Lounge

Lounge, from north west

 Here is our lounge.  Again I'm thinking that some close-up detail photos could be helpful!  It's pretty difficult to capture the essence of a room in a photograph.

Some descriptions may help.  I'll do my best.  The floors are polished concrete, as in the rest of the house (except for the bedrooms).

The tv is set into the wall, but there are still a couple of tall black speakers on the ground.  The walls are wired for sound.  The actual speakers are just in the long-term plan.

Lounge, from north east

To the left of the second speaker, you can see our little Studio wood burner.  It is awesome!  It is clean-burning and pumps out so much heat!  It is all that we are using for heating at the moment, and it is doing that well. 

Next to the wood burner, you can see a low level fitting with a wooden-type top (it is actually clear-sealed MDF on concrete blocks!).  That holds the stereo, Sky box etc.  That fitting acts as a room divider, dividing the lounge from the library (fancy name for the space in front of the bookshelves!).

Lounge, looking out to the north west

The long, skinny window that you can see behind the old wooden chair to the left of the tv is in fact a door.  It is a 3.2m cavity slider.

You can just make out our lights in picture 2.  They're 1930s originals that we picked up one day a few years ago in an antique shop in poor old Christchurch and have been hanging onto since then.  

Lounge, taken from the window (and looking to the east)

At the window, you can see our black steel balustrades.  They are on the inside of the window.  The windows behind the balustrade slide open, ie. they slide right open and stack behind the sheet of glass on the far right (which doesn't have a balustrade in front of it).  This area is pretty windy (no view without wind) and so having a balcony seemed pretty pointless.  Why bother when your whole lounge can be a balcony/deck?

We do have blinds - they are rolled in behind a pelmet on the straight line of the aluminium window frames so that they disappear when they are up.  Apparently it is the first time that Window Treatments has tried that method in Dunedin.  They're sunshade blinds so that we can let the light in, but shield our eyes and furniture when the gorgeous westerly sun gets too much for us.

Our Lundia shelves have fitted beautifully into the macrocarpa wall.  That wall continues through the house, splitting the living block and the sleeping block.  It also continues through from exterior to interior - you can see it continuing through to the outside past the 3.2 m window.  It is our storage wall.  Aside from the library shelves, it has also got various cupboards in it.  And the library shelves also house the cat's bed!  Nice and secure for her, and a good platform to smack Frank's nose from when he gets too curious.

There's also a small triangular window above the shelves, which lets light through into the hallway.

I am definitely loving having a separate lounge.  We've got two sliding doors on the northern wall, which separate it off from the stairwell and then the kitchen/dining.  It means that the room is lovely and snug.  And you have to make a real choice about which room you're in.  Not putting the lounge on the north face was controversial, but I still think it makes sense.  Realistically, we only want to use it in the afternoons.  There's plenty of space for us to enjoy morning sun in the kitchen/dining area, and I'd rather eat my breakfast in the sun!

Stairs in

Main staircase, plywood

Painting continues...  Regan has actually taken some time off work, so he has progressed the painting quite a bit.  Unfortunately he is also sick, so he's probably not doing himself too much good.  He's completed the main stairwell now, which is looking pretty damn awesome.

He's also started sealing the ensuite, which is another milestone for us.  I thought that the sealing work would be a nice break from the painting.  I didn't realise that the sealant is all painted on...

The Builder has done a little more work on the macrocarpa storage wall.  He's cut out some MDF doors and is working on affixing the macrocarpa boards to that.  He's got the boards aligned practically perfectly - you can barely notice that there are any doors at all!

Spot the door in the macrocarpa wall?

The Builder has been spending most of his time away from site because he's working on the kitchen.  This is hugely exciting.  It has however lead to another Thing That Went Wrong.  Our gorgeous new microwave/convection oven was being moved to facilitate some measuring and the ceramic plate that sits in it got broken.  I haven't had the strength to price a replacement yet... Or risk being told that it will take six months to get the replacement part!

The metal frames for the two benches have arrived from the metalwork shop and are sitting in the dining room, waiting to have the formica cupboards (with soft close drawers - it came in on budget!) put into them.  They are very industrial looking.  They will probably need to be given all the parties that we're planning!

Toe board for a future kitchen bench

The Builder has also delivered one of the toe boards for one of the benches (for the non-kiwis:  the "bench" of cupboards.  NOT a bench that you sit on).  In the photo, the toe board is roughly in place.  There will also be another bench parallel to that one (about where the orange chairs are).  The fridge, oven, microwave and pantry will go in that cupboard space perpendicular to the benches.  The first installation of cupboards may even start this week.

Metal frames for the kitchen benches

A post in which things go wrong

The staircase & entrance hall

We have been a little distracted, dealing with post-CHCH earthquake issues.  And Regan has been sick, so he has done very little work.  And Things Have Gone Wrong.  In the end, there has been nothing that could not be fixed but they did feel a little major at the time.

Regan called on the day of the earthquake to say that when the carpet layer was fixing the carpets (which could now be done as the little stairs were in), he managed to drive a nail through the underfloor heating system.  WHOOPS.  That had the potential to render the underfloor heating for that zone unuseable.  Luckily however the engineer came up with a solution.  They have managed to chip out the concrete around that part of the pipe and apply a patch.  This does mean, however, that we currently have a large hole in the floor and exposed pipes.  It will get fixed though.

