Fireplace

In all the excitement about the kitchen (see post below!) I failed to show our gorgeous new fireplace which was installed before our party although minus the chimney breast...

It's a double-sided slow-combustion firebox which sits within a wall, heating each room on either side fairly efficiently and with minimal smoke. We bought it from Cheminees in Melbourne and it came all the way up here in a van with two very helpful engineers who explained everything to our builder, made sure it all worked and left. Warren then designed the chimney breast himself, et voila!





















Dearest husband's parents installed themselves around the fire during our party: it was by far the warmest and snuggest place to be!

The base was built up on concrete bricks, beautifully mortared with a grey mud, and then topped with a specially-poured and polished cement block for a 'hearth'.





















The base was left in situ for several days after the party and then the brickwork was built up to the ceiling using the same concrete bricks, but leaving spaces for us to stack firewood. I think that the rounded ends of the logs will be decorative in their own right!

The firebox can be completely opened up, either by pulling the fireglass doors on either side outwards or by raising them into the chimney breast. That is the function of the pulley system visible on the 'naked' firebox in the first photo, but we've been advised not to open the firebox on both sides while a fire is alight in case the through-draught pulls sparks out of the fire and into the room, which seems like sensible advice.
















We have various options in terms of finishing the chimney breast but we've decided to leave it unclad and unrendered. It will be sealed in due course, once I've found an appropriate not-too-toxic sealant, but in the meantime it looks very handsome as it is. Obviously the little bits of wood propping things up while the mortar dries will be removed, and the white vents will be sprayed grey shortly so they will almost disappear.
















This is the view from the TV room through to the main room (which at this stage didn't have any kitchen units!), and you can see the opening for logs under the fireplace on this side. The opening will eventually be closed by a large slab of black-hearted sassafrass (to match the feature wood in the kitchen) on an industrial rolling door mechanism i.e. the mechanism will be visible on the lintel above the door. It will be a huge door: 3m+ tall to cover the space between the ceiling and the lowered floor in this room!





















Looking down the spine of the building towards the bedrooms you get a sense of length and space. The long wall on the right is punctured by the opening into the pantry and the wine fridge doors which open into the cool room. Along the ceiling on that wall is a concealed hanging system for pictures.

So near, so far - kitchen update

Not much work has happened on our house since the superb effort of the week before our party in June, which does rather leave you thinking how much could be achieved if that level of activity was maintained! I think we're working on the Pareto principle now: we've got to the (less than) 20% of the job that is left, which is going to take 80% of the effort to get it finished. I think I've mentioned before that I decided early on NOT to get wound up by the building process, but it has been hard in recent weeks not to feel increasingly frustrated. Of the four houses being built by our builder I believe ours was the first to commence and will be the last to be finished (unless my information is inaccurate). There has been illness, public holidays and bad weather to contend with along the way, and we've managed to maintain reasonable good humour throughout, but I have my suspicions that part of the reason for the extended build is simply this: we weren't shouting as loudly as the other developers... Luckily I don't 'do' resentment and I am absolutely sure that the quality of the finished building will more than compensate us for the delays!

So where are we now? I had understood we were waiting for Phil, the floor man, to sand and oil our floors before the kitchen units in the main room would be installed. I don't know whether it is because he has been, how shall I say it, unhelpful with his schedule that we have waited this long and that the decision has been taken to put the cupboard carcases in place before his task starts but anyway, we now have the bare bones of the kitchen in situ and it looks great.
















Looking from the doorway at the bedroom end of the building into the main room you can see how the larger storage unit acts as a room divider. This side of it, currently blank, will have a bookshelf/cupboard unit in black-hearted sassafrass veneer that will make a feature of its size. We're using a fairly minimal palate of wood, grey-white paintwork and our black leather furniture in the main rooms, which will be enlivened by our things: books, ceramics, cushions etc in brighter colours so the finished bookcase, once populated with 'stuff' will be a big part of the overall interior decoration of this room. The space on this side of the unit will be the quiet lounge i.e. a CD player but no television! Guess where you'll find me, crashed out on the sofa with a good book...
















From the other side you can see the adjustable interior of the large unit, waiting for its oiled sassafrass-veneered doors. There will be no visible handles as we're using the push-touch closing mechanism on the big doors so that your eye isn't distracted from the distinctive grain of the wood.

The 'U' shape of the cupboards in the foreground is deceptive: the space will eventually house the gas cooker, and the whole thing will be fronted with a wood veneer panel and covered over with a neutral, slightly cream-coloured engineered stone benchtop that will extend forwards to form a breakfast bar at the front of the island unit. A gas cooktop and a small vegetable preparation sink will be inset into the stone benchtop which will otherwise be kept clear for food preparation. I know that is a laughable statement - what island unit is kept clear of clutter, you may well ask - but there is a deliberate strategy here in that the dishwasher and the large sink are all in the pantry, so plates etc have to be walked through into another room after meals. My personal bet is that the island unit will end up full of IT equipment (dearest husband) or (very unlikely!) my paperwork!





















Looking out from the pantry towards the windows and the view gives you an idea of the whole structure...
















