Kitchen benches in & a bit of a photo bonanza

The kitchen benches are in!  They both have steel frames - I put up photos of the frames a few weeks ago.  The frames taper and merge in with the white formica benchtops.  The drawers at the bottom area matt black Melteca.  With the handles that we have used, they look a little like filing cabinets to me (in a cool way, of course!).  The tall cupboards at the back by the pantry and oven will have white lacquered doors in the same colour as the walls.

Poor Troy arrived for a visit and found himself lugging the fridge/freezer from the barn into the new house in the pouring rain...

The fridge is christened.

So that is now in too, and Regan FINALLY has his beer fridge.

Back to the first photo... The benches are each 3.2 metres long, and are higher than normal so that I don't end up hunching over (particularly when doing the dishes) and hurting my poor back.    The bench on the left has the cooktop set in steel at a lower level than the white formica benchtop (which has the sink in it), so that the pots aren't too high to see into.

The steel is raw black steel that has been powdercoated, so close up you can see all the patterns and marks in it.  We'll have to post some photos of that once everything is not covered in this infernal dust!

The bench on the left is the working bench.  It has the sink and stove in it, and the dishwasher under it.


The bench on the right (which is the harbour side), is the food preparation bench, and has a small sink in it for washing food as I hate washing my lettuce in the same sink that has had my greasy pots in it.  Irrational?  Yes.  Irrationality catered for by my architect as per brief?  Yes.

Taken from the hallway

The gap at the end of the bench on the right will eventually harbour some sort of butchers' block-type unit with a marble top for pastry preparation.  That is in the long term plans.

The first gap on the bench on the left is for the dishwasher.  The gap at the other end (closes to the pantry) is for a planned contrivance to house the pots.  The plan is currently there, but the budget is not willing.  We have enough drawers for the moment anyway...

Taken from the dining room

You can also see from the bench on the right that the drawers aren't actually the full width of the benchtop.  It is the same on both benches.  Eventually (we're all about the long term) we will put shelves or something on those sides.

My parents clearing the floors

A Concrete Man is coming this week to grind a few imperfections in the floor, and then, finally, to seal it!  So we had to take up the cardboard from all of the concrete-only parts, and then sweep it and vacuum it.  My parents were here for a quake-relief visit, and so they were immediately put to work cleaning up our house instead of theirs.  The amount of dust in that place is phenomenal!  I don't know how we will ever get rid of it.

Regan is working on getting the showers waterproofed this week-end, as the Council is signing them off on Monday.  Tiling can then begin.  Once we have a working bathroom, I reckon it's all on...

Now for some gratuitous shots:

And these shots of Regan putting together the black plywood David Trubridge light are especially for Bridget D ;-)

Kitchen begins

The start of the kitchen (sans doors)

The kitchen has started going in!  The first time that I saw it, the doors were on, but they have since been taken away to be painted.  The pantry is on the left, and will be covered by two bi-fold doors.  The oven and speed cook oven are in the middle (covered in blue protective film while Regan is painting the ceiling), with cupboards above and below them.  The slots immediately above the ovens are for platters, although we do wonder if the builder has made that cupboard too shallow.  And then the last gap is for the fridge.  Ah, the bliss of having a fridge that does not ice up at the back!

One bag of floor screed applied to the shower

Regan has obviously been doing more painting (as you can see in the photo, in his dead sexy overalls).  He had a break from the painting during the week (hi Jo, Martyn & Abigail!) and had intended to extend the break this week-end and do some work on the bathrooms.  He squared up the shower bases and mixed his bag of floor screed and started to apply it to the main bathroom - but then discovered that he needed WAY more than the one bag that he was told he needed.  And the only shop in Dunedin that seems to stock that particular brand was closed for the week-end by 3 pm on Saturday!  So it was back to the painting for him.

The plumbers have also been in and installed the fireplace and its assorted bits and bobs.  We've chosen a nice little studio burner, which will hopefully be enough to keep us warm.

Of course, it's not a gyrofocus, but it's quite cute.

Meanwhile Dog Named For an Architect #2 (Frank) is sick, which has been a distraction for us.  He has been poorly enough that he could barely rouse himself to chew offcuts of wood that he shouldn't chew.  Hopefully he is on the mend now.

More exterior photos

It's a little difficult to quantify what has been done over the last week, so I thought I'd mostly just put up some old photos of the exterior as it has occurred to me that there are not actually that many on here!  I think that we took so many that I felt as thought I'd posted a lot.

Regan has continued with the never-ending task of painting.  He's almost been doing it for three months now. He's on to the ceiling of the kitchen/dining room now.  I brought down the coffee after he'd been sanding for the morning and those bits of his face that had not been covered by the air filter were covered in dust.  The first top coat is on now, which is great.  He's also primed Bedroom 2.  Slowly but surely, we're getting there.

The kitchen has not gone in yet.  Somehow I'm not surprised.  But the Builder is working hard at it.  Maybe next week...

My contribution: lunch prepared on site

The builder has also been putting in more of the doors in the storage wall, so that is looking more like a continuous wall now, as it is meant to.  He's also been doing general finishing work, which is always difficult to describe.  It is all feeling very near but very far at the moment!

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!

Little staircase in

I won't even try to deal with the Christchurch earthquake.  I'll just say that thankfully my family is okay, and it appears that all of our friends are okay too.

The new stairs

On a more mundane note, our work has continued.  The little staircase that steps up the lower bedroom level to the upper bedroom level has gone in, so we don't have to balance on a plank anymore.  The stairs are made out of dark plywood, and I think that the Architect plans to have them stained a reddy/brown.

Macrocarpa wall under carport

The builder used up the last of the macrocarpa that we had to hand on the exterior of the building, putting it up under the carport (he had set aside all the better stuff to use inside).  As you can see, we were just a few planks short!  It sounds as though we've managed to source some more macrocarpa now, so hopefully it won't take too long to get that moving again.

The photograph of the exterior macrocarpa wall is taken from the north end of the house - the dining room is immediately above the carport.  The block that the front door stands in is immediately behind the macrocarpa wall that you can see.

Lounge wall

I've also added another photo of the completed lounge wall, which is at the south end of the house, ie. the opposite end of the dining room block, behind the macrocarpa block that you can see.

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!