Project Regent

It’s the end of week 8, and lockup is well and truly reached. So true, in fact, that we’ve even been locked out. So on Friday when we met with our Site Supervisor, we wandered around and took some photos.

Our bricks were scheduled to be cleaned over the weekend, but by lunchtime Sunday, this hadn’t been done yet. But hopefully our next visit will see a nice clean exterior. Inside, it’s really taking shape, and we’ve been told of the plans for the coming week involving cabinet installation, painting and tile delivery.

So in this update of photos, we have some neatening up in the alfresco , as well as neat skirts around the floor and door frame. But not only that, our shelves are installed in the robes, closet and pantry.

The only issue we spotted, which we’ve notified our Site Supervisor about, is that the height of the shelves in the main bedroom walk in robe are too low - they are meant to be at 2 metres. So he’s said that will get corrected early this week before painting so we will see tomorrow when we get our blinds measured - hoorah!

All of the evidence of smoking inside has been cleaned up, and a lot of vacuuming or sweeping of saw- and plaster dust.

It’s definately looking like a real house now…

Bedroom

Robe Shelves... a little too low...

Skirts and Door frames

Kitchen, Living and Lounge

Exterior Architraves

Alfresco Architraves

It’s Day 49, the end of Week 7, and we have so much to talk about - so here’s a dot point list:

• we have finished brickwork, including window fills, window sills and front pillars
• we have a completed roof, with safety supports removed
• we have plaster on all walls and ceilings (except portico)
• we have a corrected laundry door
• we have completed water, electrical and gas setup
• we have blue network cable draped throughout the walls
• we have a large graveyard of broken bricks

See, there’s a lot to see. And walking around inside, it’s now starting to really feel like our house - rooms feel bigger and more spacious, we start to get a feel for the layout and flow of the mirrored house (the Point Cook display is a mirror image of ours).

The scariest thing is just the sheer speed at which it’s all happening - and we’re not complaining - it’s just phenomenal - seven weeks, and we have the key structural components of our house complete.

So up next we have the internal fitout, including cornices, benches and cupboards, doors, carpet, tiles, showers, oh it’s just all so exciting. Oh and the red door to be painted… purrrr…

Completed Brickwork

Side-on Facade

Walls and Sills

Entry Passage Way

Lounge (from the Kitchen corner)

Ensuite Niche

Ah yes, the big Lego bricks are starting to get stuck in place. Our lovely Brown Terrain bricks in fact.

Today is Day 39 of the Project Regent build, and the second day of brick laying. So far we have had bricks go up on the garage wall, front, long side wall and rear. In two days. Sure, not floor to roof yet, but still a mighty impressive effort. One of the brickies we had a chat to let us know that they were under the pump to get it up, so it’s great to see progress happening - and that mortar is being used, and not something silly like Clag paste.

Inside there’s only a few small changes to see - the carpenters have been back on-site, and installed the fitting for the bath tub in the main bathroom, as well as the cavities for the sliding doors to the walk-in-wardrobe and ensuite bathroom. In the garage we have also had the steel frame installed for the external-facing door.

Adding to the picture are the next set of doors - our glass-paneled front door, and the house-to-garage door. And yes, the front door is still to be painted - we didn’t pick that lovely green colour (although it kinda matches the green insulation).

Now keep in mind the mortar is still wet in these photos so will lighten a little, but still we’re glad that we ended up going for the Natural mortar, rather than the white - and based on our Site Supervisor’s advice, the white mortar can, when wet, start to absorb the colour of the bricks - ick. So yes, very happy with our natural mortar.

Oh, and also, these bricks are yet to be cleaned - when they’re all up and finished, the high pressure hose comes out and cleans off that stray mortar from the bricks.

The eastern wall builds up...

Brown Terrain on the front wall

South-Eastern corner

The to-be-painted front door

North-Western corner starts

Rear of the Garage

Steel-framed door

Sliding door cavities

Ready for a bath?

Well we have pipework, cabling and equipment ready for the three above services.

Basic pipework is in place for all of the tap fixtures, including our dumper shower in the ensuite bathroom. And as things stand, they all look like they’re in their correct place. You can really clearly see now that the door in the laundry is wrong with the tap fixtures in place. On that note, we asked our Site Supervisor about that today and he said that the doors are due to be corrected and flipped so that the correct door opens the correct way. Likewise with our muddy sliding doors - at lockup, will be realigned, so fingers crossed they come out looking (and sliding) like new.

We also have yellow pipes throughout the house which is for gas - an outlet at the stove area, and an outlet in the centre of the roof space for the gas heating.

And on the electricity front, we have a solar panel on our Northern-facing roof - which is great as it gets the optimal amount of sunshine. Start charging, baby!

Our brickwork, originally scheduled for Monday 28th, will now commence Wednesday 30th, with more electrical, door, plastering, cable and duct placement due all over the next two weeks, so it looks like we’re on schedule to reach lockup around the 8 week mark.

Sunny skies over Melbourne

No Smoking inside the Master Bedroom

The Dumper plumbing installed

Bath and Vanity in Main Bathroom

Main Bathroom Shower

Laundry Pipes and Door

North-facing Solar Panel

The Eastern Side

Pipes for Water and Gas

With a very wet Friday in Melbourne, I was worried about how we would get some photos of the house - and was unsure how many roof tiles were up. As it turns out, almost all of them, so had a nice shelter from the wet weather.

There are a few holes remaining where different elements will be coming in or out (i.e. the scaffolding supports, water pipes, and so on) but they are only the size of a single tile, so technically you could say it’s complete.

There are a few casualties lying around the site, and only one tear in the very thin insulation wrap on the house, so all things considered (and given we have seen some of the insulation wrap on other builders’ home in shreds), we’ve come off pretty well.

A number of water pipes have also been installed, as well as the connections to the solar panel on the Northern roof, so we should also start to see more electrical and plumbing over the next few weeks.

There is still no word on our laundry door scenario - but we’ll meet with the site supervisor sometime this coming week and see what the timeframe for the replacement is. And also discuss the living room sliding doors - they had managed to close the doors (and make them look like they close), but they don’t slide nicely and are still filthy. We’re pretty disappointed at the lack of respect of people’s property, such as the doors being left in the mud in the first place, but we have let both our CSC and Site Supervisor know of these issues so we can move forward to a resolution.

So up next, bricks, and we look pretty much on schedule. The start of the brick laying is the start of our sixth week since site scrape. Our bricks are all on site, and ready to get laid with Monday’s scheduled bricklayers coming on-site.

The Front... with Tiles

Looking up

Water Pipes

Casualty of the Insulation Wrap

Tile Casualties

Collecting the Mud