Monday, February 28, 2011

Signed off on Kitchen today

This morning we headed out to the kitchen place to see the final design and sign off on the kitchen. This was something we were a bit worried about, wondering what the final price would come in, how much higher than our builder's allowance would it be.

We knew it would be over the allowance as we have added some extras. We went for bulkheads above the cupboards as we both think it just finishes off the kitchen, along with these we added the canopy hood flyover (above rangehood). Extra high cupboards from standard to allow for the 9' ceiling. An appliance roller shutter so we can hide the kettle and the toaster away and a chopping board to match the sink. With these extras it came just under $1,000 so we are pretty happy with that.

We ummmed and arrrrred over bench top, but finally decided on a Laminate top, we have chosen 'Ebony Marble' in a diamond gloss finish with 8x8 post formed edge. The same can be said about the cupboards, gloss or matt, we finally decided on gloss polytec vacuum formed vinyl in 'Classic White' with the door profile being 'Paterson'. So it is a classic black and white kitchen, which we think should look fantastic.

The only thing we still have to come to a decision on is the splashback, neither of us are interested in glass, we don't really like it that much. We are thinking of Matrix Glass Tiles in the 100x100mm (format 09) in Chilli colour behind the oven and up to the canopy flyover. For the rest of the kitchen just a plan white tile in the same size 100x100mm. Hopefully this should be a great cente piece to the kitchen. We are yet to fully decide but the decision is to be made by the weekend.

We have included the following pictures and plans of the kitchen.


Top View

 Front view


 3D Views



 3D View (the door is the walk-in Pantry)
                                                                          Benchtop


                                                        The door colour - "Classic White"




                                                                        Door Profile


                                                                 Handles 224mm bar handle

                                                                Sink - Maddison 300

****UPDATE****

We finally decided on our kitchen splashback today (06/01/11), we have decided on a redish colour tile with a glass style small feature tile through it. The main tile will be 100x100mm Waringa Morello, by Johnson Tiles with a feature of a 200x30mm Crocodile Arnhem_land, by Decoramics. The feature strip will run horizontally after the second row of tiles around the entire kitchen. Yes it looks very bold, but hey why not should look awesome.

Wall Tiles


Feature Tile


 

To be cont...................

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Start of Frame work.

I spoke to the builder early in the week and he told me that the frame would be started on Friday 25th Feb and should be finished on Tuesday 1st March. He also told me that the rumpus room drainage issue had been fixed, hopefully this is the only issue we have, tell you if it is we will be very happy.

So we headed out to have a looked on Saturday 26th Feb and took some photo of the framework. And even more happy I have drainage set up for the rumpus room.

Photos taken Saturday 26th February 2011


Front (spare) bedroom

Looking towards top level, main bedroom and family room.

Side of house, garage.

Front entry level, garage, hallway etc.

Garage

Bottom level kids bedroom.

both kids rooms.

taken from one kids room into the other.

The drainage pipe in question in the rumpus room.

taken in rumpus room looking out rear door.

taken from loungeroom looking outside, nice view.

Taken from backyard looking towards rumpus and lounge rooms.

View from the street

View from front.


Hopefully we can get out mid week to see where they are at with it, if not will have to wait until the weekend. We are off the sign off on the kitchen in the morning, so we will have plans to add tomorrow.

Thanks for looking so far, we love your comments.

To be cont............

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Part 2 of Slab poured

When we got home from work on Tuesday (15th Feb) we were met with an email for the first progress payment for the slab. After speaking to the builder on Monday, he told us that it was all on track to pour the top slab on Tuesday. So as we are required to sign off so he can get paid for it when we out and had a look today (Wednesday). Sweet, the slab is complete, so now the waiting time for curing etc......All good so far.

Prior to checking out the slab we had an appointment with the kitchen designer. We were a little nervous about this wondering what we wanted and what we could get. Luckily almost everything we wanted was within standard allowances. It looks like there might be a few little extras, like higher cupboards (to suit 9' ceiling) and bulkhead above cupboards, hopefully this shouldn't break the bank, we will see when the design and price comes back. The process was a lot less painful than what we thought it would be, it was actually an enjoyable process, hats off the Cobbitty Grove Kitchens, well so far anyway. We will update the kitchen details when we get the design back.

As for the saga of the missing drainage pipe, well look likes there is a pipe coming out of the concrete wall about 200mm above floor level in the rumpas room. All I can say is lucky I noticed it when I did, because if not there would have been issues.

Here are the pictures we took today.









You can see the round hole/dot in the wall where the pipe is, drainage for bar sink.










 To be cont............

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Part 1 of slab poured :)

After going out on the 5th February I contacted the builder during the week and he told me that the bottom half of the slab would be poured on Friday 10th and the top half would be poured on Tuesday 15th. So we headed out on Saturday the 12th to take some more happy snaps to update our blog.


















Upon inspection we noticed that one thing was missing in the bottom slab, oh no, what to do. In the corner of the rumpus room which is on the lower slab we had asked for drainage pipe and plumbing to be there but blanked off. Well we were a bit suprised to see no drainage pipe sticking out of the slab. The reason we are doing this is because we are putting a bar in the rumpus room and want to have a sink (doing it ourself after build).

So the following day (Monday) I called the builder and asked him about about, his first words were, "is that on the plans", um yes it is, I told him that they are on the council stamped plans, ummm ok (could hear panic in his voice). Builder rings me back an hour later, and he was very apologetic. He said that the plumber missed it on the plans and he just briefed over it. He said that the plumber said he could fix it before the top slab was poured, which luckily is tomorrow (Tuesday). We will see...................fingers crossed.

To be continued........

Getting ready for some concrete

Been a bit busy to update blog but we have had some movement since last time we posted. We went out on the 5th February and took some more pics of the progress. Well we have a fence up and around our block and they have started with the formwork. So doesn't look like it will be too long until we get some concrete layed, yeah............














And the story continues.................