letterbox :th:

hehe i have the same one :wink:

Cozmo · May 22, 2009 3:57 pm

MKR

donuts

Wow it looks great VJ. So nice and neat

I like your letterbox.

i wonder how many ppl on this forum have the same letterbox :th:

hehe i have the same one :wink:

I want one too! Where do you get those ones?

anny · May 22, 2009 4:00 pm

Me too !!!!

MKR · May 22, 2009 4:11 pm

Cozmo

MKR

donuts

Wow it looks great VJ. So nice and neat

I like your letterbox.

i wonder how many ppl on this forum have the same letterbox :th:

hehe i have the same one :wink:

I want one too! Where do you get those ones?

We got ours from Distinctive Mailboxes

Cozmo · May 22, 2009 4:54 pm

MKR

We got ours from Distinctive Mailboxes

Sweet! Thanks... Can you recall about how much they cost ?

MKR · May 22, 2009 5:13 pm

Cozmo

MKR

We got ours from Distinctive Mailboxes

Sweet! Thanks... Can you recall about how much they cost ?

If I rem correctly it was around 240ish and we got a further 10% off because there was a small crack at the back (not a structural fault)

haywgl · May 22, 2009 8:29 pm

It looks gorgeous VJ!!

Really great, especially as it was included from the estate - I always thought they just did a few shrubs, but this looks fantastic!!

I really love your driveway too - could you PM me your contact please