Bit more cornice and some cladding

I've been travelling for work this week so it's been a little harder to ascertain when and what has been done but checking out the house this morning, I can see more cornice has been put up in our upstairs void, sitting area and master bedroom. All that's left of the cornice to do is a little bit to our master walk in robe and master ensuite. In our master bedroom, we have a raised ceiling, and we're using some cornice to the internal raised section to create a light trough for this space. It'll then have a single pendant light hanging in the middle. We are really happy with how this part is looking and are looking forward to seeing it painted.

I also noticed that we had some cladding installed to the front elevation of the house. Our house is quite lineal in its design and we're having a raised moulding installed to the top front of our balcony and portico wall to give it a little bit of depth. This was a design detail suggested by Stannard - something we simply wouldn't have thought of ourselves. Anyway, that's about all I've noticed this week - I'd suggest there's probably only been one day of work done by the cornice guys so it's probably been a quietier week, which is to be expected the closer we get to Christmas. The office shuts down in a week's time so I'd imagine we're pretty close to finished for the year now as far as progress goes.

White Plaster Coat, Cornice & Even Some Paint!

It's been back to back weeks of work at the block and to say we're happy to see such great progress is an understatement. 

The plastering team returned this week to apply the smooth gypsum plaster set coat to all the internal walls, leaving them very smooth with a pinky/orangey hue. This took a couple of days to complete. Next up were the cornice fitters who, as the name suggests, starting putting up our cornicing to all the rooms. They also seem to be the ones responsible for making all the gaps smooth everywhere (like where gyprock joins together, where it meets cement render/plaster, etc. They had completed roughly half the upperstairs by the end of the week but appeared to have done most of the measuring and cutting, leaving only the installation bit still to be done.

We had our biggest shock of the week Friday though, when we noticed a different trade ute parked out the front, when we were half expecting the cornice guys back. Instead we found painters! Painting was never mentioned in any of our updates so we were blown away to be seeing our first look at our chosen paint colour (although only as a first coat) this week. The painters are a father and son combo with the father having worked for Stannard for over 40 years. We like that and having trades like that on the payroll is one of the reasons we chose Stannard.

We're starting to get close to Christmas now and with a hot week forecast, I'm not expecting as much progress in the coming weeks but happy to continue to be surprised!

Upper Floor: Glass, ceiling & plaster coat

This week was one of the busiest we've seen for our build yet.😀 

But before I get into that, we only had one thing happen last week - we had the our brickie team from the ground floor arrive back on site to finish bricking up the balcony. Previously they had left an access hole through the balcony to allow trades to get wheelbarrows through the balcony wall for all the cement render. That access was bricked up last week. Was a surprise to see our ground floor brick crew back but since to say g'day to the team again.

Onto the week that was. We had three different trades attend this week. Yep, you read that right, three! The glazier from Jason windows kicked things off Monday by putting in all our external windows and sliding door glass to our upper floor. He was all done by Monday afternoon.  Tuesday saw an early delivery of gyprock and cornice materials followed shortly after by the attendance of the ceiling guys to start putting the ceilings in. They wasted no time and had pretty much finished putting it all up in one day.  We love how the raised ceiling in our master bed is looking! They came back Wednesday morning to finish off what they hadn't got to as well as do the drywall sheeting to the void wall, which doesn't get the cement render treatment that most of the other walls receive.  

Friday the rendering team were back on site to finish rendering the external balcony now that the brickwork had been completed as well as start applying the smooth plaster coat to the internal walls.  I was surprised at just how smooth this plaster coat goes on. No doubt that comes down to the skill of the trade and when you see the quality of the work we're getting, it does make all the waiting a bit more palatable. 

Our fortnightly update that we got on Wed also suggested that the progress will continue in the coming weeks with ceiling guys back to put on the cornicing once the internal plaster work is done, a trade to come and apply our external mouldings (the materials were also delivered this week) and even the waterproofing to the upstairs wet areas are booked in to be done. Nice to get a good run of trades, especially this close to Christmas when I was expecting things to quieten down. 

