Alkira Homes "The Sienna" KDR Ryde (NSW) - complete

Finally! ... some photos to share of the progress (the concrete wall will be removed the week after next and I hope it goes according to plan!!) I initially had some concerns of the colour of the bricks but have realised that the Austral bricks ordered there's a front and there's a back face to the bricks. The face side is not a square edge as I had thought when I picked up the sample brick. The face of it is slightly rounded and thus having flush mortar would have "fattened" up the joins. (Tbh Forg has the same colour bricks and they looked flush but anyhoo decision was made when they started to do away with the flush joins and to use "ironed joins"

only managed to take a few photos ... the lighting is not the best. but I took these to provide some visual guidance for others and to understand what Granitgard is suppose to be

the whole perimeter of the house had bricks layed down in preparation of the granitgard, the house is on a slope so 1 row of bricks out the front equated to an additional 5 rows at the back.
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View of the backyard (did I mention that the Alfresco is my favourite? ) they are half way there and have prepped the brick post to support the steel beam above
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bit of a challenge to take a decent photo to look at the granitgard application. basically sits behind the first layer of bricks and below the frame level all around the house. The white strip is then layered above the brick and some sort of PVC material shielding the openings of the brick to prevent termites crawling up
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amazing how the colour changes when it is on house compared to the ones sitting around the house.
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Looking great deluded!

And must admit not understanding your granite gard although we had some material like thing added to our bricks as a termite barrier

Hope the below image helps (courtesy from the manufacturers website)

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I have ... but unless the bricks are cleaned you can't see it properly ... might have to go back to Austral and get another one

at this stage of the build the brick colour seems close enough to what we had planned so as long as the next batch that gets delivered is consistent with this I'm not going to worry

Hey deluded, you walking past my place any time soon?

I grabbed some left over bricks, I don't have many so Every Brick Is Sacred (ie. I'll want it back ), and you can borrow one if you want one of those weights people carry while exercising ...

However, it's hard to tell. I was concerned we had the wrong bricks, at first. Even in your photos they look completely different installed as compared to on-the-pallet. And once I'd confirmed we had the right bricks, I was then worried we'd made the wrong colour choice because they didn't look like I remembered them. But when the house was fully bricked, and the tiles on top, it was what we thought we were choosing.

One thing, though; the ones our house are built with are a smoother finish than the sample was. We did a bit of umm'ing and ahh'ing over whether to upgrade to something which was smooth & which looked more modern; but we decided it wasn't worth the cost. As it turns out they're a lot closer to what would've been ideal, than the sample brick was.

Oh my that is super different!!

FYI I think the PVC material you describe earlier is the damp proof course material to stop rising moisture. There should be one in a low layer regardless or termite protection material.

My green-ness is having a heart attack over the "food miles" the bricks have traveled.

It's funny how we know so much about bricks and mortar ... (Tradies talk) once we've gone through this journey. All the jargon and lingo just makes me sound so professional when I go into Bunnings now. I use to quote things by the metre now it's all by 'millimetres' 7000mm! Shadowing, square set, cornices, floor joist, studs etcs...haha. My new word this week is assumed datum and AHD (Australians height datum), since we've hit an issue with the contour surveys .



Yikes! Totally deluded by the planning and building process