Paths to our front door

We have started to collect images of pathways to give us inspiration about what kind of pathway or walkway we want in front of the house. This path will sit beside the concrete driveway, and up near the door, it will have a wall on the other side. Further out towards the front garden, it will have a wooden fence on the site opposite the driveway. Beyond that, there will be a bit of greenery.

It will need to help soften the front of the house, while at the same time providing a stable, attractive surface leading people up to the front door.

Here are the images we have collected so far.



I like this one for the look of the wood. Ours
won't turn corners, but it might have steps in it.




I like the weathered look of this one, but Gail isn't
so keen on "weathered". She worries about
maintenance and thinks it looks old and
daggy (not her words).




This is very cool, but probably too complicated for our needs.




This probably won't work, because of
the gravel, but it's an idea to keep in mind.




I put this in the line-up because it's simple and clean.




I added this one because it shows a wooden
walkway between a wall and another surface.




This one is in the line-up to remind us that we don't
have to have a wooden pathway - there are other options.




This looks a bit like railway tracks, but I like
the idea of playing around with the way the
wooden surfaces are laid out.




This is an old-fashioned verandah, rather
than a pathway, of course. Helps in
visualizing ours, though.




Simple, clearn.

Next step in making this decision - talk to Tom and Andy.

Framing

The outlines of the walls are up, and Gail has been taking arty photographs to record this stage.

In this one, you can actually see a tradesman or two. This is
the view through the garage to the front door.

This view is down the Western side of the house,
where the hot water system will sit.

We've confirmed our choices for the colours for the inside and outside of the house. Andy was right ... we need a lighter colour on the Weathertex and the eaves.

Now we are thinking about the pathway from the footpath outside the house leading up to the front door. Because there is going to be such a large expanse of concrete in front of the garage, it is going to be important to have an attractive pathway.

At this stage, we are thinking about a wooden slatted pathway - a bit like a narrow slice of decking that starts at the edge of our plot and takes people right to the bright red front door. So ... we have a site visit scheduled quite soon, which will give us an opportunity to discuss this aspect of things with our builder.

We have access to a wonderful piece of project management software used by Jigsaw, which allows us to post information about the building in the same place that the site manager and the builder and the architect and the scientist use to record developments. Gail is the one who keeps this up-to-date from our perspective. It's fantastic, because each time we visit the site, we can see what has been updated, and keep track of all the developments to which any one person is contributing. We can be sure that all our requests and questions are recorded and noted by everyone, from the company principals to the site manager. I don't know how widely these types of programs are in the Australian building industry, but I think it is amazing. It brings a level of transparency to the project that is outstanding - and both Gail and I really value the fact that we know what is happening all the time.

Things are developing very nicely!

On the other hand - rain all this week has been lovely, but it would be good, now, if the rain came only at night, please.

Colours

We are up to the stage where we have to make decisions about the colour of everything, so today, as well as visiting the block, we drove around looking at the colours of the houses around us.

Selecting colours ... not as easy as it should be

Now we have a dining table laid with paint brochures, colour samples, a brick, and the bathroom tiles. Selecting the colours should be easier than it is.

The weekly picture from across the road

It looks as if the wood for the frame of the house has been delivered ...

A pile of wood in the front yard

... and the pipes have been capped ...

Gail's pipes

... and some wiring is in place, for the water pump ...

That might even be a water pump there in that plastic bag

... and for the meter box.

It looks as if the meter box is going to be on the right-
hand side of the house, at the back of my bedroom

Josh joined us on our expedition this week.

Josh and Gail peered through the fence

Thinking about gardening

Some months ago, once we had a clear idea about the footprint for our house, Gail and I met with a landscape gardener, who has created a plan for our garden. Well, as you know if you are following this blog, things change and evolve. Michelle's plan isn't going to be exactly the garden we build, but we will certainly be drawing on her advice.

Michelle's garden design

The front part of the garden will be planted before we move in, and we'll have the slab for the shed in place, but the rest will be built over time.

The slab is poured

Today we went out to see the slab. Well, the bill had arrived, so we rushed out to see what the finished thing looked like. It's a slab - a very beautiful one, of course. Here are some pictures.

So here's today's picture from across the street. The house doesn't
look much different from the shot I took last Sunday ... yet.

Moving closer, you can see some reinforcing. Excited yet?

The slab from the rear of the house. This is Gail's bedroom.

The view from the Eastern side of the house.

The plumbing for my bathroom.

Another view of the plumbing for my bathroom.