Render

After our long wait for the scaffold to be dropped we saw signs of construction life the next week with the arrival of the air con installers on Mon Nov 6th. They pretty much got the main parts of the upstairs air con sorted the first day and then came back at some point later on to take care of the plumbing and electrical for it (not sure when).

A week later the rendering team showed up to apply the cement render to both the inside and outside of the house. The inside took the team three days to do, including inside all the robes, bathrooms, linen cupboard, etc. The outside was knocked off in just one solid days work on the Thursday. 

Nice to (mostly) no longer see the brick. (Some inside walls will be drywalled and some outside walls will be covered by lower roof or require more brickwork to be done for front facade).

Next we're expecting the ceiling fixer to do the ceilings and cornice upstairs before the renderers return to do the top set coat of around a week's time. Also expecting all the glazing to go in at some point. Can't wait to see the upper floor reach "lock up".

Scaffold Drop

After a little over four weeks of waiting, today we finally saw the scaffold team back on site to drop the scaffold back down to the floor height of the upper floor. Stannard has really struggled with this scaffolding team and as a result have sought alternate vendors. Unfortunately we're stuck with the under performing mob and the long waits that come each time we need scaffolding moved. Fortunately it should stay where it is now until they are fully finished with our upper floor. 

We're now expecting to see renderers & plasterers on site to attend to both inside and out, air con ducting installed to the upper floor, ceiling and cornices installed and windows put in as the next steps. Basically they get the upper floor to "lock up". Fingers crossed we get a good run of these trades in November!

Roof Cover

It seems everything happened while we were away (as is always the case when you're watching something closely).

As part of the celebration of Cheryl, 11x Wylde's went south for a week down at Siesta Park, just outside of Busselton during the first week of school holidays for some well needed R&R. Back home at our build, things weren't quite so leisurely. Fortunately my neighbours are keeping us updated and half way through our trip down south, on Wed 27th September, I received a couple of messages to say that our roof cover was going on.

When we arrived back from Siesta Park on Friday the 29th, we found the house with the roof cover fully done, the upstairs plumbing all chased in and the electricians on site putting the final touches on chasing in the electrical wiring. Three trades in one week! 

Top Roof Cover is another project milestone, which of course means another bill, but also means another step closer. Our next major milestone is Lock Up, so there's going to be a fair bit happening to get to that stage. Naturally, I took the opportunity to fly the drone over the house to capture the roof cover in all its glory.

Also, randomly after flying the drone over, I noticed a few days later we now have a TV aerial. I don't know when that happened!

Roof framing

On Friday 1 September it was all action at our block with the arrival of our roof carpenter together with a crane. The crane spent a few hours lifting all the roof materials up into the upper floor and onto the scaffolding and the boys wasted no time cracking in. By the end of the day, we had the start of all the flat beams that the ceiling will attach to. We could also see where the raised ceiling recess will be for our master bedroom.

Unfortunately, winter wasn't quite done with Perth and we lost the next  Monday and Tuesday to bad weather with no one on site. Wednesday the boys were back and by the end of the day, we had the start of our roof pitch. Another two solid days work on Thursday and Friday and by late Friday afternoon, the main roof structure was complete, flashing has been attached and they'd even started putting in the eaves material for the boxed eaves.

Speaking with the tradies, they thought they had a day or two ahead of them still so hopefully the weather stays good and we see them first up next week. 

Update 12/9: Cruising past the block late Monday it appears that the framing part of the roof construction has been completed. The wooden framing looks done to my untrained eye, the flashing is on and the eaves have been sheeted. Speaking with the Stannard team over the weekend, I understand they need the flashing on before they can measure up and order the colorbond roof cover so we won't see that for a couple of weeks I'd suggest. In the meantime, we are expecting to hear from the electrician to conduct our upper floor walkthrough to confirm all our electrical provisions. They'll then come and put that in. We should also see the plumbers on site to do all the pipework for the upper floor wet areas. At some point, the air con ducting also goes in but I'm not sure if that's before or after roof cover. Guess we'll see.