Well, the drawing is getting pretty darn full, so it must mean we are getting closer to finishing off this beauty! Look through the layers if you can!

September and October has seen us pick up speed and momentum! And this month Michael weirdly turned into a very muscly puppeteering pirate due to all of his operable and moving creations over the last few months!

These last few months have seen us:

Finish the inside plywood wall lining and Wayne and Jen (Owen’s mum & dad) have almost finished white washing

Finish the lighting track and have most of the electricals finished and installed.

fix the buckled timber floor boards (thank goodness it wasn’t too painful, but we did end up with some pretty tapered ‘feature’ boards)

Install cabinetry, contractors installed the gyprock ceiling to the south

Weld and install the beautiful big top hung steel and timber sliding doors to the bedrooms and Bobbie started sewing the fabric inlay

Finish the twin-wall corflute clerestory windows and vents to above the bedroom doors

Install the modular Interclamp balustrade systems to the west and north decks and the south Juliette style balcony

…AND WE EVEN PRIMED AND PAINTED THE OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE (THANKS TO OUR AMAZING PAINTING EXTRODINARE)

And, a very exciting part is that we locked in a ‘soft opening’ party date! This means we have a tangible date we are now working towards to get as much as possible finished, and it is pretty interesting already how this changes your work attitude and progress! Nothing like a good deadline in the Christmas party season!

ALL WELCOME….! (click into blog to see more info)

Check out the cartoon and month of picks….

BOOM BOOM BOOM… It’s August.. and we are smashing along inside!

The interior lining goes in and the electrical track gets hung! With the electrician planned to come at the end of August, we had a short deadline to get the interior ply lining on with string pre-run ready for running cables in the walls and our exposed lighting track @ +2350mm installed... & damn, we did it, and DAMN don’t it look good! Although the Mitch the electrician ended up coming on the day of the snow storm, he braved the closed highway to get us electrified!

THE LIGHTING TRACK - The lighting track is our attempt at not swiss-cheesing a house for thermal improvements and ease of access to services (not totally successful..). It is working well as a few different functions; a lighting track for LED strip up-lighting, anchor point for spotlights on arms extended, essentially a cable tray for all circuits in the house, smoke detector attachment point AND a pelmet for curtains throughout. 17mm formply can do wonders!

THE ELECTRICIAN - We are lucky the electrician is actually Bobbie’s brother and is clever enough and keen enough to think about things a little differently. Although not keen on our inadequate crawl space under the house, or our TINY tolerances for the string we pre-ran behind the sheets for the cabling, or our constant changing minds whilst he was on site… he said he’ll be back.. hurrah!

THE INTERIOR LINING - is a 12mm BD structural hoop pine A-bond plywood - essentially the best we could afford with a ‘B’ face ready for painting. The back was painted to stop warping and the fronts will be white washed. Although serious thought went into our stud and noggin placements to reduce offcuts… it didn’t quite go to plan. We quickly installed some more noggins to the kitchen walls and used up our offcuts there as it will be behind the cupboards anyway… we have some plans for funky cornices to use up the rest!

The bathroom is officially grouted, gorgeous hardwood sills to the bedroom windows are in and the exposed hardwood hallway framing is in, oiled and lined with ply to the bedroom sides.

September will see us keep pushing on with the interior and hopefully not experience too much of a delay on materials or our cupboards order!

Thanks Sam Trembath, Mitch and others for your help this month!

Check out the cartoon and month of picks below….

Well, we missed a few months of the BoB.. oops! (At least it looks like we have made heaps of progress!)

Jokes aside from all the red in the cartoon, it has been a busy few months on and off-site.

Off-site, both Bobbie and Owen headed to some warmer country for a few work stints with Healthabitat as a part of the NT Healthy Homes Program… and oh my, wasn’t the sunshine and a chance to defrost nice! It was a privilege for ideals of architecture to be challenged and skills of architectural thinking to be exercised.

