OB in SA

twylamc · Oct 12, 2015 6:06 pm

My partner and I have embarked on building our hopefully forever home in Yorke Peninsula, SA (1 hour and 45 minutes to drive from Adelaide is where we are located). We would like it to be low maintenance (so we can travel around Australia and overseas more in the future) That's the plan anyway.

We'd like it to be cool in the summer and warm during the winter, without exhausting the cooling and heating system despite us having solar put in place in the propery. I guess this is so important for me as someone who has lived in an apartment in Adelaide for so long where it is either so cold or so warm and I cannot fully use the heating/cooling cos of high electricity bills. So we decided to build our own, cos it is so important to us what is inside as much as how it will look like on the outside.

This is the current layout of the property. We currently live in the existing garage while doing the build but part of it has been decked out as a bar with insulation, kitchen sink and toilet/shower.

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This is our elevation plan:
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twylamc · Oct 12, 2015 6:15 pm

Some shots of the property with the shack using a go pro. The garage is at the back where we currently stay while doing the build. (where the solar panels are).

I love that we have the paddock on one side and the water on the other.

twylamc · Oct 12, 2015 6:18 pm

Me doing some demo! (Only did the inside bit where there's no asbestos).

twylamc · Oct 12, 2015 6:38 pm

Ready for the concrete. Our foundation is concrete poured on waffle pods so we can have a bit of height for the view as we do not really want to build a double storey home. Partner was a brickie labourer (for his dad and brother) and now a tiler and he can feel the strain on his knees already, it was also one thing that we did consider. We visited a house in the neighborhood who did the same thing years ago to check how it was with them (ie do they have any cracks etc), the owners were gracious enough to let us in. It was looking pretty good so we went ahead with it. Our home will be double brick on the outside and timber on the inside. My partner's dad built their home also in Yorke Peninsula 10 years or so ago and theirs was a full brick home. Their house always feels nice when we go in and partner's mum will always say, "I have just put the heater/cooler on". We did not go full brick cos it takes a long time but hopefully being double brick on the outside walls with cavity will be enough to give us a cooler/warmer home. I have been doing a bit of reading and I have read that some put insulation on the cavity wall (even for a double brick home) but my partner said that it defeats the purpose of the cavity for air flow. It works for his parents' house so we will go with a setup that has been used for centuries now.

twylamc · Oct 12, 2015 6:58 pm

I will need to get the slab photos from my partner as we were on holiday when the slab was poured and his dad took some photos.

I will just post some photos of our dining table that we had to purchase when it went on sale on the website of The Block contestants' Lysandra and Alisa. We try not to buy anything before the house is even built but we have loved this dining set then and we have never found anything that came close to it even for us so we took the bullet and bought it. I am in love with this dining set!

One other thing that we also got were the reclining home theatre seats. We had to order them from Canada and as much as it is too early maybe that we have done it, I think we have made the right decision. The Aussie dollar fluctuated after that. Partner loves his movies thus, the home theater. He has lots of movie stuff too which we plan to put on a customised display case in our home theatre behind the electric home theatre seats. The seats that we got are from elite - http://www.elitehometheaterseating.com/ ... air-style/

Here are some photos. I love them seats!

Building the seats to try before putting them away

Got this photo from one of the sites that did a review on elite home theatre seats.

twylamc · Oct 14, 2015 4:47 pm

Photo of our slab already ready for brickwork.
We will be doing most of the work ourselves but will have to source out some trades as well. Partner's dad is a brickie and so is his brother, they did the brickwork (face bricks the entire house!) at the parents' place. Ours will be rendered/gyprocked so it will be easier work as there's no need to do jointing and cleaning up as much as the face bricks. My partner has accumulated bricks through the years (15,000 we have got) from leftover from jobs. You would not believe how much stuff get wasted that are just thrown away. My partner still remember the first bricks that he's got from a job - 20 bricks. Back then, we thought we won't have enough. I am proud of him. Hahaha! For his patience. Some of our windows and doors he's got for a song just because they were installed in a house but the wrong colour so had to be replaced. Stuff like that. We will save where we can (and we have saved a lot on heaps already!) but we won't skimp on things that matter as well.

twylamc · Oct 14, 2015 5:03 pm

Some photos of the brickwork. The garage is taking a while and at this point, his dad is only doing weekend work but since Monday is doing fulltime (yay!) at our place and not do weekends in the process and be able to rest. This is the way to go if we want to have any hope of having the roof on by Christmas.

