Matt's Brando - We're in!

looking good from here things normally ( from watching builds ) seem to go quick is that all your land out through the living room window ??

Not all of it. We have a wedge of yard on the side of the house (it's not a rectangular block, we're on the business end of a cul de sac) but most of that is the neighbors. It's probably not going to be the best view. The real killer views are from the alfresco and hopefully also kitchen / rumpus but I didn't photograph that, I just got carried away with having a living room window to look at / out of!

Something like this...

Met the site manager today. Really nice guy. Laid out all his books so I could see the plan for each step and when everything is booked. Made me feel really comfortable about the whole thing.

Some more pics of the frame going up. Won't have the frame stage inspection until after easter though. Stupid rain! Still, despite the rain I'm really thrilled at the speed things have been moving. Only 3 weeks from the site start date!



Heres' the view from our alfresco. Fingers crossed no 2 story houses appear to spoil it!

Can't wait to follow your build - looking great so far!! Nice pic with the frame and the Simpson clouds!

Looks great Matt, love the view from the alfresco. I think we should have got an alfresco on the back of ours, to much trouble finding a carpenter or anyone that actually wants a job. Even the fencing guys didn't drop the quotes in! It's moving along quickly isn't it? Bentley seem to stick to their promise of a quick build. All our doors are being hung, cupboards meant to come but are running behind, hopefully next week. The carpenter seems like a really nice guy and he is a perfectionist by the look of it. I hope no-one builds a double story behind yours, we are having one built next door, hasn't started yet, and guess who's building it? we just found out of the developer, Bentley.

Haha! You think the neighbours saw how quickly and nicely yours went up and said "I'll have one of those!"

I think so Matt. There is a Brando at completion being built near us, I looked through the window, it looks great. They have moved the alfresco to where the rumpus is and the rumpus to the alfresco area.

I'm not much of a fan of alfrescos on the corner of the house, but I can see why it might be tempting to have 1 less wall on the alfresco.

I just wish we had an alfresco now, it would have worked out cheaper than having a pergola built by the look of it, allthough the pergola will end up a bit bigger than the alfresco. A local guy rang tonight and is going to meet DH onsite tomorrow, he is giving us a quote for the pergola. he did the landscaping here at the house we are renting, did a good job. We will get a quote as well for him to level our ground before we get the concrete done. What a nice guy to give us a quote on Easter Friday.

hope ya dont loose ya views but even a single story is going to impair views somewhat, how far away is the next block ( your neighbours ) and what size block do they have

In a 3 day week. The frame was completed, the external windows and doors were installed, the fascia and gutters were erected, most of the roof tiles were done and when I swung by on Friday arvo the bricks were delivered. I'm absolutely thrilled at the pace of this build! It looks great!

Wow, Matt. It looks great, you must be rapt. The bricks look a nice color, unbelievable the pace isn't it. Bet your glad you went with Bentley, I know we are.

the bricks are a bit paler than I thought. But the tiles and the fascia look fantastic. I am thrilled. Even the guy delivering the bricks stopped to tell me how good Bentley and Darren (my SS) are compared to the other co's he works for. I'm lucky tough, I picked Bentley based largely off their display home, it's just luck that they're also fast and good quality. Lucky me!

I like the bricks, it was either light or dark for us, and we ended up with the dark. But I do like the light ones as well. Alot of the tradies say the same thing. We fell in love with the Sinatra the minute we walked in, they do build a nice home. All the important things are spacious, I like the flow of their homes. I can't get photos until next week, locked out. But the curtain guy is coming on Wed, so we will be able to go in with Brad. If you need a curtain guy, ours is great. Good prices and good quality.

I was jogging past today and noticed they had finished the roof. I'm surprised they're working on the weekend!

wow so fast!!!

3 days ,, frame to whats in ya pics ya gotta be happy would of been a surprise seeing that
..Ben ..

Hi DrMatt,

Congrats on the progression of your house! Despite the infamous Melbourne weather, they did well to get that frame up!

I'm not building a bentley but i see that you are going to use the Urban One Latte brick. We chose that too for our PD home so interested to see how it will look as i don't think there has been many homes in the PD range using that brick.

Guess i'll have to stalk ur thread to see how it looks! haha!

Oh, and before i forget, thabsolutely love your colour selections! I tend to lean towards the very earthy, natural colour too and would have loved to have had a green splashback in the kitchen but the other half vetoed that idea...

Cheers,

Mel

Hi Mel,

The good news is that the bricks look great. Better than the pictures actually - it was getting dark when I got out there today and I had to use flash which has washed out the colour a bit. Hopefully I'll get some better pictures in natural light over the weekend.

The bricks are all even, very few chips even around the plumbing, and the mortar levels are consistent and the blending is perfect. The bricklayer seems to be doing a pretty good job.





The bad news is that on closer inspection some of the bricks have some fairly significant surface cracks in them, sometimes spanning the whole height of the brick. I was initially very concerned that this was the bricks crumbling or collapsing, but picked up a few bricks from the pallet and can see that it's actually fine cracking caused probably when the bricks were dried. It doesn't look great but probably nothing to be structurally concerned about.

You probably can't see the cracks in the small image below so click this link for a bigger zoom in.


The bricks themselves are standard natural bricks which have been surface coated in the latte colour on 3 sides. This means that when they chip the natural orange colour underneath will be exposed and the chips will show up as very obvious. Fortunately the layer seems to be doing a good job of not chipping the bricks, despite the raked mortar, and also not laying any of the bricks chipped on the pallet. Nevertheless I'm starting to think that these are not very good bricks and wondering if I will regret not choosing to upgrade to a more expensive brick in years to come.

Probably not the news you wanted to hear, and to be fair it's a fairly minor issue - likely purely cosmetic and only noticible (both the cracks and potential chips) when you look up close, but I figured I'd let you know.