On the finishing straight

A trip down to inspect progress , the painter was in (on a Saturday) and almost all the painting was done. Can`t believe how quick it`s all progressing. The internal doors are being painted before fitting, a good idea. They should be doing the external painting next week, this is only the timber infill above the garage and a small timber roof verge, also the outside doors.

Other things left to do include fitting the switches and sockets, shower screens, door handles, built in vacuum unit, splashback and all the finishing touches.


We have not gone with the builder for a lot of the extras (or necessities) as they can be a bit pricey. Got a quote for carpet last weekend which was reasonable, I had intended to lay some of it myself but as the quote was good they can do the lot. Carpet to all bedrooms, lounge, study, playroom and part of the family area.
The wet rooms are tiled as part of the house package. We will be using the latest style of vinyl planks in the kitchen and dining area, easy to cut and stick down. Another DIY job for me. Warmer underfoot than ceramic tiles and easy to clean in the kitchen area.
Other things we need to get done are the driveway, floor the porch and build a letterbox. We are looking at an exposed aggregate concrete driveway, a bit beyond my skills, but plenty of local concrete layers about.

I`ve been having a go at planning the garden layout, not that its very big...We need to be careful about which plants and trees we use as are still under water use restrictions, one downside of living in the driest continent on Earth.

There is now a large industry built up to cater for the dry garden with plants, materials and irrigation systems that work off your rainwater tank.

We expect the builder to be finished around the end of April so we could be moving in early May, watch this space....

Plasterboard all done

They have been busy in the last few weeks, all the internal walls are plasterboarded (joints filled) and the ceilings done. Even the cornices are in place. The external brickwork is finished with 3 full pallets of bricks left over, wonder where they should have gone....
We managed to put a pile of bricks aside to build our future letter box. In Australia your letter box must be beside the footpath, not in the front door. In our little estate we have design guidelines which stipulate that the letter box must be of brick


construction to match the front of the house, hence the pile of spare bricks. May attempt to build it myself but my bricklaying is not the best.


There was a kitchen fitter working last weekend (and it was a holiday weekend...) starting to position the units and drill out for connections. The bathroom cabinets are in place and the bath is ready to go in. Noticed the internal doors and door frames are all stacked up ready to go.

We had a pleasant surprise a few weeks ago, the company we bought the land from issued us wth $5000 worth of vouchers for a well known home furniture shop near us. These have already been put to good use with a large dining table and 8 chairs (built to order from some place in Indonesia, delivery in 10 weeks...). Also ordered a sofa for our bedroom. The remainder of the vouchers were used to buy timber blinds for almost every window (18 blinds in total..)

Other house buys recently were the tiles for the entrance hall, on sale at a local tile shop, end of line and just enough to do our hall. The guy also threw in a number of loose spares and even the tiles from the display board, good result.

The builder has not confirmed a finish date but we anticipate an early May completion date.

The house next door has started and they are already up to cill level with the brickwork. The 2 storey on the opposite side looks finished and there were people inside last weekend, our new neighbours, have they got a surprise coming soon.........

more bricks

Brickwork is progressing well, about 2/3 done on the majority of exterior. We also have a front door that won`t shut, work in progress as they say. They have also started to frame out the bathroom and bath area. The hole for the bath looks a bit on the small side but it`s a bit late now. Also appear to be trimming and packing out studs for plasterboard lining. No sign of any electrical works yet.
Already thinking about building a patio and roof out the back. Low level timber decking and a timber roof over with rigid pvc sheeting, or something, is the current plan.
The house over the street appears to be occupied at last, the first one in our little street. The one next door seems to have slowed down, thought they would be in by now.

We passed a billboard with a huge advert for the new Point Cook town centre and `opening soon` or so it said.
The old land sales office just up the road has been levelled and cleared. This will be a new medical centre.
When the brickwork is finished and doors locked it will be time for another stage payment. Happy days.

Our builder is pushing on after the Christmas holidays, things are progressing well. Windows in place. The roof tiles are on, apart from a few cuts and edges. Gutters and downpipes in place. The first fix plumbing is all in and seems to be in the correct places after a quick look around. The external walls have been wrapped with the green stuff you can see in the pictures.

The external bricks have arrived and the brickies should be starting late January. The meter box is in place close to the front door. As we are getting a different water heater the meter box had to move from the side but the current position was not our first choice.
Inside the house is a huge pile of plasterboard ready to go on the internal walls. I imagine the first fix electrical should be starting soon. They have finally moved the bathroom sink waste pipe into the correct position (had been positioned in the bedroom next door).

In our little (cul-de-sac) street will be 12 houses eventually. 3 are almost finished and there are 3 under construction, no sign of any others starting soon. We have read horror stories of almost complete houses being broken into and stuff like electrical goods and even water heaters being nicked. At least there should be a few neighbours about before our place is finished.

Land sales are booming in Point Cook with the release of a number of new plots in a large new estate on the Southern edge of Point Cook, stories in the paper of people camping out at the sales offices to get their choice of plot.

The new town center is well on with construction, the car parks have been surfaced and lined. Some of the buildings should be opening in the next few months.

