This is how it all started
https://forestwoodfolkart.wordpress.com/2019/05/30/the-downside-to-hipster-living/
Category: building
A Seachange
How does one handle change?
Change might be disruptive and jolting, a shock to the system but it also heralds new possibilities and opportunities.
I will soon be moving to a new location. A new house, new area, new neighbours. It is exciting but a little daunting.
Some of you know that we have been prepping for this move for over a year and soon it will become reality. Add to that, I will be semi-retired- whatever that means?
Have you some moving tips for me? Last year when I moved to my current townhouse, I become stressed out and exhausted. I used to be an ace at moving house, when I was in my twenties and moving flats every year or so.
Thirty years on, I am older and need some tips on making it less stressful.
I would love to hear your suggestions.
Lakes Entrance
Can you imagine two billion litres of sea water? Well it is about 1000 Olympic sized swimming pools. That is size and volume of the lake created near our soon to be Home By the Sea.
The man-made lake which is about 14 metres deep, abutts another Quay development (still under construction), behind which is the sea, itself.
The seaside housing estate sits on 143 hectares of excavated soil that has been removed and re-distributed through the estate. On a typical day there are around 160 personnel on site and 60 earthmoving machines in operation. Mind-boggling statistics.
Meanwhile, at the Home by the sea, the tilers have been hard at work, and this coming week the painting and rendering will commence!
The painting will take about ten days, apparently. Three coats of Dulux Snowy Mountains Half. It will take a bit of paint to cover those walls.
I chose a neutral colour to go with the Coastal Scandinavian colour scheme. Most of the colour and tones will come from the furnishings and fittings.
More to come next week.
Cheers from Amanda
It Wasn’t FuTile
Our almost weekly visits to the house at times could at time seem over the top or fuTile, but humans being humans, mistakes are not uncommon.
On a large project such as a double storey house, and a large scale commercial building company, tradesmen’s crews work on multiple houses, at the same time. Add to this, there are so many different options and choices for fittings and selections, it is little wonder that mistakes occur.
Such as the installation of the cedar ceiling – the wrong way, or the delivery of the wrong bricks. Remember that?
And so, with this latest visit, we were pleased that we found everything in order.
Or was it?
The Kitchen and Laundry Cabinets and Splashbacks were certainly looking great.
Before 
After
The Benchtops had been installed, and were really looking smart under their protected covering. And the floor tiles and bath/shower tiling was all but complete – just the balcony to be grouted.
I worried that I did not have enough variation in the colour scheme in the upstairs bathrooms? I am regretting not adding a white subway splashback tile to lift the cold neutrality of the bathing areas. Ah, first world problems.
Before tiling 
Benchtops and tiles 
Ensuite shower
Even the garage door had been installed, but was not yet wired up. The electrician is to return to install and connect the lights, fans, power, cooking, and smallish air conditioning unit. (Notwithsdtanding a smaller carbon footprint, I live in the sub tropics so I have to a small A/C unit to be able to breathe and function in the humid summers we have).
I really was born in the wrong hemisphere!
This pic of me, is more my climate, of choice.
On returning home, from the site visit, I was proudly looking through the photos, when the MOTH announced that he had not seen any lights installed on the balcony. Almost simultaneously, I spotted a another problem, albeit a minor one. Sigh….
You might remember I said that this was our forever house, and we don’t plan on moving from there, until we are forced into a nursing home, or into the good earth itself.
Therefore, our design had factored in all the “Old persons’ gadgets and fittings, we could, such as Extra Nogging for future Grab rails in the downstairs bathroom, a wheelchair accessible walk – in shower downstairs, and a downstairs media room, a.k.a Mancave, [should that be MOTH cave??]. The Mothcave could quickly become a bedroom, if necessary for oldies who can’t manage stairs.
And also we requested:
Lever lockset doorknobs with a long easy to open handle, for potentially (sorry Manja), gnarled, arthritic hands! In fact, the MOTH went to a lot of trouble and emails to ensure there were NO round Knobs anywhere!!!!
We also wanted a lockable internal door to prevent break-ins via the hall. (One of the benefits of Social Media was that this had been a popular Burglary tactic, and design locks to foil this, if possible).
So on zooming in on the photo, I spotted this. Can you see it?
How did that round knob sneak in?
Something for Tim, our Supervisor to sort out!
Bye from Amanda and the Home by the Sea.
Cladding and Cedar Installation
The outside of the house is almost complete!
Second Storey Scyon Cladding
In the past week or two, the exterior Scyon cladding to the upper storey was installed and painted, almost as soon as it was up. It makes sense, I guess, to make use of the scaffolding, while it was still there. And naturally the soffit was also painted. ‘Soffit’ – such a strange word. I wonder what its derivation is?
I can now get an impression of the final look of the house – less the rendering on the front outside corner, of course, which will be a lighter colour, to lift the darker wall shades.
Roof
Meanwhile the Roofer has also returned to complete the flashing around the vents on the roof. That means the roof is finally finished and with Spring around the corner, (if not here already), we will have no worries with the oncoming storms, that are prevalent here, in Springtime.
Not that Queensland really has much of a Spring. Usually it jumps straight to a mild summer around mid September!
Inspection of House
Last week we met with our Site Supervisor to have a walk through the house so far, checking layouts and seeing what has been done. We are not supposed to enter the property unauthorized due to insurance and legality issues. Until the stairway is installed the only access to the second floor is via a ladder! A bit of a risk for those without WH& S training.
No one seemed to worry so much about that in days gone by, did they?
Outdoor Alfresco Ceiling Installation
When we came to inspect the ceiling in the outdoor patio area, we noticed the wooden feature ceiling that cost me SOOO much money, to include in the design, had been installed – the wrong way!!!!! What????
