Flooring and First Glimpse of the Kitchen

This week our beautiful Sydney Blue Gum floors were installed! Mick took some great photos when he met with the installers one morning:

Entry

Entry looking through to backyard

Formal Living looking to front yard

Formal living looking towards back

Formal living looking into Kitchen/Meals

Kitchen/Meals

Kitchen/Meals

Kitchen/Meals looking at Media (Family) Room

Where the Study meets the Powder Room

The floors are now covered up so that (hopefully) they don’t get ruined before hand-over. Once we get keys we will then have them sanded and polished. We can’t wait! In the meantime, we’ve taken as many of the offcuts as we can so that we can make some furniture or perhaps chopping boards with them. The timber is beautiful and solid and would otherwise be used for firewood by the tradies (sacrilege!).

Taking advantage of his late starts this week, Mick met the builder on site yesterday for an inspection and managed to catch our kitchen…"with its pants down!" (Mick's words, not mine).

Wall where oven and cooktop are going

Cabinetry lying in wait

Handle close-up and our wine rack peeking over the top

And, whilst the tiling is still incomplete, there is a little more progress than the last photo update:

Niche in Main Bathroom shower

Bath surround in Main Bathroom

Floor and mosaic wall in Ensuite are now grouted, though not the white walls

Bulkhead in Main Bathroom. Not sure if it gets tiled or painted?

All this is very exciting progress to see. We’re not without our issues however. The stage in the Media Room wasn’t built to spec, but luckily we caught this on Sunday and the timber installers were able to work around it. The back sliding door was also too low, and thankfully catching this early meant that Fairmont could arrange a carpenter to correct it before it cost us in delays and the floor installers’ time. On a positive note the carpenters have done a great job lining it up to sit perfectly flush with the boards:



Sliding doors to Alfresco

Looking into Kitchen/Meals area from Alfresco

There are still a few other niggling issues: the ducts in the wardrobes haven’t been corrected as we asked, and of course there is the never-ending front window saga. Worth a special mention is the skirting in our garage. It is horrendous! Let me explain: Traditionally skirting is used to cover the unsightly meeting of wall and floor. The floor/slab in our Garage is unfortunately lower than the rest of the house and the internal walls sit on top of the higher section of slab. This means that the bottom of the wall is higher than the floor in some sections (the internal walls). This would be ok if the skirting was actually large enough to touch the ground. It is one of the most ridiculous looking things I have ever seen in my life. How on earth a builder can call it standard is beyond me. Anyway, I'm guessing we need a larger skirting board, and I wonder how much it is going to cost us.

Internal door in Garage

It doesn't even line up!

Like how it steps down? Stylish...not.

We’ve also noticed that the pine trim around the front door looks a little odd. We’re hoping to arrange a maple surround instead to match the door and stairs.

Internal view of front door

Next on our "to do" list is to purchase some small pieces of maple as well as some wood stain sample pots. This is to find a colour for the front door, bottom stair tread and handrails that complements our Sydney Blue Gum floor. Mick also did a final measure of the laundry so that we can order the cabinetry. Full steam ahead!