Finders Keepers #2

Melbourne market #2 was on the weekend past. If you missed it, sign up to the Finders Keepers newsletter so you get to the next one in October which will be just the right timing for Christmas presents.

I went more prepared to spend some $$ this time and picked up some great gifts, children's fabric brooches and prints by Paula Mills and Almond Tree Frames for the new walls.

I'm feeling blue...

We're all wrapped up and ready to go.

Doesn't it blend well into the landscape ?!


I'm not quite sure what it looks like right at this moment, but I am sure it will look better when it has cladding (this week!) that is painted (this week and the next! Flooded gum!) and has a timber screen covering half of it up (the week after!). In the meantime, we provide topics of conversation for the neighbours.

Build it up, build it up, build it higher...

There is some serious scaffolding in place. There will be some busy beavers there these next few weeks!

A bit of a pause

I think this has been my longest pause in blogging about this build- brought about jointly by a pause on the block whilst a key tradie goes on holiday (the cheek) and the general business of life that, whilst not keeping my mind off the house completely, has kept me from the more enjoyable wishlist dreaming it is fun to keep a record of here.

Things are starting to move again, and it will be a very busy next few weeks as the cladding goes on, cladding is painted, faschia is installed, timber feature screen is installed. We are off to visit the newly erected scaffolding tomorrow so I daresay photos will follow!

Of late, much mental effort, head swivelling and eye squinting (at other houses) has gone into exterior paint colour. We want a grey that will be a good foil for the richness of the windows and the timber screen, but it also has to be a grey that still looks good with the timber screen once it's weathered, and a grey that looks good behind planned olive and citrus trees at the front. Still, it shouldn't be too hard right? Well, that darned Dulux has approximately 23 zillion different greys...this one throws pink...that one throws purple...this one is a teensy bit greenish...And then once you've got the shade right..how light?...how dark? Before we know it external paint colour has become choosing the loo all over again. And it's not like it's the butterfly effect. The future of the world will not rise or fall on our exterior grey paint colour. Yet, we still have to choose...

The pre-sample pot shortlist sound like songs or movies of years gone by: Spanish Olive! Milton Moon! Endless Dusk! Flooded Gum! I couldn't find any pics of these colours so in the interests of including something visual, the splashback in the kitchen below is Milton Moon.

Flexing our green credentials #3 - windows

Not only are they beautiful, our windows will be working to keep us warm and cool as well. They were made in Geelong by Pickering windows out of western red cedar. We chose timber over aluminium and plastic because it is a good thermal insulator (which aluminium isn't) and is a sustainable resource (which plastic isn't).

Children's desk area:

The windows and sliding doors in the main living areas (kitchen, meals, lounge & family room) are double glazed to keep the Winter warmth in, and the rest are low E glass cos our budget didn't quite stretch to double glazed throughout. We expect that combined with drapes in the bedroom they will be quite satisfactory!

The windows to the North are expansive to let as much Winter light in as possible, while they are kept smaller to the South to reduce heat loss. In the Summer, the Northern windows will be shaded by a pergola covered (in perhaps a few years) by a deciduous vine of some sort or another. The windows are primarily sliders so they can be opened as wide as possible to capture the cool breezes on Summer evenings.

Kitchen window over the sink :

Finally, the windows have been designed to be roughly opposite each other on North and South sides to get those cross-breezes flowing. Also, the door onto the deck at the top of the stairs can be opened to act as a bit of a thermal chimney to draw hot air up the stairwell and out the door. We must be confident as we are not installing an air conditioner - though they could be famous last words!

We have windows

A few days of hard work have resulted in all the windows in and a very tidy site! There was one minor hiccup when a painted window was leant up against a wall prior to installation....the wind blew up....crash!! It was the studio window on the far right in the photo below. Only the glass will need to be replaced. Oh well....these things happen!

Here's the North side:

The photo below is the South side. All of those empty frames are not due to breakages (thank goodness!), but due to separate delivery of the double hung windows going into them.

And lastly, a closer look at a window in one of the downstairs bedrooms looking to the North down the block.

In case you were wondering, the bright blue is the waterproof membrane wrapped around the frames before the cladding goes on not the colour we have chosen for the exterior. That choice is still in progress.

The glass is going in

The windows were delieverd on Monday, given an immediate first protective coat and instalment has commenced!

A weekend visit with a checklist

#1 - Inspect the tidy up performed by my father-in-law (thanks Papa!)

#2 - Enlist child labour to help shift a few bits of timber around - check



#3 - Picnic on the lounge room floor - check
#4 - Meet the 'man with a bobcat' and outline grand plans for bottom 15m of the block which requires some shifting and spreading of the big pile of dirt - check
#5 - Do a room by room walk-through using imagination, squinting and head tilting to finalise future cabinetry requirements - check
#6 - Do a room by room walk-through to complete an electricals diagram for lights, fans and powerpoints (you can never have too many) - check
#7 - Spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach (just 15 mins away) for icecreams, digging in the sand and wave jumping - CHECK!