Custom Enviroarch "Beach House" ALMOST THERE

hi animal,

You house is coming along nicely. I hope you managed to sort out the electrical stuff and hope all goes well... I'm watching your thread and blog with keen interest as I have just got in touch with Paul this week to see if they can build our home... Initial budget estimate has come in way way over our budget so he's going to make a list that would bring the costs down

Hi TinaG,

Yep getting data, that's the main reason for the meeting. We are supposed to get NBN in 2014/15,.... although who knows if the wacky LNP plan comes in we could be communicating over tin cans and string lines....

thanks for the checklist:
basically 2 points in each room, 3 in main bedrooms, and a stack in living rooms.
Yep, front and rear external power points.
Yep, lights to light up every side of house outside.

I read the things you forgot thread... about a gazillion times... many a sleepless night and pretty sure we've got everything. The builder and electrician seem pretty on top of things too which is good.

It's doing my head in though wondering what I've forgotten... ah well, as you say, there will be something... it's like a camping trip, you just hope the something you forgot isn't the tent!

hey 4evaesh, I sent you a pm. that's cool!

OK, still panicking as gyprock doing in this week, hoping all is well.

Have to decide on path to door, pavers v concrete?? It runs up the side of the house for about 10 metres.

Also have to put in a retaining wall across backyard so we have a flat section for play area, tossing up wether to go treated pine and paint it the same colour as house or go for concerete blocks. It's only 500mm high.

More photos
http://enviroarchbeachhouse.blogspot.co ... -more.html

Builder says it's on schedule. Everything appears to be on schedule. It was originally a 20 week construction contract and we're still due to move in at 20 weeks.. .

So what is going to go wrong???

I've rechecked the things you forgot thread, picked up a good ideas re the USB charging power point! Got four of them. Keep going on site looking, measuring, looking again, measuring again trying tofind things wrong but I'm at a bit of a loss.....

Any tips for driveway?

Tint in concrete, exposed aggregate or there is also some sort of spray they can put over normal concrete to give it a colour and texture....

Any suggestions for a modern look that won't show it's age in a year or two?

Hi animal, looking great. With driveway we have gone aggregate. I really like it. We went with close shave finish so the agg is not so rough, better for the kids. Its hard to say what's going to date but agg has been around for a while now and will probably for a while yet.

hi Charnley,

I'm waiting on some prices for difference between exposed ag and just a tint in the concrete. We can get a tint for additional $60 m^3 which isn't too much, I calculated around 10 m^3 of concrete.

Do you have an idea of aggregate prices?

http://enviroarchbeachhouse.blogspot.co ... rd-up.html

Scaffold down and plasterboard almost finished. Updated photos on blog.

Things going pretty well, few minor setbacks such as sound insulation in master bed ceiling (it's below living area) wasn't installed prior to plasterers so builder made them pull plaster down and install. Nothing major.

Decision locked in on interior paint
Vivid White ceiling
Natural White Walls

Still don't know what to do with driveway concrete.

The concrete polishers are coming Monday to start grinding the interior slab, might have a chat to them about driveways.

Stairs in. concrete polished.

concrete polisher said he would not recommend any external concrete polishing for a surface that may get wet (i.e. undercover only). So we didn't get the reat verandah polished.

Stairs look amazing, we didn't manage to get a photo before they put the tread protecters on as we didn't have camera with us.

But updated blog with some photos regardless.

It's all looking great. The facade is my kind of beachy. The blue wood paneling (not sure of correct name), roofline and blackbutt beams are perfect.

WOW! It's coming along real nice... You must be thrilled. Love the stairs...


HD

Wow looking great. Blackbutt looks amazing . Bet you can't wait to be in a living there.

Yep, getting so excited. Seems things are going really slowly now. . . .
We had a 20 week contract and it is looking like being around 22 to 23 weeks, so overall not too bad, but can't come quick enough.

Flooring starting to come together. pics on blog
http://enviroarchbeachhouse.blogspot.co ... oring.html

Have to let the tiler know what direction we want wall tiles in wet areas. We've got white 300 x 600 tiles floor to ceiling. Tiler recommends horizontal, architect recommends vertical....

Any suggestions welcome.

Also grout - we were going to match the charcoal floor with grout (called midnight I think) but some suggest going one shade lighter with grout.... again any tips most welcome.

Looking good!!! Love the timber floor and polished concrete - can't wait to see when it's all cleaned....

With wall tiles my personal preference is vertical, because you can align the grout lines of the floor tiles (assuming floors are 300x300?) to the wall tiles, which makes it look neat. I suppose it's personal preference at the end of the day...

Not sure about the grout colour. I think i'd like to match it as close as possible to the tile?!

HD

thanks 4evaesh,

we went vertical tiles
matching grout

the wall was unfortunately 2440mm high, and tiles 600mm so 4 tiles didn't quite fit nicely. What the tiler did (just an hour ago!) was cut the bottom tile and the top tile so there are 3 x 600mm tiles at eye height, and bottom is around 370mm and top around 260mm then grout makes up the difference.

should have some more pics tomorrow....

one of the floor boards was a little bit high once it say in, just ever so slightly higher than the one next to it and created a little bit of a lip between them. We agonised over it all weekend as to whether to ask if it should be pulled up or not and replaced......

Had a chat to installer this morning and he said he could pull it up but would take a couple of hours to pull it up, scrape glue back, refit new board etc...... I asked what does he recommend, he said it's up to me, I asked what would he do if it was his house, he said he'd pull it up and replace. Done. so we got it replaced. So glad we did as it's one of those things we would have really been bothered about down the track.

updated Joinery pics. Still a lot of dust around so that is making the boards look different.
http://enviroarchbeachhouse.blogspot.co ... ery-1.html
Still a little to go in joinery but it is getting there.

Wow. Looking amazing, love the light coming in.

Had a big week this week. Things all starting to come together and also we (and builder) started to notice the things that were not right or missed.....

Quite a few stressful days but to their credit the builders are rectifying all issues without debate. Some they picked up that we didn't.

Little things like a creaky floorboard, an edge of joinery that wasn't sealed, vanity pipe was too low to be concelled inside vanity etc..

We thought the situation was worse than it was - it's amazing how nothing can't be fixed. The creaky floorboard for example was on the second floor and it was the subfloor, not the actual floorboard. So they ripped the plaster off from underneath, got up there, fixed the squeek, repaired the plaster and bobs your uncle! I would have gone nuts over time had they not fixed it as the squeek was right at the top of the stairs.

Great to hear things are getting fixed... Will you be in by Xmas?

How many squares is your place?


HD