design – A Home by the Sea

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.

The Laundry showing off the Coastal Scandi theme at the Home by the Sea

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).

Waiting for the A/C Unit Installation- Before Summer’s on its Way

I really was born in the wrong hemisphere!

This pic of me, is more my climate, of choice.

Pristine Balcony – lights hidden inside presumably

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.

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.

building materials — Comparison of Sides of Panels

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.