Still bricking

We have not quite made it to lock-up by the end of July, but we are not far away.

Most of the bricks are now done except for near the alfresco and in some places where scaffolding is required. The front is now complete:



and most of the East wall:



The brickwork looks good to our untrained eyes, although there is one strange brick near the laundry door:



Inside the cornices are all done, including the garage. First time we have ever had a plastered garage!

Nearly at lockup

This week the builders installed

• Electrical and data cabling,
• Insulation and sound proofing batts,
• Roof and wall plastering,
• Evaporate unit and solar panel for hot water on the roof, and
• Finished bricking the garage

We have not had another delivery of bricks yet, so progress on the external walls has slowed to a halt. I wonder if it is still too wet, especially at the front and rear of the house.



A month ago when the frame was up I took pictures of the family, dining and kitchen room. Today I took photos from the same spot with the plaster in place. Here is the family and dining room:





Here is the dining room and kitchen:





This room is still huge, even with the plaster. I'm not regretting adding the extra metre to the room.

Speaking of huge, the portico is not getting any smaller:



We didn't expect but in hindsight it makes sense for the evaporate unit and solar panel on the roof before the scaffolding was taken down.

We can stop holding our breath now

We are extremely happy with the colours, it is going to work really well with the roof tiles and guttering.

The brick layer is making good progress, with two-thirds of the portico and master bedroom now done since Wednesday.



He said he would be going faster if it wasn't for all the mud out the front and down the side of the house. In fact he can't take another delivery of bricks until they put down some boards over the drive way.



We are very happy with the quality of the work, from our untrained eyes its looking really good and he has done a good job of spreading the colour variation. The brick layer asked several times if my wife was happy with how it looks, which she is.



The internal plumbing appears to be done, but the sparky has not started yet. We still may get the plaster going up late next week, so lock up is still a possibility before the end of the month.

Another brick in the wall

As predicted by the site supervisor, the bricks have been delivered and they are cleaning up the site after the tilers so that they can start tomorrow.



A carpenter has been onsite as well, there is now a temporary front door, and the frame for the bath is in place.

As expected, the bricks are brown with splotches of blue/purple through them, that is going to look great with the blue in the roof and gutters.



They should have the garage wall built by the end of the week, unsure how much further they will get beyond that until next week.

A roof over our heads

We met with the site supervisor for the first time today. The build has been going so well we haven't needed to talk face to face yet, but we thought it was time to meet him and see how things were going.

Like us, he was very happy with the progress so far, everything has gone to plan and if anything they are running ahead of schedule. He expects the electrician and brickies all to start next week, we could be at lockup by the end of the month!

Despite the weather this week, the roof is on and close to completion. The tiles and guttering look great. In the overcast skies they look grey, I expect on a sunny day the blue will come out.



From the side you can see we will not any problems with locating the solar panels...



There is a lot of room in the roof for storage since it is such a long structure with few deviations. The portico however just keeps getting bigger, its the first thing you see of the house as you drive up the street.

From the front you can see our neighbours powerline, the post box and power pole.