Timber reveal on the doors

The big staircase has also gone in, which means that we can actually use our front door now.  The staircase is made of the same plywood that the little stairs are made out of.  They have had one coat of the three coats of varnish applied.  They look somewhat odd in the photo as they have had cardboard treads put on them to protect them while we are still in the building phase.  So they are the colour that you can see on the left of each stair, and there will not be any weird cardboard tread on the centre (or off-centre, as the case may be) when the place is complete!  There will also be a black steel balustrade, as the health and safety regulations don't allow otherwise.  And truthfully, that void at the top of the stairs does get a little frightening!

Macrocarpa wall, near Master Bedroom

And that brings us to the second Thing That Went Wrong.  Once the stairs went in, The Architect and The Builder realised that the door had been manufactured slightly bigger than it was meant to be.  Which meant that the door, when opened, was butting into the staircase.  One minor redesign later...

Official bog inspection

The Builder has also been doing lots of little jobs, like putting in the window and door reveals.  The Architect has decided to put in door reveals that are made of the same timber as the staircase.  So when you step inside, you step onto wood and then on to the concrete.
All of the macrocarpa walls are now complete, and it appears that the timber matches.  So another worry can be crossed off the list.  The final part of the internal wall was the section up the small set of stairs and next to the master bedroom.  It has a low level window, which is set off beautifully by the timber.  Bedroom Two is opposite this wall, and so when its door is open, you can look from the back of the house, through the hallway and out through the front of the house.

Looking out from our bedroom

Why you should not sleep in sawdust if you have a beard

We also now have a working toilet!  It has been installed in the main bathroom.  I think that the rest of the plumbing will only be connected once the Plumber's Apprentice (Regan) and the Tiler (Regan) have sealed the showers and tiled the bathrooms.  No pressure on Regan.

Our permanent electricity supply has also now been connected.  The Master Sparky has connected one electrical socket, so we no longer have to run an extension cord through the storage room door and up the stairwell and pray that a strong wind does not cut the cord in two!

Work has also been continuing on the house in front of us, and we are thrilled that they do not take any of our view!

More photos of that macrocarpa wall

Dining room/kitchen windows facing east/paddock

My busy week is over, so I have a little more time to blog.  I think the pictures really tell the story now with this macrocarpa wall.  Our only current issue is that we've run out of macrocarpa!  So I don't know how long that is going to take to sort out.

Apparently The Architect has finished the kitchen design.  The Builder appeared to consider it do-able, so now we just have to wait for the price...

The bath framing has also gone in, which means that that room now looks less like a small box.

Macro wall continuing through

So, photo narrative:  The first photo is taking from the dining room looking into the kitchen area.  This is the start of the internal/external macrocarpa wall.  After the big square window, the next gap is the door for the hallway.  The macrocarpa wall continues in a straight line after that doorway (although it is a little hard to see in the photo).

The second photo was taken by opening the sliding door to the left in the first photo.  Hopefully that gives you an idea of the thickness of the wall.  It has that thickness all the way through.  Again, hopefully you can see that the line of the wall continues straight through into the lounge and out the door at the end of the lounge towards the master bedroom.

Bookshelf in library/lounge

The third photo is taken in the lounge, and you can see that the wall continues out through the door at the right of the photograph.  The big gap in the wall is because that is where our bookshelf will go.  The finishing work that the Builder has done on the corners of that bookshelf and also on the doorway in the hallway is amazing.  It is the work of a craftsman.

Hallway

The fourth photograph shows the other side of the wall (ie. opposite side to lounge), in the hallway.  The first gap in the wall will allow us to see through into the stairwell area.  The second gap is for a cupboard.  At the top of the hallway, the wall has not yet been finished.  Hence the issue with running out of macrocarpa....

Close up of doorway into hall

The fifth photograph is simply a close up photograph showing the amazing mitre (correct terminology?  No doubt I'll be told!) work that the Builder has done in places like the doorway and the library shelving.  It actually looks as though he has folded the wood rather than using two separate pieces.

Bath in situ in bathroom

Lastly there is a photograph of the bathroom with the bath all framed in.  The unpainted parts will be tiled.  The macrocarpa wall will, I think, create a good contrast to the white walls and the tiles and give it all a bit more texture.

I hope that this gives a little more context to my last photo dump!

Internal macrocarpa wall

There have been busy times at HFD over the last two weeks!  And busy times for me, hence the lack of photos.

Dining room, almost painted with macro wall

Wall going inside to outside in the lounge

Lounge

The Builder has been putting in the internal macrocarpa wall, which is looking really great.  Now that a lot of the walls are painted, it no longer feels quite so boxy as you get the juxtaposition of the white and the macrocarpa.  You can also see how the wall runs from inside to outside.  In the lounge photo, the photograph has been taken from inside the lounge, then you see the frame of the glass door and then you can see through to the outside along to the master bedroom.

Regan has also been painting like a trojan, and all of his and Ray's hard work is finally paying off as it feels like he has broken the back of the painting.  Regan has finished the lounge!  You can also see there the inside/outside flow there, with the soffit continuing on the same line as the internal wall on the outside of the house.