This is the main alfresco and two bedrooms at the back that has been finished.

 

This is the second alfresco and living room.

 

This is the master bedroom on the far left, ensuite then media room which we are hoping to have this side finished this week.

 

This is the front of the house, far left is the garage, portico then master bedroom.

Bricks Cont

So last week we had the brickies out there from Monday starting the brick work and also getting the wrap done. Thursday was a write off because it was about 43 degrees out there and no one with common sense would have been working in those conditions. But we did notice there was some brick work done on Saturday which was pretty awesome so they still had 5 days out there last week.

From the photos, you can see that the back and side of the house has been bricked and pretty much complete and we are just waiting on the front of the house to finish so we are hoping by Wednesday this week all the bricks should be up.

We are a bit nervous because we found out our site supervisor has finished up on Friday and we are getting a new one, not yet known. We are hoping the change over is smooth and it doesn't hold us up too much but time will tell on that one.

 

Updated progress of the brickwork. This is at the back of the house where two bedrooms are side by side. It gives more of an idea of the colour of the Sorbetto colour.

 

This is the sorbetto colour, will look even better once they are finished and the bricks cleaned.

 

This is the wall wrapping which goes around the house.

 

All this orange brick work will be rendered and painted.

Bricking

Hey Guys,

So on Monday this week we had the brickies come out and start. A little bit was done which you will see in the photos. The grey brick is staying as is and is the sorbetto colour, where you see the orange common bricks, this will be rendered and painted later on.

On Tuesday we thought more bricks would be done (there was a little) but the main difference is they put up the wall wrapping which I believe is to create a moisture barrier which should prevent mould etc so we are definitely glad this has been done.

Today and tomorrow, the temp is meant to be pretty hot so we have no idea if they will have a break and resume on Friday but we will check it out on Friday evening and let you know.

Framed! Cont

 

This is the alfresco sliding door and to the right is the bedrooms.

 

This side of the house is the master, ensuite, media and the sliding doors to the second alfresco.

 

To the left is the garage and the windows to the right is the master.

 

The framing had started on Wednesday, we didn't look on Thursday and this was the end result on Friday evening. So happy we could finish the week with this bit finished.

Framed!

 

The above 3 pics is what the guys did on day one of framing.

Slabbed!

This first pic is the slab the same day it was poured.

 

 

This one was either the next day or day after and you can see its set more and the wood around it is now gone.

Feb 2016

Feb, Feb, Feb. Gee Feb has been awesome so far! We ended up getting the form work done early feb and that was finally the last step before we could get the slab down. There was so much rain in Sydney and so inconsistent, we felt like it took forever to get here but we made it! It would have been around the 10th or so that the slab was done and we were told it didn't need to cure for too long, so it ended up being about just over a week before they started frame work.

It was incredible that it only took 3 days to have the complete frame up and windows/glass doors put in! and now this week, we start brick work although, there are two really hot days coming up on Wed/Thurs so I don't think they would be working outside then, so not sure how long until brick work will be finished.

 

How the site looked after benching.

 

 

After the piers were put in.

Jan 2016

After the xmas and new year break, Adenbrook were back into it around mid January and we ended up having the site benched in preparation for the slab. After the benching was done, we had the pier measure done shortly after. Finally we were starting to see what building a new house is all about.

Demo Cont

 

This was the second company we hired and in a day had this machine out there and were very efficient in getting rid of our old house.

 

 

The site after they were finished.

 

Demo

 

This was the 'demo' work that was done by the original company. It took a few weeks to get to this stage and yep we had heavy hearts at this stage.

November/December 2015

This was probably the worst time for us and it had nothing to do with Adenbrook. We were having such a hard time with organising the demolition of our existing house. We were probably like everyone else where you get your quotes and try and organise a good deal etc. We ended up going with a demo company that had been brought to our attention by word of mouth and the reason we went with them was because they said they could arrange the demo of the house and also remove a plum tree as well where as most companies said we would have to get rid of the tree ourselves. Little did we know, they just do the demo and they outsource the tree job anyway!

After some toing and froing, we finally booked them in and paid a $4k deposit (Crazy we know now) and we got a lot of empty promises and after a couple of weeks they got some people out there to remove our roof tiles and that was it. Then we hadn't heard from them and kept getting told they would do it in a few days in a few more days etc. We ended up making the decision to cut our losses, lose the $4K deposit and move on. (Expensive lesson learnt)

We left the demo be for a while and arranged to have the plum tree removed and the guy we hired mentioned a mate that did house demolition and was reliable and could get our job done in a day or two. We were in December at this stage and ended up going for it. This guy got it done in one day and we were really happy with that. Only thing is because it took so long we couldn't get our slab done by the end of the year but hey, at least the house was gone!

October 2015

We were kinda just plodding along and organising all our pre build admin work which was made to be a breeze with the consultant we had assigned to us, words cannot say how amazing she was and how easy she made the process. Towards the end of October, we ended up getting our CDC approval so we didn't need to go to council.