... but I like the view from the deck outside, looking in. Can't you just imagine it in summer with the windows pulled back, friends wandering round of an evening with a drink in their hands, perhaps sitting at the breakfast bar while dinner's cooking? THIS is what we're looking forward to, and what will make it all worthwhile.

Rounding the last bend

It does feel as if we're getting really close to the finish line now! The heat is on because this weekend we've got a lot of people coming to see us AND my parents-in-law are due to stay with us (in the big house) for a week. Anyway, Warren's pulled out all the stops and in the last week we've had the Satler Brothers painting the interior like mad, the electricians putting in the ceiling lights and fans and power points, the bathroom people plumbing in the toilets and showers and basins, the kitchen people starting to put in the pantry units, and the fireplace has been started. I have hopes that by close of play tomorrow we'll have lighting, water, functional bathrooms and half a kitchen and - possibly - a useable firebox albeit without an actual wall around it. You'll see what I mean eventually when I can show you some photos but today it was a bit featureless and covered in tarp, so to keep you amused I can instead show you the following photos:





















This is the main living area, painted and with the ceiling lights and fans in place. Some of the windows are still covered in thin plastic sheeting ready for the paint sprayer





















A first look at the pantry! The photo is looking towards the cool room (where you can see the sections of the triple-skin flue waiting for the firebox to be assembled). The black stone benchtops aren't in yet, obviously, but the large sink and the dishwasher will be under the window to the left, while all the appliances will be out on the benchtop above the banks of drawers to the right





















The floor-to-ceiling cupboards on the left are larder cupboards - for food storage





















They have pull-out drawers so no more reaching to the back of the shelves!





















This is a view into the family bathroom, still shrouded in plastic but today the corner shower went in, and it looks really nice






















Two views of our en-suite bathroom from the master bedroom. At last we get to see what the vanity unit looks like: rather than purchasing a complete unit we bought a solid wooden sideboard, designed for a dining room, and put two basins on the top - and I think it works well. Even the plumbers thought it looks good!

Painting for parties

We're having a party at the weekend, which has acted as a spur to Warren to push on with some things. The gentle conversation I had with him just before dearest husband got home having been away for a month may also have been useful! "We're already three weeks behind the most recent construction schedule"... You see what I mean.

Anyhoo, the aim is to have at least the ceiling fully coated by the middle of this week to enable to sparkies to hook up the electricity. The bathrooms are almost ready (although shrouded in plastic sheet so sorry, no photos of our LOVELY wooden vanity unit in our en-suite bathroom, with gorgeous square bowls on top and beautiful taps (*sigh!*) and apparently the pantry units may be in by the end of the week and possibly also plumbed in. All of which is very useful when one's parents-in-law are coming to stay on Thursday and are expecting to be the first sleepers in our new house.





















It looks weird all taped up like this, but I must say that the paint spraying machine that can do one entire undercoat in 2 hours is very impressive





















The draped cloth and plastic sheeting around the bath and cabinet in our en-suite reminded me of the draped platforms and models so beloved of life-drawing classes!





















The front door's quite atmospheric, too

Internal walls

While we've been away the plasterers have been hard at work sheeting up the inside of the house. We've also been given a moving-in date towards the end of June, which is disappointing in the sense that we'd hoped things might move along more quickly but we understand why there have been delays and there are some hopes that we may catch up on some of that time because it might be possible for several trades to overlap once the plastering is finished. Who knows? Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the internal sheeting - it's amazing how different the rooms feel now that you can't see through the framework and into the next room! We are finally getting a feeling of what the finished space will be like.






















On Tuesday afternoon we all took a walk through the Botanic Gardens in Sydney and I took some photos as references for us in thinking about combining different shapes and textures in our own garden. All of my gardening experience is with northern European, cold-climate planting and so I'm a bit clueless about what to plant, where and how in sub-tropical northern New South Wales.



























Lots of things we love such as daffodils, tulips, crocus, hellebores, euphorbias and the like, even apple blossom and stone fruit trees simply won't grow here so we're working hard to find out about alternative plants. My sadness about being unable to use some plants I really love is definitely tempered by the fact that we'll be able to grow tomatoes outside all year round and that I can have succulents like agaves, tree dahlias, magnolias, some jonquils and lots of exotic species. I guess you can't have everything (although I like to try...)!

The Deck and the Doors

At last! Progress!





















The pink batts are standard insulation materials round here - the R rating will be about R3, which is more than adequate in a sub-tropical climate





















Evidence of workmen...





















The beginnings of the deck outside the front door





















Now we've worked out which way up it goes, the Modwood decking looks great





















The cool room wine doors!





















Although the walls aren't in yet, the doors look great across the room





















Toby's happy!

Terracing

Pete the digger driver has been here all weekend preparing our garden! The slope has been divided into terraces - three at the moment - with a rocked back wall. Where there was once a single slope which was very steep and we couldn't figure out how to plant it, we now have wide flat spaces which we can sow with grass, rocked back walls to keep things stable, and gentler slopes that we can plant up with shrubs and trees.


































From below the house this is what it looks like so far: the beginnings of a zig-zag of what will be grass, travelling down the hill. I have a vision of the garden as it flows downwards... shrubs, trees, ground cover plants... it might take a bit of time to grow, though! First we have to put weed matting down, and plant through it, and wait for the whole thing to knit together.