Locked up...locked out, and bush fires!

Soooooo upsetting seeing our house all closed up and no-one there to talk to her, yet very happy at the same time. Yes I know, I said talk to her, I often go in to see how she's coming along and often commenting on how beautiful she looks...don't you?

 I'm rolling around with laughter on the floor right now... can you see me? And you thought I was serious lol.

It's coming together nicely and I'm soooooooo impressed by it all. We have had the best supervisor you could ask for. Thank you so much Brian for everything you have done to get our build to this stage.

Now that was this morning....when we went back this afternoon to have our concreter re-measure for all the concreting we want done after handover, the picture below shows how ferocious the fires were getting.

I've never seen the sky not only change so quick, but so eery at the same time. I had been working at home and listening to the weather report that was being announced just before I picked up the kids from school and it wasn't until I got outside and looked at the sky. The fires had been at Springwood and Winmalee all day and have now gotten out of control. OMG it was like I was in the eye of a storm or something. On my way to school, the sky went from a greenish colour to almost black. Now I'm talking a matter of seconds from the time I drove out of the driveway and down the street and up to the school. I started to panic and hoped it wasn't going to come too close.

We had to meet our concreter at 4.30pm and when we got there I noticed our front door was now on....lock up. After spending about half an hour with him, my eyes started to water, I started to cough and wanted to get back into the car. It had been blowing a gail and I thought I was hiding enough so it wouldn't play up with my sinus's but I guess it still got me. After we finished with Mitchell our concreter from Ducky's Concreting Pitt Town (plug), I was amazed at how quick the sky had changed. The smoke was now, not only surrounding us, but looking quite brutal  in the direction of home. All I wanted to do was get back and stay indoors.

Our house that we are currently renting is only a 3 minute drive from the new house, the following pictures tell the story of how fast the smoke was approaching.

this is what it looked like before I got into the car. I'm facing the direction of our rental which is in the direction of Springwood. Our new house is on the right just out of the picture but 3 blocks away from the one above. It was hard to know which direction the smoke was coming from as the winds were so strong. Were they coming from Springwood, or perhaps they were coming from Winmalee which is to the right of me 

this was on our way home. I got Geoff to stop so I could take a photo of how it was clearing (to the right) and surrounding us above our heads

I'm now standing in our backyard, yeah I know I said I wanted to stay indoors but I couldn't smell any smoke it was weird. By this time the wind had died down anyway and who could resist taking a snapshot of this

Looks like I'm looking at the eye of a storm, see the small circle just on the left of the shot?

I thought it was bad enough looking ahead of me, but this is directly above me now, it looks as though I could reach up and touch it. I haven't even zoomed in...yikes. And still there is no smell of smoke, it was bizarre!

Now this freaked me out, it's about half an hour after we got home and it looks as though the fire is right behind the smoke. It's actually the sun!

After the kids yelling at me to come out the front, this is what I was faced with. It's now been 35 mins from the first photo and already you can see how much it went from just a little bit of a yellow cloud to now a full on blackish purple stormy looking sky and it's in the direction of the new house. Looking down on the ground, we had black ash all over our driveway and on the lawn...I won't tell you what our car looked like!

Is that scary or what? This shot was taken no more than 3 mins from the one above. Now all I want to do is go back to the house and make sure it's ok

This is the golf course that's half way to the new house. I'm looking in the direction of Winmalee now which is NW

Whilst I was taking photos, Jordan said I think there's a fire down there. Pointing to a small smoke stack just to the left of the pic and in between the 2 trees to the left (if you magnify the picture you can see it).

here it is after zooming in 200mm. Could it have been an ember that came from the fire at Winmalee?

After checking that the house was ok and it was...phew, we drove a little further to the other part of the estate 'Bona Vista & Riverside'

This is where the 1/2 acre lots are in Vermont

See this picture? Go back to where I said that perhaps an ember started a small fire. Now look at the road...does that tell you what happened?

The stupid idiot was doing burnouts on the back road of the turf farms just down from the estate.

What a loser! I couldn't believe what we were witnessing, as if the poor bloody firemen had nothing better to do than to put this D'head's car out. I hope they put him on the front line of the bush fires and see how he copes with what they have to do. My heart goes out to all the people who have lost everything and hope all those poor firemen fighting the blaze get some relief soon. Look at the sky now  it's clearing in the Springwood direction

this is looking back through to Vermont 10 mins later, it's now clearing on the horizon but the smoke is coming from the Winmalee direction

Comments:

R. Roberts - Great photos Michelle. Its very eerie isn't it! And what an idiot to be doing burnouts near the bush when there are fires about. I don't understand how stupid people can be sometimes. 

