Bryan & Petersen Build in Ballarat (VIC)

HALLWAY WALL GETTING FIXED UP

Our Site Supervisor I think had already decided - before we mentioned it last week - that the plaster finish along the main hallway wasn't to their standards so they have had a rep from Knauf (plaster manufacturer) already inspect it. They all agreed to upgrade this section of wall to what they call a 'Level 5 finish'. From my understanding it involves them painting on a fairly thick special coating, then sanded back to a smooth finish.

Their main plasterer caught up with me as he was leaving the house yesterday, and we had a good chat about it all. I agree with him that with a glass front door and also so much light coming in from the other end living area this particular wall would always show up any even minor blemishes. To be honest I always expected some issues there due to the glancing light but I am happy the builder agreed that it still required some attention to improve it as best they can.

After checking it last night it looks better for sure, so we are keen to just leave it now.



In addition to this better finish I have asked our builder if we could change the paint here to one of the Dulux Special Effects range....'Stone Effect'. I was always keen on some sort of feature wall along here anyhow, and previously considered some form of panel option.

Dulux mention that this type of paint effect does help to conceal wall blemishes, so it makes sense for us to use this type of finish on this particular wall.

Anyhow our supervisor is going to talk to their painter and get back to us, but I've jumped the gun and already looked at the colour options etc!

Click here for some info about the Stone Effect paint: https://www.dulux.com.au/products/designeffects/overview/stone-effect



We'll see how this discussion goes and report back once we know what is happening.

NEW LIGHTS FOR RUMPUS & LIVING ROOMS

Because we are avoiding downlights, due mostly to the way they impact ceiling insulation etc, deciding on what type of lights to install has been a challenge for us.

We think we might just retain the standard small 'bulb' shaped batten fixed lights our builder installs as standard in most of the house, but we did want to do something different in the main living areas.

These are the standard batten fixed light fittings our builder uses, that aren't actually too bad we don't think:


We recently went to Melbourne and purchased some different light options for our kitchen (Mica Lighting). The LED Light bar in particular is quite interesting (and strange!), in that it alternates between cool, warm & both (combined) light colours (JET150 LED Pendant Light). Will be interesting to see how this light looks when turned on using the different colour options:


Dining we decided to keep it similar to the kitchen and use a triple spotlight (Burton LED 3 light spotlight):


Now for the main lounge, and also the separate rumpus room we've purchased a couple of display items from Beacon Lighting. They were both under half price and not much more than the cheaper DIY style light fittings.

They are both currently missing their centre frosted glass cylinder (one light was broken out of the box!). Beacon are obviously going to replace the broken glass piece, but in the meantime we still got the sparkies yesterday to install them both and see how they looked. We might drop the main lounge one down slightly, but otherwise we think in the white colour 'wicker' they look pretty good in these spaces:

POWER IS ON!

The painter called me today to chat about the hallway wall (painted first coat on it for us to check out), and mentioned that the lights were all working. So on my way to training I dropped by to have a quick look.

Funny how exciting it is to have electricity finally connected to the house!

Most of our lights are just the standard ones installed by our builder, but we've bought our own for the main living areas, garage and some externals lights.

LOOKING GREAT

Thanks Tysonandkaylie, yours is coming along nicely too by the look of it. Particularly like the look of your bathrooms and that external timber facade and large portico area looks good.

To be honest we kept some costs out of our build in certain areas like the facade, and I would have really liked to go with full wall tiling in the bathrooms because those things definitely make houses present nicer. But to get the particular design we wanted and upgrades to many other things relating to the efficiency stuff we decided to compromise in certain areas. Even benchtops unfortunately we couldn't justify the cost for engineered stone, but I guess some of those things you can always change later on.

Anyhow we're currently happy with the build and the progress of it. Pretty much all the trades have been happy to work in with our specific requirements and I can say they all have shown some pride in their work. I'm sure all builds have issues, and ours has been no different (my main gripe is with the window/door fabricator) but the building company themselves I believe are focused on producing a quality product that will last a long time (we hope!).

A good example was today I met up onsite with our painters, and they definitely push very hard to get a quality finish. I think between them and our supervisor, the plastering supplier was firmly 'persuaded' that our hallway wall plaster needed a better quality finish to it.