On-site, double glazing went into our home baked recycled HWD timber doors, the BAL-FZ shutters were installed over these doors and we finished installing the multi-layered wall system butting into the side of these shutters, vents and glass blocks - 2x13mm layers pf MR Fyrchek, sarking, 35x75mm pine battens and a 9mm Cemintel CFC sheet (yet to be painted).

The two beautiful Flamezone Paarhammer windows went in to the two gable ends to frame the sky (these windows don’t need shutters as they are tested to AS1530.8.2).

The deck welding was finished and the 15mm Cemintel CFC decking sheets (60kg each!!!) were screwed down as the finished deck flooring. A clear sealant with anti-slip coating was applied and it already feels like it has disappeared underfoot which we are so happy about..…. (It took ages to carefully coat the sheets and screw holes!). Anyway, the flush sills from inside to outside look and feel great!

Unfortunately we are also not escaping the price rises and increasing lead times on everything. We luckily did order a lot of products early last year and have been storing them on site, but as an example the flame zone shutters in themself increased in price by over $5k in just 5 months! YIKES!

AND WE ARE OFFICIALLY WORKING INSIDE!

With some great help on site, Bobbie lined the bathroom with the second-hand formply (as per livable housing standards prospective wall reinforcing), installed the sand and cement floor screed, waterproofed, and began tiling! She officially does not want to be a tiler and knows the pro’s and con’s of mosaic tiles!

We will keep pushing throughout August to keep the momentum cracking as interior finishes and electricals start to take shape with MBA Electrical (Bobbie’s brother) and the piggybanks gets closer to empty!

Oh and of course, Michael continues to make wicked jigs - check out the ladder extension leg in pic below!

Check out the cartoon and month of picks below….

Doors, Doors, Doors… it’s door month!

The doors came out of the workshop after extensive sanding and 3 coats of tinted Cutek in the workshop.. a long anticipated moment, and what a moment it was!

The doors were delivered to site and after some final opening and sill prep, the doors slowly but surely started going in. The jambs were screwed together and stood into the frame, then the doors hung… after going on and off about a billion times to get the sizes right, hinges right, rebates altered and and hardware installed… boy do we know doors now - no one can fool us on that one! The hardware makes the doors feel like they are gliding on air, perfect for frail aged hands! The glass man came and measured all the openings for our double glazing - an easy way to do it so it doesn’t matter if our openings are not perfectly square - cut to fit!

Our vent flap frames got fabricated and were painted by trusty Wayne, their openings were flashed and we detailed the wall system flap… now to build it.

Rick the builder started working with us of a saturday to help us move along on our merry way, Owens sister Jess flew all the way from Berlin to oil the last post and the incredible Brit Andresen visited the site to give her tick of approval!

Check out the cartoon and month of picks below….

What a month! Recycled hardwood posts, knee braces, rafters, on-site milled ridge beams, steel connection plates, and a bloody roof with all the fire proofing junk!! WOW!!

What a month it was! Floors in, Walls continue to take shape and the spaces feel more and more complete… with Murcutt nude feature!

August was pretty good to us, it has started to warm up, so only hitting minus degrees in the morning rather than all day. BEAUTIFUL!
Featuring sexy on site milled pine comes to the table

Well July was a bit of a crapshoot. The COVID situation here closed down all construction sites so we couldn’t work for half of it and it was snowing for the other half of the month….so not a lot got done. There were however some nice sunsets.

Our June biography of a build out now. This month featuring the amazing Michael Hoffman, Jen, Wayne & Simon, Matt and Tom from SCA Engineering. We have floor structure and all of our structural steel in place!! Now time for some walls....and maybe a post lockdown party!

Weld Simon Weld!

CSR arrives!

Mick - a local maker and artist joins the team.. making us an unstoppable trio!

Drafting Steel, breaking rock and getting footings sorted!

Our 4 metre call columns take shape and get plumb!