Peering through the fence wasn't actually the most interesting part of the afternoon, though. We went for a ramble around the nearby streets, and wandered through several other houses. We can't get into our own house, as our builder - very properly - has put a temporary fence up around it. Other builders aren't as OH&S conscious, and have left other people's houses open for any nosy body to walk through, making rude remarks about the size of the bedrooms and the strange location of the front door.

Several of the houses have very small bedrooms, and one didn't - at first glance - appear to have a front door at all. We discovered that it does have an entry door, but it is tucked around the side of the house. People going in and out of that house will have a birds'-eye view into the bedroom of the house next door, which is lower down the slope. Very strange arrangement.

Two other houses in the area have red doors, but neither of them are quite the same red as ours. Gail is beginning to wonder if the red door is passé, but I'm sure it's not. I'm sure that ours will be the most splendid red front door in Wright.


We also met Michael, a stonemason, who gave us his advice on the best way to build stone retaining walls and where to put outside drains. That was all very interesting, but as we are having timber retaining walls and our drains have already been laid, it wasn't much use to Michael. We found an interesting pathway to one front door, but decided it wasn't to our liking (very large concrete pavers surrounded by white river stones). Michael told us some gossip about people we will almost certainly never meet. That's probably a good thing, because he wasn't very complimentary. I think he was at the end of a long, hard day's labour and a little bit tired.

Then we came home, because my feet hurt. Walking through untidy building sites in mustard-coloured suede court shoes with a wedge heel isn't very sensible.

The insulated slab

Popped out to the block today to take this week's photos, and the insulation for the slab is in place. A well-insulated slab, I am told, helps to reduce heat loss by about 20%. That's a very good thing to ponder as autumn draws closer.

The regular weekly photo from across the road. Shame about the finger in the top left-hand corner.

The view through the fence from the Western side of the fence.
This will be the back wall of the garage. More of my finger.

Another shot through the fence on the Western side of the house.

The Western side again, from way back on the other side of the neighbour's block.

The view from the Northern rear of the block.

Bags of left-over insulation (is my guess).

A close-up of some formwork. This photo is a bit pointless,
really, as you can't see much except insulation and reinforcing mesh.

The edge of the slab that will support my bedroom and a bit more formwork.

So there we are ... the report for this week.

The floor plan

A slightly out-of-date version of the floor plan

This version of the floor plan is a little bit tattered (and a little bit out-of-date), but it's at the top of our box of house-related papers, because I use it to imagine the spaces when we are discussing various aspects of the house.

Today's dilemma

Do we stick with the smoky green roof we have selected, or change it to a dark grey?
The bricks are a dark grey-brown: Everyday Life Leisure.

Everyday Life Leisure brick

The windows are Stegbar's Stone Beige with chrome handles.

Stegbar's Stone Beige windows and doors

The front door is going to be Haynes Geranium Red ... something like this:

Haynes Geranium for the front door

Now, the question is: what colour do we select for the roof? It's Colourbond, and we had settled on Pale Eucalypt, with the eaves in a slightly darker shade of the same colour. However, we are now wondering if we should select a dark grey - Ironstone, perhaps, or Woodland Grey, and do the eaves in a charcoal.

Colourbond colours under consideration

I'm starting to like the look of Woodland Grey with the brick.

Hmm-mm ... well, we don't have to decide tonight, but we will have to decide soon.

Janelle gets digger envy

Today, when we visited the block, several friends dropped by to share a glass of champagne and admire the newly dug drains.

The view from across the street

The official notices

We walked all around, stepping over the remnants of fences which we think were put up by the Land Development Authority, peering at the marks on the ground and pointing to our bedrooms. It looks as if the outline of the house has been marked out with string and paint, and they have started to put the drains in.

Nat took this picture while Sue held the umbrella and the beer.
L to R: Janelle, Deb, Wendy, Rob, and Gail

Rob paced out the space we will need for the shed. We'll get the builders to put down a small slab for the floor of the shed, and then we are going to call on all our handy friends to come to a shed-erection working bee. Janelle was quite envious of the digger; she would like one just like that to visit her place, where she and Nat are rebuilding their backyard by themselves - by hand, paver by paver, shovel-load by shovel load. A digger would be a considerable assistance.

As you can see, it was raining for most of the afternoon.
We stuck it out, though. Can you spot the
impressive digger in the background?

Nat and Janelle

Gail, thinking that she might have to take refuge in the builders' toilet ...
at least it would be dry in there and the rain wouldn't make her hair curl