Me - I know...I hope he now realises what a tosser he was and what he could've potentially caused 

The cornices & water proofing

The cornices were installed and completed yesterday and they started the water proofing in the wet areas today

Come on in and take a look!

entry

Gob-Smacking

After having my hair done (mummy pampering day) today, I decided since I was only around the corner to call into the MJH display homes in Kellyville Ridge just for fun. We used to live (recently sold) just down from there but never viewed the homes.

I was gob-smacked to say the least when I walked into one of them and found our new kitchen colour Cavia Lini in the bathroom...what! then as I walked into the kitchen I couldn't believe what I was seeing...it was the old colour and it had the same splash back.

Well I'm sure they were the same as picked because they looked just like the samples Erin had given me. I wish I had the samples on me to compare but I took photos so I could see against the samples when I got home. Let's see what you think

This is the old door colour choice: Crystalgloss Crystal Anthracite for both kitchen and bathrooms and the splash back which we still have is Resene Grey Blast 1(upgrade) which is a charcoal colour and gives a shimmery effect 

Almost at lock up

We had our garage doors installed today and they look amazing, and all the internal doors have been delivered, we're almost at lock up now.

Lights...

Thanks to http://www.lights2you.com.au we now have our kitchen pendants and theatre wall lights...applause!

This is what they'll look like

this is our pendants x 3 in black bamboo

5 x wall lights for theatre

Outdoor Lights

We bought 8x marine grade up/down outdoor lights from here so that Sam can install when he comes back to do the electrical fit-out

The walls

They finished the walls today and the plastering will be done on the 9th October. a massive job well done guys!

We had our battens put on the pavilion as well....OMG is all I can say! Simply Sunning and it's not even finished.

The house is taken on some real beauty now, and if it looks this good unfinished....then you can only imagine how it'll look when it's completed!

Gyprock day 1

They started the gyprock installation today starting with the ceilings

Gyprock

Gyprock was delivered today

A touch of glass!

No construction was done today, but the glacier came to install the glass in the picture windows, the master bi-folds and the front corner window.

I'm sooooooo glad we paid the extra money for the picture windows in the family room.
Because of our pool being an L-shaped pool and in the corner of the family room, we get the perfect view from both the family room, the meals area and the kitchen....woooo hoooo.

That dreaded word...DISCONTINUED

We had a message from Erin our colour consultant last Friday 20th, to say that our colour for the kitchen and bathroom doors has been discontinued....what?
Oh no I thought, how am I going to pick another colour when all this time I've been imagining our first choice with everything. Now I have to try and find something like it or better than it.....arrg!

Why was I panicked? As soon as we walked into the studio, Erin took one look at me and said, "Don't worry, I have the solution".
"Are you serious" I said laughing, "I've had nothing else on my mind since we picked our colours back in Feb." Now I don't know about you, but when I have a certain picture in my head, it's hard to think of something else in it's place, especially when you build your colour scheme around a particular item and for me that was the kitchen colours.


Within 5 minutes, she had me smiling again and to be honest with you, we're actually happier with this choice than the first. I found the sense of calm again as she showed me that beautiful colour swatch (you know, the one I wanted to mysteriously drop into my handbag back in Feb) of hers and everything that would suit our splashback. Because we are going with the charcoal colours throughout the home, once I saw the Cavia Lini I knew it was the one. We walked away with huge smiles on our faces 30 minutes later and hoped that nothing else would go wrong. The whole way home I was praying that she wouldn't ring back and say the inevitable.

Here's what we picked

Polytech Cavia Lini Sheen 

It's astounding!

With the house all wired now, we had our insulation not only delivered, but installed too...what! Sooooo quick I'm very impressed right now

Electrical Rough-In

We meet the adorable Sam for the electrical rough-in walk through this morning.
He couldn't get over how much our house resembled the perfect 'Party House', gotta love that!

After going through the plan of attack, we walked away extremely confident in his capabilities. It took three days for them to wire up the house


I went back to the house this afternoon to see how much they got done

Considering how much we love to entertain, Geoff being a typical car fanatic wanted to have a T.V point outside in the alfresco which will also be on a bracket that will swing right 'round to the sitting and pool area..while I (think laying on the pool bed in summer with cocktail in hand of course),  manage to find my own sanctuary for some much need peace and relaxation!