Here are 2 of the 3-man team working up the 2nd coat of paint this morning on the hallway. They actually told me they apply 4 coats on these types of hallways just to ensure it looks the best it can. Ours is especially hard due to the amount of glancing light coming in, but looking much better with the upgraded plaster (Level 5) finish.

HALLWAY WALL LOOKING BETTER

We were onsite checking out the hallway wall (& also doing some cleaning up) and our supervisor dropped by to also take a look at the Level 5 finish since two coats of paint had been applied.

I'm tempted now to just leave it, as it definitely looks much better than it was in terms of 'lumpiness'. Also I don't think it will ever look perfect with that amount of light from both ends streaming through.

Anyhow our supervisor appears that he is still not happy with it, so is planning to get the plastering supplier to come back to inspect and discuss their next course of action. They obviously want it looking good, and we appreciate that, so we'll sit back and see what they say.

My wife and I are actually thinking we could always put up some nice wallpaper, but like I said I'm not that worried about it now.




Anyhow on to more exiting things....tiles got delivered today while we were there!




The sparkies finished off most of our electrical fit-off earlier this week, including installing most of our switches into the additional sub-board (next to the networking/NBN cabinet) in the garage. The meter is basically 'behind' the sub-board located under our portico.

MORE ACTION THIS WEEK...

So we've had a bit more stuff done on the house this week, with the tiling due to begin tomorrow. We are just tiling bathrooms, laundry, kitchen and WIP splashbacks. Main flooring is vinyl planks and carpet.

This is what I can think of that's happened since my last post:

• Robe mirrored sliding doors installed
• Kitchen island benchtop & one side 'seen end panel' replaced (damaged prior to installation)
• Boxing up ready for concrete portico entrance and rear water tank slab
• External caulking completed
• Tiles delivered

Went in earlier today to measure up our shower outlets so I could look at what options we have in terms of shower types. I think the ensuite will still suit a rail shower, but the main bathroom shower has the niche in the way so we will either have to go with a hi-rise or hand shower type.

Anyhow I took a few random photos while I was onsite today....

CONCRETE POURED

When I got to the site early this morning, the portico and water tank pad concrete had already been poured.....so they must start super early! Anyhow the finish seems pretty good.





Some more front and side external pics...

TILING UNDERWAY!

We dropped by the house late today, thinking the tiler would probably have already knocked off....but he was still there and going by his suggested start times he does some BIG days!

This guy works solo, and I think he is the only tiler our builder uses. Really nice guy, and he certainly seems to care about the finish of his work. Wants us to come in early Saturday to double check some things like grout colours while he is there to advice us before he starts finishing things off.

He also does all the caulking work supposedly, and when I asked him for some tips (I'm planning on caulking up our window frame<>reveal gaps) he offered to give me a quick lesson on the weekend and will give me some of his 'secret' solution he sprays on the silicon prior to running his 'paddle pop stick' to give it the right bead. He reckons the paddle pop is his secret weapon and gets a really nice bead....who would have thought but I'm going to give it a try for sure.

Anyhow he still has a couple of days left on our place, but from what we have seen it all looks great. I'm certainly no tiling expert, but all the gaps and cuts looks very neat. The main thing I was impressed with was how symmetrical he has done the shower bases. I'm a bit OCD on this sort of thing, so relieved when I saw how good it is looking.

Anyhow here are some progress pics....

The work looks good

Very nice. What are the tiles on the bathroom floor and walls?

Hi Hillsbuilds, I have the delivery docket beside me (well an older version that was updated anyhow!):

All supplied from National Tiles in Ballarat, and I will say they have been great there to deal with. We have been in a few too many times! lol as we changed our minds. But they all seem to have a passion for interior design and colours so it made it easier to work things out. Actually one of the young ladies there chose the wall tile to match the greige we have picked for the floor. We wanted a slightly darker grey on the floor so we didn't constantly feel like we had vacuum them all the time.

So for bathrooms/toilet:

• FLOOR - Promenade Greige Matt 450 x 450 Non Rectified (floor, hob etc)
• WALLS - Regina White 450 x 450 (incl. skirts)

For Kitchen/Pantry:

• SPLASHBACK - Woosh Glacier Grey Gloss 75 x 300 (Brickbond pattern)

For Laundry:

• SPLASHBACK - Woosh Glacier White Gloos 75 x 300 (Brickbond pattern)

As we were all in the bathroom chatting, I mentioned how you sometimes seem blog posts that show shower bases with uneven gaps.......anyhow I was innocently lowering my eyes and hoping ours were all fairly ok!.....phew as I realised the gaps all looked close to perfect. That conversation could otherwise have been awkward!

