Week Twenty Five 25 - 28 Mar
Day 120 - 124. This week all the laminate floors were laid. Its so close to finished now its great. The NSW spotted gum was laid through the bedrooms, study and family room and the limewash bamboo through the main living area, kitchen and entry way.
The spotted gum has a nice variation of browns through it. The main living area looks great and is so light and bright.
I was a bit worried about the limewash bamboo because it is the sort of colour that can look a bit incipid but there is enough colour in it that it still has depth and body. It also works well with the laminex that I chose as it definitely has the cool undertones and not the yellows that most blond woods have. It also goes really well with the spotted gum where the two meet as can be seen in the image above.
Both the site manager and the guy laying the floor said when they first saw the bamboo they weren't keen on it but both said they were converted once they saw it laid over such a large area. My site superviser said he has seen it laid in smaller rooms before and it didn't work in those rooms but he was sold on it being in a large light room.
On the home stretch now and have been madly working away at the old house to prepare it for sale. Another room painted and the hallway started. More boxes have been packed and items identified for the garage sale I know we are going to need to have. We planted up one of the garden beds with seeds so hopefully by the time we put it on the market there will be lots of little plants, and the kids have been down weeding the garden.
Still got a lot of things to get organised at the new place too. Have quotes coming in for the fences, fortunately both my neighbours are lovely and have all agreed to the same fence. Its called a good neighbour fence as it looks the same from both sides. It will be like the fence in the picture with the kids but will only be 1200 high and will be capped like the bottom image.
We will get the downhill side fence up as oon as we can but the uphill side one will wait until they have cut their land so we can do the retaining wall and fence on that side at the same time and also ensure the fence doesn't need to be moved for their build.
Down in the covenant area we will put up a post and rail fence with wire mesh. We have investigated the covenant guidelines and got some advice from the council and certifier as the guidance information about eco-fences offers numerous styles that are dependent upon the wildlife in the area. The council were pretty useless about giving us the info about exactly which fence or what wildlife but after some research we have found the only animals we need to consider are scrub turkeys, possums, birds and reptiles. The post and rail fence meets the needs of these animals to get over or through.
We are still waiting for the engineer to get the retaining wall plans for us. I am hoping that his delays do not delay us moving in as we need the retaining wall near the front door built to make that area stable before we can move in. The same chap will be doing the driveway.
The shelving for the built in robes has been organised. The kids bedrooms will have a bank of shelves and a bank of wire draws. Theirs are all white.
In our bedrooms we are having a custom built setup made from polytec gesso lini. It contrasts nicely with the floor and being a light colour will keep the WIR looking open and light. I have been trying to work out how to deal with the one corner that we have in the robe. Initially I was looking at putting in a corner unit but they take up a lot of space and end up with a space in the back corner where I could see things getting "lost". I found the solution shown above where the shelving in the corner goes in one direction and the hanging rail perpendicular to it.
I organised the solar panels and solar hot water system this week as well and the electrician is coming to put in tarriff 33 circuits to support the solar hot water.
