What's happening in our world?
Building & Renovation
I’m a Lumberjack and I’m OK…
Jun 8th
Now the designers know what they’re dealing with for the bushfire requirements they can get on with designing a suitable house.
In the meantime we’ve got a permit to clear the trees in the Building Location Envelope (BLE) so we’ll be ready to start once the plans have gone through council. After half a day of chainsawing we can to the realisation that we should have just got some heavy machinery in to do their thing.
Oh well! There’s pleanty of trees to bring down.
Back to the Drawing Board
May 3rd
Well our bushfire risk assessment came back at BAL-FZ (Flame Zone) which is the highest rating under the Bushfire Standard. The consultant’s suggestion to reduce this, by only 1 level mind you, was to clear a 25m perimeter around the house. Easy enough. Hang on, isn’t there a VPO on the block.
So we submit an application to council to see what we can remove, and after about a month, they come back saying that we can only remove trees within the BLE.
That means the current design will not conform to the Building codes and standards. So its back to the drawing board to redesign and re-think materials.
Starting to design our new house
Nov 27th
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve started talking seriously with our architect about the design of a house for our block. We like the idea of the pavilion style around the top of the hill, will be very private and catch the great breeze in the afternoon.
These are only sketch designs, still a lot of things to sort out with the internal layout, but we’re happy with the general idea of the house.
Site Plan
Floor Plan
Elevations
Polished Floors
Feb 22nd
The floors are done, I tried to take a some photos last night but it’s really hard to focus in the dark. Note to self must get the lights installed soon.
The Hallway, no the first picture is not Black & White, that’s just the condition of the floor before it was sanded, the second picture is from Tuesday afternoon, first coat applied. Picture 3 is Wednesday Night, final coats applied.
  
 
The kitchen, dining & living area, first picture is from Sunday afternoon before the sanding got underway. Picture 2 shows the floor sanded and nails punched and filled. The third and fourth photo are from Tuesday afternoon and the fifth photo is the final result.
 
  
  
  
  
It looks pretty good, even the repairs blend fairly well, they match the filled nail hole colour anyway.
Practice Holiday
Feb 21st
Leigh & I are having the floors in the main part of the house sanded and polished by Enviro Floors at the moment. So we’re practicing living out of a suitcase at Leigh’s parent’s place for a couple of nights, there just wasn’t enough room in the kitchen to get the bed horizontal.Â
We dropped in after the floors had been sanded and were surprised that they were actually a yellow colour! I suppose 130 years of ingrained dirt has a tendency to change the colour of things. It looks like the 3 days Leigh & I spent crawling around the floors replacing splinters and filling cracks and gaps will pay off.
We’ve finished painting all the walls, ceiling and cornice in the main part of the home as well, so the house is starting to feel livable, and once we have the kitchen in and a new bathroom we won’t want to move out.
 I’ll take some photos when I get home tonight, hopefully the final coat has gone on today, and post some before and after pictures.
The Wall
Jan 29th
The wall between the North-East bedroom and the lounge room was taken out last week. It is so spacious now!
