Building in Adelaide wth Oakford - PCI

Im liking the look of your place onejohn! What 3d modelling program did you use??

Thanks - I'm using Blender3D with the Cycles rendering engine. It's free open source software targetted mainly at animation. It's a bit more cumbersome for ArchViz than the more dedicated software, but reasonably nice to use once you get the hang of it.

I've been giving myself some worries working out how we're going to handle the kitchen benchtops. The plan is to go in an engineered stone, but to try not to spend more money than necessary. I initially came up with a design that had a 20mm stone top and shadow line:



But the cabinetmaker is talking around $1000 extra to do the shadow line, based on the cost of putting aluminium edging in there. So then I was thinking of just doing a simple overhang in the 20mm stone:



The overhang keeps water spills of the cabinetwork better, but does give sharper corners to run into. A problem with this is that because the cabinetmaker thinks the post is tricky to make (ie, expensive) I was going to add the post myself, but as far as they're concerned it leaves the 20mm stone unsupported on the limit of its allowable overhang.

I also discovered that our bathroom benches will be 550mm deep based on the available basins (unless we hassle around), meaning we can't get the island and a bathroom bench out of one slab anyhow, so it's looking like 3 slabs in total. Given that, it may be fairly economical to go up to 40mm edges:



Or another option would be a slab end and not need the post.




With all the options around I can't get them to quote on everything, so I need to weed out the best candidates. I'm leaning towards 40mm as the first preference, or just the 20mm with simple overhang if it's a lot cheaper. I'm interested if anyone has thoughts on what migh work best here though.

We're planning on Caesarstone Ocean Foam as the benchtop colour, and the doors are a polytec sheen.

I like the slab end better than the post.
And would go 40mm (which is what we are doing but we have no stone in bathrooms.... )

Thanks - it's mainly the price keeping us from the 40mm, but it may come down to 40mm with the post vs 20mm with the waterfall end. The waterfall end is a more refined look, but I do kind of like how the post opens up the bar area into the rest of the room. So many things to choose..

I'd be happy with any of those options

Demolition has now finished, and we have and empty block. The builder has been asking questions so suggest they're keen to get going on it, so it may not be too far off now. We just need to finalise some pending selections items, and get a boundary survey done. So seems about to happen, but I keep worrying that there's something that I haven't got right...

The engineer wants the block watered, so my next job is to get some irrigation pipe out onto it to start turning it into mud. Hopefully the top will dry out quickly enough, or the builders won't be having much fun cutting those 900 deep footings.

Good-o. At this time of the year you still need to water? Shambini did that, but his KDR got toppled in summer.

Yes, the engineer still wants water - something like the equivalent of 200mm of rainfall. It's still fairly early in winter, so the ground is probably fairly dry down lower. They also say it drys out under the floor of the house, so that all needs to be evened out. At least compared to all the other site costs it's fairly inexpensive...

Ok so I know nothing about KDRs. Why does the ground have to be watered?

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Ahh I see! Thanks boosta

Love your 3D renders
As far as the options.. Horses for courses..
I personally don't like the post. It just looks flimsy.
I love the waterfall ends (slab ends).
Instead of going 40mm try 30mm. 40mm is only 2 x 20mm laminated together around the edges where as 30mm (in quantum Quartz at least) is full slab thickness. No laminations and would probably span that distance better.

Time for an update.. Not much has happened over the last month; I've been caught up in other issues, and we've had a new arrival in the family, so I haven't pushed forward. The builder has come in with a final set of costings for us to sign off on, but I've been taking some time to get some details drawn up for them before setting everything in motion.

I'm a bit disappointed at costs mounting up. Extra plumbing is turning out to be quite expensive, and the builder doesn't include wall sarking as standard, so that's another $1200 or so. Still, at this stage it's mainly a matter of paying the money and let them go with it.

I'm still a bit worried about the mortar for the bricks. I was after off-white cement with light yellow sand, but the builder won't do light yellow: only brickies yellow, or white sand. I've seed the brickies yellow version, and it's too dark for what I want, so it looks like the white sand, but just hoping it doesn't turn out too grey compared to the bricks. Oh well..

Wow, a new arrival, as in a baby? Congratulations.
It's good to take your time to try and reduce regrets later. Just waiting a month between slab and frame have already had multiple moments of...we should have added.......look forward to further news.

We've now finalised things with the builder, and hopeful they will now be able to make a start on it soon if the weather can dry out a bit. In the meantime I've done some more visualisation with our final colours.



I'm hoping the mortar will actually come out lighter than I've drawn there, to be more a colour match for the brick. I would have gone for a light yellow sand, but the builder won't do that: they only do a white sand or a strong yellow sand. So we're down to white sand and off-white cement, and hoping it's not too grey against the brick.

Your brick colour is similar to ours and we have that mortar. Doesn't look grey to me -- I like how it's turned out. Congratulations on the newbie to the family

Did you end up getting white sand for all the bricks? I saw something on your thread about organising white sand, but it sounded that was just for the aubergine bricks out the front. But yes, the bricks look like they're coming up well on your place.

Yes, they used white sand with white (Brighton Lite) cement on cream bricks - PGH Bianca - as well as the aubergine ones. They delivered orange sand initially as a mistake. I suggested they could use it with the aubergine bricks, but after seeing a sample, I didnt like, so went back to all white. Thanks, I think so too - quite happy. I think you will be too Great to see you starting

After getting all the design and paperwork through, we now have some action at the site. First one day we have all the trenches and plumbing,



Then the membrane and reo in on Friday:


They're planning on pouring on Monday. Overall, things look pretty much in shape, but could always be better. The lagging on a couple of sewer pipes doesn't fill the full trench. It covers the original beam size, but with the trench widening from falling soil there are areas where the concrete may be able to grip the pipe. I mentioned this to the SS before the plastic went in, but nothings seems to have happened.

Some of the reo is sitting in the bottom of the trenches where it has sagged. They may likely lift it up in time for the pour, which would be fairly easy, but its hard to see any sort of guarantee that will actually happen. So much of the final quality of the job will be determined by what happens on the day of the pour, so inspecting beforehand can only do so much.