TILING READY FOR GROUT

We dropped in early Saturday to work out grout colours with the tiler. Overall I think we have 3 different 'Mapei' colours going in:

• White (100) - Kitchen splashback (white woosh tile) above overhead shelving on sink area
• Silver Grey (111) - Laundry splashback (white woosh tile) and our bathroom wall tiles
• Cement Grey (113) - Kitchen splashback (light grey woosh tile) & Bathroom floors

Apart from the top shelving section of white splashback tiles in the kitchen, we are hoping to retain the brick bond pattern by going with grout colours that provide some contrast....but not too much hopefully?

The tiler appears to have worked Saturday and Sunday and as of last night it all looked ready for grouting today.

All looking really neat and looking forward to seeing the final product.

TILE GROUTING COMPLETED

Our tiler finished the grouting off yesterday, and we're happy with both the workmanship and how all the colours have come up. Considering our tiles are all fairly standard 'non-rectified', the grout lines are fairly minimal and the grout itself isn't bulging out which makes it look more subtle and fairly neat.

I think today the tiler might be doing all the silicon work on the edges/joins? Plumber fit-off is scheduled for tomorrow, so I have to get our Rinnai instant gas HWS dropped around to the house fairly early.

Here are some pics after the grouting yesterday (prior to silicon sealing):

Workman ship is crisp and neat, colour selections look awesome. Do you have floor wastes installed in the WC?

Hi brightstarshine

Thanks, yeah the tiling has come up really well.

No we didn't get any floor waste's in WC (or anywhere else). It's strange because in other states, it looks like these are fairly standard but in Victoria not so much.

Our builder gave us a price at one point (I think around $180 from memory) but we left them out as like I said they are not very common for Vic builds.

CARPENTRY FINAL FIX & VINYL FLOOR PREP

We had a fair bit of action on the house this week, and today in particular.

• Plumbing fit-off a couple of day ago (still a few things to do though)
• Carpentry final fix today (finish off Monday)
• Vinyl floor layer was in early today to 'ramp up' to carpet joins with tile edge etc
• Vinyl sliding doors fitted out

Our handover date is tentatively scheduled for the end of August, but we're not in a massive hurry so we'll let the builder get things finished without having to rush hopefully. Our site supervisor so far has been good at sorting out any issues either they or we have discovered. The trades in general have been excellent, but like any build we've had a couple of things like windows/doors, some minor damage to cabinetry that has been sorted out. Our sliding door is looking better which is great, so it looks like the window company have been out recently.

Anyhow up next is flooring, then I think central heating commissioning, water tank setup and I can't remember to be honest but it should all happen fairly quickly now that we are close to finishing.

We also met with a concreter today to get some quotes for the driveway and cross-over etc. We also silicon sealed our internal skirting boards and later I got in the roof and sealed up the top plates (to plaster) over all our cavity sliding doors....these things are just so leaky and obviously being open internally you can't air seal them from the skirting boards like normal walls.

Here are some pics from today:

FLOORING INSTALL TODAY?

I think our vinyl plank flooring is due to be installed today. I dropped around to the house late last night after picking up my son from basketball and it looks like they've done some additional levelling prep work on the floors. We also noticed the 3000L rainwater tank has been dropped off to the garage, and the chippies look like they've finished off the final fix work.

We had a chat to your site supervisor and the flooring installer Friday about the undulations in parts of our slab and how we definitely don't want to see undulations in the vinyl planks. After our experience in the main hallway with the right side wall issue (showing up lots of 'bumps'), we figured having the conversation beforehand at least gives them the opportunity to get the prep work done properly. The last thing any of us want is to have to redo parts of the flooring once it's glued down. Anyhow to their credit it looks like the main problems areas are going to get treated with some levelling compound, and the whole area has been sanded off by the look of it.

Here are some images of the house from the last day or two:

Hey darb74, looking good!

Just curious, you have that half height nib wall between the shower and vanity - will there be a glass blade above it? I notice there’s a gpo just on the other side of the nib wall.