Frame up, then stop for Christmas

Just before Christmas we had a request for payment for the frame stage, the slab was only poured a week before...Took a trip out after Christmas and yes, frame up, roof trusses on. A few truss infills still to do. We can now see the overall size of each room and picture where the furniture will be going. Can`t get over the size of the kitchen / dining / family area. Our 32" TV will be lost in the corner. Already thinking about the boring stuff like blinds, curtains, toilet roll holder, door bell etc etc. The builder is off for the Xmas break and not back until mid January. Just hope no one thinks about breaking the windows lying about in the mud...


The double storey next door is almost finished. They have opaque windows on the first floor which overlook us. The house on the opposite side has not started yet although we had a letter from the local council with a notification of a small change to their plans so could be starting soon. Our tree in front of the house is growing well, it was provided as part of the plot landscaping and we are responsible for looking after it.
The new Point Cook town center is well on with construction, should be open early 2008, around the end of the first quarter which should suit us as we are aiming for a May completion.
This is me holding up the wall at the end of our new hallway, picture taken from the front door. Hopefully the builder will come back soon and nail the wall in place....You can get an idea of the ceiling heights, we have gone for the 2600mm ceiling height for maximum light and ventilation.

Also heard that the new Point Cook marina is starting soon, a 10 minute drive down the road from us.
The new freeway off ramp is also nearly complete, could be open early 2008. This will make joining the freeway a lot easier as there will be 3 junctions for Point Cook. Has traditionally been a bit of a bottleneck in the past as the town gets bigger.
There are rumours of a new railway station for Point Cook but nothing confirmed yet.




Looking back towards the kitchen area. Dining area is the bit that sticks out the side and the area closest is our family area (with large window). Kids play room behind the camera. Area beyond the window is the future patio / verandah. This is the West side of the house and will get the setting sun as long as possible.

The strange shape of some of the pics is due to the stitching process in Photoshop, a number of overlapping pics are automatically joined together. A very clever process and if the original pics are done well then its almost impossible to see the join. A simple way to get a very wide angle shot with a normal lens. I have cropped some of these but think it looks very effective as shown.

it`s started at last....

At last the house has started, although no one told us soon enough so I missed them pouring the floor slab. Was looking forward to checking the formwork, rebar etc..
They should start erecting the timber frame next week, then promptly stop for the Christmas holidays (3 weeks at least over here). However, our supervisor said that some of the trades may be working over the holidays. The house behind is a double storey but they are set fairly far forward so not too close to us. The house beside us is also double storey but they have had to put in opaque glass as they will overlook us. The house on the other side has not started yet but it will be a single storey (same builder as ours).

Spotted the deliberate mistake on the slab, they have cast the bathroom sink waste on the wrong side of the partition wall, is in one of the bedrooms.
Oh yes, we have also had the demand for the first stage payment, cheque`s in the post (nearly..)

They quote a 20 week build (excluding holidays) so looking at sometime in May 08 for completion. Saying that, we understand that they normally finish early, watch this space.

our first bill

Had a letter from those nice people who supply our water & sewerage services. A bill for water & sewerage used in the past few months. Interesting, as we do not have a house yet. A quick phone call to complain, turns out to be an estimated bill. We will have to pay the standing charges but we were asked to check the meter reading and get back to them. For those unaware of this all buildings here have individual water meters, usually just inside the front boundary so the man can nip over and take readings. Most of Melbourne has been on water restrictions for some time. No filling pools, watering the lawn, washing the car or washing windows. Our new place will have a rainwater tank which takes water from the gutters. This is then used to flush toilets and water the garden. The system will change over to mains water if the tank gets too low. We are considering getting a second, slimline tank, to make sure we have water to establish the new garden and keep it going.

main bedroom, nice...

Another pic of the show house, our new bedroom and parents retreat. En-suite is off to the left, walk in robe adjacent. Our house will have an extra 3 small windows at high level, behind the bed. The big windows look out to the front and street. We will be looking for a small couch in the near future to go in the same position as shown (been getting a few things off ebay at present).
The house will come painted a neutral colour as standard but we will be painting a few feature walls as soon as possible. The colours in the photo are not too bad, what do you think....

more information

Here is a photo of the kitchen and family display house we looked at. Our house is handed so the photo is reversed to suit our layout.
Their display house is decked out with all the best furniture and fittings, ours will not be as pretty for a while.
We will have the breakfast bench in the kitchen, patio doors to the outside area, large sitting area with doorway through to the kids play room. Note nice high ceilings. We will likely go for timber flooring or possibly a quality vinyl, still not sure. We will be building a timber deck outside, as shown, one day...

new blog

As the building work should be starting in November we thought this would be a good way of keeping you people up to date on progress.

We are building in a new estate in Point Cook, about 25km South West of Central Melbourne. It is basically a new town, close to the freeway and a couple of km from the sea.

Our new place will be a single storey on a rectangular block. The plot faces North South and our main living areas will be facing North and West to catch the sun as much as possible.














We have gone with Porter Davis homes as their Monteden design suited our room layout requirements, was a good fit on the plot and the rooms faced the right directions as standard so no expensive re-designs or alterations.
The house is 28 squares, the local unit of house measurement. A square equates to 9 ft square I think so the area is about 270 m2, big enough....

4 bedrooms, master has a sitting area (retreat) and en-suite. Rumpus room, open plan kitchen / family area, separate laundry, living room and study.