Time for a BIG update

Well its about time I updated our Blog. We have been very busy over the past two weekends. Going back to work was like going on a holiday. So what has been happening? First of all we would like to thank Dean our family sparky for spending the weekend wiring up the whole house. We now have wiring for all the down lights in all the downstairs rooms, more power points than clipsal – outside flood lights and sensors, more two way switches, stair lights, future cameras, data comms everywhere and coax cabling. So lets have a run through the pictures.

Here is the study with the black electrical cable we put in. The builder's is white - can't see any, thats because we only get 1 power point in each room. I can probably put 15 in if I wanted too. This room will have all the PC gear in it and I hate having all the plugs lying around. You can also see some Cat 5e which is throughout the house.
This is looking through the Rumpus room wall. All the speaker wire is in place. I have setup wiring for a 7.1 setup.
The house has Bradfords Soundscreen Plus R 3.0 insulation in between the floor. We hope that this reduces the noise from upstairs when all the M&Ms are running around. ;-)
Closer look at the rumpus room or Theatre to be. The purple cable is Cat 7. We have added in Bradfords Soundscreen Plus R2.0 in this wall. The builder added in Bradfords Soundscreen Plus R1.6 to other rooms like WC, bathroom and Ensuites.

All the wires run back to Bed 4 - the same as Perry and Bernadette's. Originally I wanted to run it all back under the stairs. Running them back to Bed 4 was a lot easier.
How much cable did we use? More than I thought. At a rough guess - over 250m of power cable and that again for the lights. 600m of Cat 5e, 300m Cat 7, 400m of RG6 Coax and 300m of speaker wire.
The taps have been changed to mixer taps.
The roof on the back has been finished.

The brick work is almost complete. Just the balcony to go and under some of the windows.
The chippies worked on Anzac day to finish the back wall. They have also straightened all the walls. They were also finishing that off the previous Saturday. Very messy process - wood everywhere. I spent an awfully long time installing extra insulation. We bought extra to do a few rooms and the builder left quite a few bags left over. I had to use them all up. Kept me busy all weekend. Oh it gets very itchy. Below is the Games room which we are going to put a desk with a spare PC.
Looking at the entrance to the ensuite and WIR. We changed this on the plan to give us more room in the WIR.
What is that??? Yep its plaster. Plaster is up. This is the view towards the stairs yesterday.

Ensuite insulated.
Ensuite plastered.
The plaster bulkhead were delivered on Saturday. The Plasterers (if that is how it is spelt) started on Monday and I could not believe how much was done. There was 6 blokes going crazy...

Looking from Bed 4 at Bed 3 and 2.
Master WIR with Vacuum outlet cutout.


Um, well I had a little accident late on Sunday. When I was drilling through a beam near the stairs, to add some speaker wire, I drilled right into the water pipe. Water everywhere. You sould of seen how fast I ran to the water meter!!! I was dreading ringing our SS to explain what happened. I rang first thing Monday morning and left a message. SS rang soon after from the house asking about what happened. The plaster guys were there putting up the ceiling plaster. SS was very calm and has had it repaired today. I expect that we will have to pay for the damage.

Dining room has been transformed.
Rumpus bulkhead. We didn't want to have one. There was plaster here on Monday and now it has been removed. The bulkhead has been made for where one is supposed to be but there is no frame. I spoke to the plaster guys who will fix it up.
If you think you should give the place a bit of a clean up - like we did. Forget it. The floor looks trashed after the plaster goes up.

View from dining towards the front door.

It is very hard to get good photos after work because it's almost dark. We hope that we will still be able to get in the house before we get locked out.

I'm looking forward to having a weekend. Oh boy almost midnight, better go to bed.

Insulation

Day 71 - Here are a few pictures from during the week. I have been busy since the weekend installing all the extra electrical and data cables. I will explain what we did later. It took three days and I have a few more cables to fix up tomorrow. I will take lots of photos over the weekend before the plaster starts.
The brick work is almost finished. Uh Oh - Here comes the big bill!


On Monday the insulation was delivered. Below is the rumpus which was full. There was more in the kitchen area. We are have had the lower floor insulated as well as the walls and ceiling. Also area such as the rumpus, laundry, toilet and bathrooms will have the Bradford Soundscreen Plus. On the weekend I will add more to the bedrooms.

Lots of progress

There has been a heap of progress this week. We have had the heating, evaporative cooling and the vacuum installed. The rear alfresco\rumpus roof almost finished. The walls upstairs have been straightened. The electrical work, including the phone and tv points are complete. Many more bricks have been laid. We now even have a couple of doors. It wont be long before lockup.....


This might be the next area to be bricked.
The aircon is pretty big.
Looking good.
The fridge voids have been modified to be different heights. Our SS is very helpful. We didn't pay for the upgraded stairs, so it looks like the ladder is all we are going to get.......

Laundry door. One of the first jobs moving into the house after the flooring is to install a cat door. Nothing worse than letting the cat in and out 20 times a day.
The additional garage access door.
Not much space left in the roof...
Looks like this is where the bath will be.

Garage Wall

The boys had a conveyor to lift all the bricks up the scaffolding today. There was a further 10 packets of bricks delivered and most has been moved ready for the second floor.

The electrical has also been done.

The Rumpus \ Alfresco has had the guttering put in place also. Lets hope that the rest of the roof will be finished this week.
And here is the promised picture of the tradies lunch room. This all started when we had the really hot weather. The chippies moved the table and some chairs, we had against the fence and moved them under the tree. When the frame was up we cleaned them down and moved them into the living room. Since then we have added a rubbish bag which sometimes is used. I should probably add an ashtray. Today they have left the newspaper.
Oh the bottom corner is plaster. Its been there since last week all wrapped up in plastic.
I'm always getting picked on for my spelling. Fixed up chippies and wrapped. You know what I mean.

Garage Bricks

Slowly progressing with the brick work. All the scaffolding is up and some of the garage wall has been built. If the rain keeps away we may see some real progress. I'm hoping that upstairs gets wrapped up today to keep the rain out.

Scaffolding

Just a quick update today to show what the brickies did today. They also cleaned up a bit, I guess for the scaffolding below.

Just more Bricks

Here are the latest photos taken on Wednesday. The brickies have completed their second lap of the house. You can see that they are getting ready to start the garage.
We are going to be pushing it to make it to the house before it gets too dark after work.
I'm getting excited about the garage because it is one area of the house that we have not really been in. All the display homes garages are locked or have the sales people in the garage.

As for the internals - nothing has happened. We keep checking and find the same old dirt. The boys are using the table and chairs in the living room that we put in. There is even a plastic bag hanging on the wall with rubbish in it.

The balcony beams were put in place today also.
This was taken on Tuesday.
This was taken on Monday.

Working on Saturday???

Well there was no progress on Thursday and I suspect that there was no power due to the storm on Wednesday. The first three pictures below were taken on Friday. You can see the additional bricks by the different color mortar. The garage and front are up to the first level. So the brickies have done their first lap of the house. This has taken one week. The two below are pictures taken on Saturday. Yes Saturday! We just missed the brickies who spent the morning there. It was a neighbour who mentioned that the boys were busy this morning. What -- Really? We went around the side and realised that the kitchen side was also complete. Its amazing how much you can miss. Also the rubbish from the cage has been taken away.