Project Regent

Well we’re at lockup and the inside is starting to take shape. Our rooms are now scattered with jigsaw puzzle pieces in the form of skirting boards, and we have also had doors installed and architraves plastered in place.

And someone is having trouble with the signs around the house - there are two “No Smoking Inside” signs, but yet we still find cigarette butts, empty cigarette packets and a stale smell of cigarettes lingering inside. Oh, and then the smeared charcoal smudge of put-out-cigarette on our slab. Nice look.

Entry Way... and Jigsaw

The Puzzle

Architraves

Internal Doors and Robe Doors

Door Latches

Cigarettes. Used butts are nearby.

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

Indeed it does suck.

And boy does it suck. It sucks with a motorised head, cyclonic action, a HEPA air filter and not one, but two additional attachments.

This little whirring beauty, the Dyson DC-31, we got at $69 off, and are quite thrilled with the purchase. And why wouldn’t you be? It’s purple after all.

We looked at the range of dust busters at The Good Guys, but the only other one we considered (a Cherry Red Black and Decker unit) was less than half the price, but weighed a ton (around 6kg), especially considering it’s handheld - the DC-31 comes in at just over 1.5kg. And plus, it didn’t have a motorised head and two accessories. And it wasn’t purple. Or pretty - let’s face it, Cherry and Cream was so last season.

But this handheld is suitable for pet hair too, so is therefore Hamish friendly. It also features two power modes - normal which provides around 10 minutes of quiet whirring sucking power, or a turbo mode which gives 6 minutes of fast-paced, tornado-speed sucking. It sounds like driving a Mini at 100km/h in 1st gear. Weeee!

Out of the box, the Dyson DC-31 comes with some charge to get you sucking in no time, with the dust and dirt cyclonically spinning around the chamber. Even one quick swipe over the carpet picks up an enourmous amount of dirt, so it makes you think twice about lying on the floor.

The Dyson DC-31

Cyclonic sucking

Motorised action