T.V point and dble outdoor pp

Timber, timber, timber

They finished the eaves off and put the board on the pavilion, they also installed all the timber door frames ready for the cavity doors in the theatre and ensuite. They also put in the timber surrounds for the baths

underside of the pavilion

Kudos

I have to give kudos to Mal and the team from Blinds on the Net who for the last few weeks, has given me the answers to the numerous questions I've asked about the blinds I want.

I'm hoping to save as much money as I can and install the blinds myself.
I consider myself to be very hands on when it comes to these types of things and after all, who can't hang a blind?

I now understand how to go about fitting a corner blind into a corner window (bed 3) thanks to this handy tip found here 

And I wasn't too sure at first of how a dual blind will fit on the picture windows as the architrave is only 40mm.

So Malcolm just said that I to have one as a back roll on the inside of the architrave, and the other (on a separate bracket) as a front roll on the outer side of the architrave.

A front roll (blind rolling toward you), eliminates the need for a pelmet, this will be the sunblock to block both sun and heat during the day.

The back one (closest to the window), will be a sunscreen blind, so you can still see through it during the day. This will partially block the sun and heat (perfect for the northern side of the house) and still allow you to see through to the pool area.

He also pointed out (which I hadn't thought of), is that most 'Blockout' blinds (esp dark coloured ones), have a white backing and don't come in 3m widths (unless you buy expensive ones).

Our lounge room has a slim line window and is 3m wide. I certainly don't want to be rolling up 2 or 3 blinds and chains hanging in the centre one...bugger that.

Blinds on the Net, have the 'full' black backing on their blockout blind and they come in 3m widths.

I had some 'Free' blind samples sent out of the type I wanted, which you can order here

I saved over $400 by ordering all my blinds here  

and only had to wait about 4 weeks!

Here's what they'll look like

see how the 'Sunblock' is at the front with a front roll (rolls forward), and the one to the back is a 'Sunscreen' blind with a back roll (rolls toward the window)

Eaves

They started the eaves and we had some light showers throughout the day, they got most of the job done before the rain got too heavy so hopefully they'll come back tomorrow to finish off

Carpet time

I lovingly convinced Geoff (as I have tried for the last 6 weeks) that we needed to not only choose a carpet but to get it ordered, because before we know it it'll be hand over time...(one could only wish it was just around the corner) besides, there's nothing like planning ahead.

The process was done in a day and within the second store that we visited. I, yes I managed to save us $1168 and whilst Geoff was picking his jaw up off the floor, I was signing away before Dean Brown-Store manager of http://www.solomons.com.au  Penrith, could change his mind.

We picked a beautiful charcoal colour called Savoy from the Sarah Maine Vogue Impressions collection fully installed on the Dunlop purple 10mm luxury plus underlay. Just under 119m2.

Happy days!

the carpet we chose is Tanning the one to the left of Botany

I love it!

They didn't come back yesterday as I thought, but came late this afternoon woo hoo look at me now it's amazing what a difference render makes I love it.

Render me happy!

We had a team of 4 Asian men rendering the house today and what a great job, they didn't get to finish today so will probably be back tomorrow. I also noticed that we had delivery of our timber flooring for the theatre podium and the backing board for the pavilion woo hoo can't wait to see that go on

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!

Well not really, it's just that stupid song I've now got in my head after sining it on my way to see the house (my usual daily drive-by). When I got there, I saw three guys laying out the scaffolding and getting it ready to put on the roof. They finished the job on the 9th September but due to being short of  about 12 tiles or so, they have to come back to complete the job.

The bricks were cleaned too on Saturday 7th Sept

Ridge capping complete...wow what a stunner!

The beams

Today saw me watching the guys install the front beams to the pavilion so the bricks can be laid. Steve and the team got straight into work and finished the rest of the bricks so the guy can finish off the guttering to the pavilion. What a productive day

doesn't that pavilion look impressive? I'm sooooo in love with my house

Fascia and Guttering

We had the brickies doing the front pillars and the guy installing the fascia and guttering around the back....what!
A very productive day indeed, we couldn't be happier with the process. The guy now just has to wait until the beams to the front pavilion get installed on Monday then he can finish off around the front