It was an error as they had not seen it with a “castellation” or routed profile facing out before! It WAS them that drew our attention to it, so we couldn’t complain they were not totally upfront in the matter.
To be fair to the carpenters, cedar lining is often laid flat, but with a beveled intersecting edge and a flat profile in high-end homes and boats. However, there wasn’t any beveled edge to the way they laid this profile, so I was pretty disappointed.
The Site Supervisor has been brilliant, though. He and the Company don’t want their clients to be stressed, so they reassured us that the installation could be reversed, if we wanted that. Although I am worried about any obvious nail holes……
I decided that I couldn’t leave it as it was, given that it was the routed, “KIT KAT look, that says ‘COASTAL Scandinavian’ style, that I wanted in the original design.
What do you think? Would you leave it or get the builder to reverse it?
These things happen at the Home by the Sea.
To be continued….
Another Brick in the Wall
Bricklaying the First Storey
What a change a week makes. The Bricklayers are all but finished, so we can finally get an idea of what the base of the house will look like.
You might notice the bricks are different on the front of the house – a bit patchy compared to the rest. This is because there is rendering to be done on the front of the house. The rendering and wrapping of the corner of the house, abutting the two street frontages, meets the Estate developer’s covenant requirements – not so our wishes.
I suppose it adds a level of interest and a certain look to the estate?
Internal Plastering
The plasterers are finished the walls inside and the waterproofing of the shower recesses and wet areas have been completed.
Cladding the Second Storey
The scaffolding that has now been erected is necessary for the builders to install the cladding to the upper part of the house.
I was very excited to see bundles of vertical lined cladding and my treasured cedar roof arrive ready for installation on the next vacant block.
Of course the cladding is going to be painted.
I have chosen a Dulux Teahouse colour, at least I think that is what it was called. It is a bit hard to remember every paint selection, but in my head I have the colour hue itself, even if the name is wrong. It is a little bit like the cladding on this Stockholm house, (slightly different facade to ours).
Next week, the staircase will be installed and perhaps some cabinetry?
Then we get to walk through our Home by the Sea.
Tradies on Hols
Progress has been slower in the last few weeks. School holidays might mean that the tradesmen have taken a break. But they were back at work early last week getting ready to lay the bricks.
However over the next week or two, the house will look a lot different as the external coverings are completed.
Weatherseal and windows have been installed. External and Internal doors to Laundry and Front of House. Now we could get much more of an idea of the ultimate size of the rooms.
I am being asked about window coverings. In building a house, you are required to think a long way ahead. Before you anticipate you need to do so.
The MOTH does not like shutters, yet everywhere we go – shutters are visible in many houses. I do agree I don’t want shutters everywhere, as it tends to look too much, but it does say Coastal, and we are at the coast.
Vertical blinds are out, and if it is curtains, they certainly have to be easily washable, otherwise they are major dust collectors, and blow about in the wind. And we do live by the water, when wind is a prevailing force.
What would you suggest? What do you prefer?
Water Views
I can’t really say that I will have water views from my Home by the Sea, but I can say that I have water glimpses from our balcony.
A few weeks ago I also had glorious views over to the Glasshouse Mountains, volcanic remnants from eons ago that have significance to the Indigenous Peoples.
When they started building the houses across the road, the view was obscured. Oh well, a short walk to the lake’s edge fixes that.
The mountains I used to see from my property are the same mountains I see in the distance when I am on my way there.
Weekly Update
The rain finally stopped so that work could continue. The plumbers were busy but the electrician who was scheduled was nowhere in site. The tiler had to finish pointing the lower tiled roof.
MOTH and I had a debate about the location of the clothes line. He is concerned he will hit his head on it, and I would prefer it near the laundry door. This location, however won’t receive much sunlight. This won’t matter in summer, but in winter…..
This was a major complaint about our old residence which had no sun in winter due to the double storey house located next door. The external Clothes line there was located directly outside the laundry door, however, things just did not dry in a day, due to a lack of direct sunlight, and you were required to leave hanging outside overnight.
Perhaps the solution might be to string an extra line up in winter on the sunny side of the house. The whole external clothes line cannot go there as the space, whilst wider to the boundary fence, is limited due to location of other fixtures, such as the air conditioning unit, gas and meter box and windows.
There is always the back yard, but as it is on the smaller size, I don’t want to be looking at flapping washing when I could be viewing a nice garden.
The MOTH is also eyeing off garden sheds. This again will be limited in size due to the back yard. And he wasn’t going to paint the fence! What????
I would have though he would relish getting out there hands on, making the fence all pretty….he clearly had other ideas about our Home By the Sea.
More next week from
Another Step Closer
If you have been following our building journey, at A Home by the Sea, I can tell you that we are yet another step closer.
The weather Gods were not kind to us this week, but it is becoming more and more apparent that our building team are the very best. The forecast of rain so concerned us given that our upper floor would be open to the elements and the floor is not at all weatherproof!
So we were extremely relieved when our weekly visit revealed the builders had finished the complete guttering and roof (at least the roof that is over all upper floorboards) in just one day.
Great team effort guys! (and girls?) *
*Note: No sexism on A Home by the Sea.
Perhaps they tried their very best given that a week of rain was on its way. I like that they are so conscientious and pro-active. They is very reassuring. We have come this far in four weeks!
And now the remaining roof, more plumbing/electrical on the lower floor comes next!
We decided to take some time out to support local business and mingle with the locals at the Boat Club. There is a great view of the Marina from there.
The large boat in the foreground of the next photo is a Marlin fishing boat, and the official weighing station is on the right of the photo.
The Scarborough Marina
I have to say that view was pretty hard to take!
More next week.
A Home by the Sea 
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