Lid's on!

Yes folks, that's right!  We have a roof.  We also have our top storey bricks washed.  We are so happy with the way that the colours have turned out.  Cladding has been delivered and Dean has informed us that it will be put up early this week (weather permitting of course).  It will then be painted shortly after that.

Even though it seems to be taking forever to us, it is easy to see each week the progress that has been made.

It appears as though we won't be in for Christmas due to the large amount of work to be done inside.  At least we know now and we are thinking around February.  It will be a tight Christmas.... we may just delay Christmas until the 25th March at our house.   We will just give the kids IOU's.  They will need new beds when we move in.  That will be their present :).  We may be giving ebay a hammering then.

Our next door neighbours on the south side have been pegged out and I'm sure that they are anxious to be started as well.  Our neighbours on the north side look like the house is ready for them to move into.  Our neighbours behind us are going well (hi Matt and Caz) and they are about a week or two behind us.  It's good to see Thigee and Ben moved in and we see them frequently when we go over to check out our house.

Now to the pictures and details.

The roof is Monier Horizon Flat tile in Kava with an A line ridge capping.

Front view

Photo taken of the north side.  You can see the cleaned bricks on the second storey.  This is C's room.

The southern side of the house, waiting for cladding.  D and T having fun.  Cladding to be painted in Shale Grey - the same colour as the garage.

This shot is from across the park.  I think that the lovely sandstone suits our house beautifully.  

This week (weather permitting) will see the cladding installed, maybe painted, the scaffolding lowered and the roof done for the lower floor (specifically the garage, front loungeroom, family room and alfresco.  Big week.  As always - hoping for sunshine for us all.  :)

Flooring

We have just realised that we haven't yet updated our blog about our floors.  We decided to take the floors out and do them ourselves.

I did have my heart (Bel) set on solid timber floor and had even chosen to have red gum laid - BUT - there were some issues that we were having in relation to this issue, primarily how to protect the floor until handover, price and getting it sanded along with waiting the time after handover.  At the end of the day and weighing up the pros and cons we decided to go floating floorboards.

Then came the decisions... colour (my first love was Spotted Gum floors and we couldn't have them in solid timber due to the climate at The Ponds) and then do them ourselves or through the builder.

We shopped around and decided to go with Harvey Norman at St Martin's Village, Blacktown.  Tom was so helpful and did us a fantastic deal.  So now we are having Spotted Gum Boral Engineered timber floor and our carpets are Smartstrand IQ-150.  It felt amazing.  Our first preference for colour was Atlantic Fog although Tom has assured us that we do have some flexibility to change our mind prior to him having to actually order it.

The service that Tom Connolly (Manager) gave was fantastic and he bent over backwards to help us and answer our questions.  The deal that we ended up getting was the best around.  We would highly recommend him to anyone looking for carpets or timber floors for their home.

We are BRICKED!! An A++++ job

Our bricking is finished and we are so rapt with the job that our extremely capable bricklayers did.  The workmanship is top quality and we are so thrilled.  They did some mitring ( I think that it is spelt like that) on the balcony and in Phil's opinion it looks a million bucks.

We are so happy with the professionalism that Rob, Fred and their crew displayed.   If anyone is looking for  fantastic bricklayers, contact Rob and his father Fred on the number that is displayed in the side bar.  We cannot sing their praises enough.  They had some great suggestions to improve the look of the brickwork and we were happy to follow their advice which was brilliant.

Phil can be very fussy and he was completely bowled over by the precision of their work.  Now we are just waiting for the gutter and the facia to go in (hopefully the end of next week) with the roof and cladding on shortly after that.

We are happy with the brick colour that we have chosen and we're sure it's going to look fantastic when the bricks are cleaned.

Now to some pictures:

This is from our back yard looking to the alfresco.  We are so happy with the way that it looks.

This one is taken from the south side (on one of the last remaining blocks of land that haven't been built yet... we are hoping that they get to start soon... hopefully after our roof is on :)

Fred laying our final brick on the house..... A celebration indeed.

Our amazing brickies with Tristan who has been so interested in the whole build process but especially the bricklaying.  He is thinking of doing this as a career.

The front of the house looking at it from the Riverside Drive  side.  The balcony has the most amazing detail.

The front view of the house.

We are so excited to be further along on our journey.  The cladding is to go on the left hand side and around the side and along some walls on the back.  Our Site Supervisor, Dean, continues to be supportive and is always ready to answer any questions.  In fact, all of the guys from Modernview Homes have been amazing.  Their customer service and willingness to help is exceptional.  We are so pleased that we have chosen this amazing company.  We would highly recommend them.

It's very exciting to hear about all our neighbours and their progress.  Matt and Carolyn's bricks are going gangbusters.  Ben and Thigee are gearing up to move in.  Our next door neighbours are almost at PCI.  Skypie has had his top storey bricks cleaned.  Things are certainly moving in Waterfall 9.

Hope everyone else's builds are going great and we continue to hope for fantastic weather.  Goodness knows we've had enough bad weather since we started.