Colours Cont

 

We fell in love with the flooring at the Saxon display home and this was a must have for Bec so we didn't have to think too hard on this one. It's bamboo flooring and is chocolate, it actually has a nice texture to it too. The carpet is for the bedrooms and the media room which is called Resort Twist Serenity. The media room will be painted in a dulux colour called punchit purple!

Colours Cont

 

The above is for the kitchen. We went with 40mm bench tops and the island bench has the two waterfall ends, it will be in the Verona Mist colour (Which was unfortunately the most expensive but totally looked the best!) Then to keep in line with our kitchen inspired pic from the Aria back at Kellyville, we opted for black overhead cupboards and white underneath.

Colours Cont

 

The colours here are for our ensuite and bathroom. The stone bench is 20mm thick and is in the Bassalto colour and the colour on top is called silver strata which is for the cabinets underneath, the grain is horizontal not vertical and the satin lite glass is for the bathroom privacy window.

 

The other colours to the right, pure marble which is for the laundry bench, we just went with laminate in there and white cabinetry.

Colours Cont

 

The darker tile here is for our two alfresco and portico areas, it's called Renegade Grip and is 450 x 450 and the lighter tile is for our ensuite and bathroom, this one is called Renegade Grey and is 450 x 450. The ensuite and bathroom will be floor to ceiling tiled.

Colours Cont

This is still the same as the last pic for the exterior but also shows the wood cladding we got which we thought we should get as our front door is wood so needed to have some kind of balance.

Colours!

In this pic, the bricks are called Sorbetto and I think the thingy on top is the colour for our gutters and fascia which is called night sky. The roof tile is the traditional style which was a slight upgrade and we got it in sambucca. The colour on top of the brick is called tranquill retreat and is our render colour. Then the water tank, down pipes and meter box are all called shale grey.

September 2015

Not too much was happening since August until now when we got the soil test results back which were all ok and indicated we were getting an M class slab which basically means no extra charges so yay!

At some point in September we also had our colours selections which was pretty cool! The set up was good as everything was all at the Adenbrook show room so we didn't have to travel to different places or anything. We had two girls from Windermere who were giving us interior design tips which was good and all in all, I think we had it finished by approx midday so only took a few hours.

We found the hardest part was actually selecting the bricks funnily enough! The main theme of the house was to have a dark/light feel to it. We weren't too worried about what was in or out as we don't plan on selling in the near future so it was more a case of modelling on what we wanted. Mind you, it was so hard to try and pick from just tiny little samples but somehow we managed!

This is the plan layout for the house. We didn't make any structural changes but the criteria was to have the master bedroom at the front so we can be the closest to the front door and we have the two bedrooms at the back for our girls so they can be next to each other.

August 2015

August was a pretty cool month because we got our tender and contract documents all done which was a pretty easy process, no headaches from what I can remember.

 

This is a photo of the Orion with the Kalia façade that we chose to go with.

July 2015

So I think it was about a week or so later and we decided to venture out to Gledswood Hills to have a browse at the display homes there. We were only after a single storey house so we didn't really have a look at the double storey ones especially because you would just run out of time. By this point, I  had sent a lot of emails to builders to get a feel for their packages and pricing which would help us shortlist a few to spend more time with.

After having some good experiences with sales rep and not so nice experiences, we found ourselves at Adenbrook. We were previously emailed about their Saxon and Orion as ones to consider. At Gledswood Hills, they had the Baywood on display which was so nice but just too big for what we wanted. We met with the sales rep and owner who were so lovely and took us through the house personally to show us around and highlight what would be included in the standard pricing and what would be an upgrade.

We decided that the gut feeling was right and we sat down to talk about fitting a house on our land. We were leaning towards building the Orion. Unfortunately, the Orion is only on display in the Gold Coast however they had a similar layout with a house called the Saxon which was on display at the Willowdale display in Leppington. So once we knew the Orion could fit on our land we hopped over to Leppington and fell in love (again) with the Saxon.

Since we had a great gut feeling and both agreed we liked the finishes in the Adenbrook displays, it was all over and we went ahead with building the Orion!

 

The above picture is of the dark light kitchen in the Aria which goes on to inspire in a big way later on but we will get to that soon.

The Beginning

June 2015

Bec and I decided that due to the high prices in Sydney, the idea of buying a second property to live in whilst renting out our first house was just going be too expensive. On one sunday afternoon, we had a lightbulb moment (Either we heard an ad on the radio or saw an advert in the paper) and we thought, knockdown the existing house and rebuild our dream home! It didn't take much convincing and we were in the car and off to Kellyville Home World.

We have never been house shopping like that before, the place was massive and we had no idea where to begin. We were just kinda wandering and we didn't even know how to get into a display home to begin with! We spent the majority of the afternoon there and were pretty set on building a house called the Aria which had this awesome dark and light theme kitchen going on and we were in love! We took all our brochures and went home to excitedly tell Bec's parents the awesome news of building a house!