External painting and kitchen cabinets

Here come the painters! There were two of them, one holding a sprayer powered by a small electric motor, and the other one a roller. The paint got sprayed first over an area, followed quickly by rolling on it to even out the coating. They worked pretty quickly, the whole upper walls were completed in 2 days.



They have to stand on the scaffolds to work on the upper walls. The scaffolds will have to be removed before they can work on the lower walls.



On the inside, the kitchen cabinets got installed. They were built and installed by Kitchen Connection. My owners have chosen a neutral white colour with cream laminated benchtops. The drawers have anti slam/soft close mechanism. There's a spacious walk-in cupboard on the corner. Not seen on the left is the fridge enclosure, designed to accommodate a double door fridge up to 1 meter wide.

There is a large window in front of the sink with a good view to the front garden, providing plenty of light to make cleaning and preparing food a joyful experience.

Internal walls

I've written about my exterior works in the past 2 posts. Now let's head inside and see what's been going on there. The gyprock/plasterboard walls have been installed! Now I'm feeling like a real house. Above is a view if you stand just after the entrance, looking towards the forest facing deck. On the right is the balustrade of the stairs going down to the lower floor.



Here's a more detailed view of my internal walls. No skirting/architraves just yet. I was told by the builder that the factory that built my internal doors was caught on fire, with my ready-to-ship internal doors in it! :( They've had to re-manufacture the doors for me. Oh well...



Outside again, the soffits have been put in place and the painters (there were 2 of them) have started painting the edges. They probably start with the edges because that area need a bit careful handling, using smaller brush to apply the paint instead of the standard paint roller. My owner's daughter picked my exterior colours. The top part will be dark brown and the lower part will be white. Might as well call me tiramisu!

External cladding completed

Ah, here's my unpainted outer skin. They've added wooden trims to cover corners and the gaps between blueboards, also around the door/window frames. Cute isn't it? :)




Wood deck flooring has been laid out, ready for sealant and coating. This particular corner of the house might become a favorite spot for people to watch the forest and catch the morning sun. A perfect reading spot too!




So yeah, at this stage my colour is blue, until they send in the painters!

External cladding

My outer skin installed, made of Harditex blue board material. It is a strong base sheets that are designed to be acrylic render coated with colour and texture, giving a beautiful rendered look without the need for masonry.



Here's a detail of the cladding, showing how it meets the upper deck beams and the aluminum door frame.



The aluminum door and window frames are white, to allow for more flexible internal and external wall colour choices.



The upper floor was the latest to clad. The blue sheet with Bunnings warehouse marking on it is a reflective sarking (insulation material), which got mounted just before and underneath the external cladding. Reflective foil laminate insulation provide effective thermal insulation when used in conjunction with an airspace (in my case, between the external cladding and the internal gyprock wall). Effective thermal insulation is achieved by the high reflectivity and low emissivity of its aluminium foil surface.

Pipes, cables and Internet

My nervous system is being laid out. First came the electrical cables, followed closely by data cables (yup, I'll be an Internet-ready house!). Each room will have a data port connecting computers in the room to the local area network hub in the living room, which in turn will be connected to the broadband internet. There will be wireless base stations to connect roaming laptops. People can even enjoy internet on the garden, although I'm not sure why anyone would do that, but at least it would be available.



Then came the pipes. Smaller pipes for clean water (hot and cold), bigger pipes for grey water. There will be a water tank to store rainwater too. Not much to talk about here other than they look nicely laid out in-between the steel structure.



Coaxial TV cables are installed in master bedroom, living room upstairs and in the corridor downstairs. My owners subscribe to cable TV. Not that they watch it much, but their children seem to like it, to watch while eating lunch or dinner. They usually record the shows they like in advance, and watch them whenever they feel like it.

Roofing, no solar water heater, and pathway

The roof is looking good. It was quite a tidy job, with insulation underneath and wire nets on the sides to prevent rodents or birds to get into the attic and nested there. The roof's main shape is simple, but the way it covers the car port, front porch and decks makes interesting light and shade around the building.

The original intention was to install a solar water heater on the roof, but when the consultant came they concluded that there's not enough light on the roof due to the dense greenery above. Well, I'd rather have the trees around me get the sun they need and grow healthy, than trimming the foliage just to get solar heated water. My owners can surely figure out a different way to get hot water for their showers. They're humans after all, and are supposedly smart enough to solve simple problems like that.




My owners noticed there's a steep and slippery path between the driveway and where I stand. Some of the workers have commented about the risk of falling if you're not careful. One weekend my owners decided to make a stepped pathway that would make it safer for people to walk up and down into the construction site. Not a bad job for amateurs!

Roof truss and scaffolding

The roof truss and scaffolding are up. This Monday there were 6 people working on the various sections, mostly around the roof area. Some are still finalising the trusses while others have started nailing down the rafters. I'm guessing they want to complete the roof before working on the exterior/interior walls. Makes sense as this will allow them to work even in the rain, although it doesn't look like it's going to rain anytime soon.




Scaffolding is important as it provides a safe platform for workers to go around the construction installing walls, windows/door frames etc. The rent is not cheap I was told. But hey, you don't want people to get hurt while building a house, do you?

From this angle, the scaffold reaches up to 8 meter, covering 3 levels complete with temporary stairs and solid walkways. I like my builder's subcontractors, they work very fast and things look professionally done. It seems like they love their profession too!