Our build will accommodate the way we live. Our garage door has been measured so a higher car with roof rack with stuff on it can go in there. We plan to do a lot of traveling around Australia in the future and we would like to just be able to go in the garage without taking anything out from the car roof etc, shut the garage door and be done with it after a long day traveling on the road. Little details like that I guess.
Also, all our doors (except I think the 3-way bathroom because space just does not allow it) will be 920 wide for wheel chair access.

twylamc · Oct 14, 2015 5:06 pm

We are moving away from the garage now so hopefully brickwork will look like there's heaps done because of standing windows and doors! 2 windows have been stood in the cinema (yay!)

twylamc · Oct 14, 2015 5:20 pm

Our wall frames! (Our build will be mostly done by "old school tradies". ie mates of partner's dad etc.). Our wall frames have been done by dad's mate chippy who's retired and who's probably just bored and itching to do some work for a "cold drink" and fuel as he had to travel to and from Adelaide, though he's got a shack as well in Yorke.

twylamc · Oct 16, 2015 1:10 am

I can't sleep so will continue with my monologue here. Lol! The garage with the beam.

twylamc · Oct 16, 2015 1:19 am

I forgot that aside from the dining set and home theatre seats, we already got our lounge just a year ago for use in my apartment. As much as we like things to look nice and modern in our new home, comfort is still our first priority and we thought and felt that the reclining ones like we got provide that. So we got this from harvey norman and will be what goes into the new house later on when it's finished.

twylamc · Oct 16, 2015 1:30 am

I have also just discovered organic bed sheets and eco products (we will "try" for our household to be kinder to the environment). I should really stop buying stuff until the house is ready. But I thought, we can still use nice bed sheets now same as sit on a nice comfy chair. We don't need to wait for the new house to enjoy these things now. I got two sets of new bed sheets but these ones I am really excited to use. I am coming up to Yorke tomorrow, I cannot wait to wash them up and put them on our bed. They are organic linen, I got the deep sea (I think they will look great in our main bedroom which faces the water, a reflection of our surroundings. I love love it!)

My partner "unboxed" it but was scared to take them out of the bags. These lovelies are waiting for me!

The sheets on the website.

twylamc · Oct 16, 2015 1:37 am

My "art work" (lol!) on the timber walls which is also what we try to do in life!

twylamc · Oct 16, 2015 9:51 am

Our kitchen layout. We will be tweaking it but basically this is what we have got in mind. There is a gap/hole on the right side where our convection
microwave will be for airflow.

twylamc · Oct 16, 2015 11:58 am

Our metre box neatly bricked into the outside garage wall. Details like this make me excited.

twylamc · Oct 16, 2015 1:07 pm

The gorgeous sunsets that we get. Look forward to more of these in our new home whether we are sitting onto our main bedroom's own verandah, the house's main verandah or sitting into our lovely dining set.

boosta · Oct 16, 2015 3:15 pm

Looks good! Love the reuse of bricks.

timbo43 · Oct 16, 2015 8:46 pm

Nice Build

will be watching

twylamc · Oct 17, 2015 12:02 pm

boosta

Looks good! Love the reuse of bricks.

Hi boosta! Thanks for saying hello.

I guess I was mostly a lurker and didn't really make forum friends but I have been enjoying looking at other people's builds and especially love looking at photos.

We do have some double bricks as well and some of them have been laid so will take photos. My partner also managed to get some sort of metallic bricks which we will use in my home office as a feature wall, 800 of them for free! The owner was gonna use it but changed their mind and used wall tile feature instead. They would go into the bin so my partner loaded them into his trailer. They aren't cheap bricks at all!

twylamc · Oct 17, 2015 12:10 pm

timbo43

Nice Build

will be watching

Hi timbo43, it is a slow pace build but steady.