Bathroom and Laundry Colour Schemes

We have been neglecting the Blog as we are so busy with work, helping people with renovations, Xmas Body Shop Parties and Fundraisers and our busy social lives…well maybe not the last one.

Thought that we would add our bathroom selections as hopefully they will be installed over the next few weeks.

stipple seal vanity, vertigo ash stone floor tile and opal bianco wall tiles. Metallic flashes..a bit of copper and Bronze..love copper!!

We have a downstairs toilet which will be Off-White tiling (called opal bianco)on the walls and our beautiful Vertigo Ash Stone tiles on the floor. This will be the same in the laundry.

The same theme runs through the wet areas upstairs too.

Vertigo Ash floors with the Opal walls to the ceiling.

The floor tiles are 200mm x 200mm. They have a metallic hue to them which we hope will disguise some of the dust and dirt!! Wishful Thinking.

The wall tiles are 200 x 300 and will be laid vertically.

Our tiled niches will be the same tile as the floor. We liked the look of the mosaic but decided to reduce the grout areas so Mum doesn’t have to clean it as much.Can you see the running theme that mum does not like cleaning?

The fancy bath mixer and the mosaic around the bath will be the Opal tiles not mosaic.

We again decided to be boring and safe using the opal around the bath too. It was a toss-up with the same as the floor again or a mosaic. Then we saw the beautiful floral pearl tiles and wanted them so this was the cheaper compromise.

The compromise is that everything is basically the same in all areas with the Opal walls and Vertigo Ash floors.

BUT in the master bedroom ensuite, Mum and Dad are going to have the nice pearly flower tiles (Cergres Floral Bianco) down the side wall of the double vanity to add some classy bling! These are 600 x 300 and are raised so up close it looks like there are little pearls stuck on the tile to mak ethe floral pattern.

Mum likes that when she wakes up in the morning if the ensuite door is open that is what her view will be. NICE.

The Pearl floral Tile feature

The neutral colours can be livened up with vases. Flowers, towels and other accessories or other well-known bathroom items found at our house, you know, dirty clothes, hair bands (there are 4 girls in the house) and tins of air freshener?  Hahaha

So all of the vanities will be in laminate “stipple seal” and all the vanity tops are "osprey caesarstone". Both have metallic flecks and that is about as exciting as we got!!



These are the same as our vanity bowls and the white wall is where the pearl tile will go



We have the above counter top vanity bowls that are square. Dad hopes he can get his head under the tap to wet his hair (well what is left of it)! Mum hopes that she can get her face over the bowl for when she does her facials (and she needs plenty of them). D3 hopes she can still wash her barbie dolls in the sink and that the high sides stop the water from going everywhere (well some of it)!

We upgraded the vanities in the two main bathrooms to include drawers so that all of the hair brushes, hair ties and make up that the girls are accumulating are hidden out of site. Mum and Dad have their own vanity bowl each and cupboard each, but I am sure mum will still manage to take over Dads.

The bath fitting is a fancy looking mixer tap that you turn on outside of the bath which will definitely be a bit of a novelty for D1 and D2. We are all looking forward to our weekly relaxing bath, especially in soccer season after a game! Mum also has so many fancy smelling Body Shop bath products to use to make them a more luxurious event.

In the ensuite shower there is a groovy shower head that you can take off and use as a hand held if you like. Dad specifically asked for this NOT to be in the girls bathroom as he knows his daughters too well and knows that they will find a way to misuse it and it will become a weapon of mass destruction. He can picture lots of water fights with such an implement. He is no fun!

Speaking of FUN...who wants a bath??

What do you think?

Over and out!

The Pink House jr.

We have mentioned before, our holiday house that we kindly refer to as the Pink House- because it had been painted PINK for the past 40 years plus!! Well now we have a second pink house! Our house has been insulated with lovely pink bats. You can see the 'glow' from inside when you pull up out front.

Front view showing completed tiling!!

Front on. The front renedered portico is going to be green too remember. It will look great with all of those trees out the front. The Eucalypt and Fraxinus sprouting out of the road?? Why we need two on top of each other baffles me?? sarcastic sarcastic. But we do love gardens and plants I assure you!

The roof tiling has been completed too with the pointing finally finished off over the alfresco and garage and the front portico has its roof! The air conditioning was installed (well the ducts have been) and the electrical cabling prior to the insulation.

the view from the back. The neighbour is now building so Mum will probably will not be able to take this shot anymore! Lots of crap everywhere, looking forward to the clean up.

The gyprocking started yesterday on (Wednesday 19th). We just went past the house to check some levels for the pool area and see how much had been done. It looks like all of the roof areas have been covered and some walling, possibly all of upstairs. We did not go in to look. So hopefully that can be installed by the weekend then they can continue to set it all and do all the finishing next week. Do we sound wishful? Sure that they will do a super job!

The tradies we are getting have also done most of the work on the house behind us (a Modernview Home). The back neighbour commends all of them- the concretor, sparky and gyprocker so we are happy to be sharing good labourers. It is comforting to know that they are good or have a good rap before they start on our site. Our brickies did not do the neighbours house and they were definitely untidy!! haha

Last week there was a machine in the front yard to clean up some of the rubbish that has been accumulating on site. They only removed waste from the front though and the back yard looks like a tip!! There are broken bricks and tiles everywhere as well as large piles of dirt too.

There is still an open pipe area that needs to be filled in (probably once all the plumbing has eventually been connected?) We have not noticed any other lot with the open plumbing though......we will have to have a look around to take more notice of other yards. We have to also stop comparing our build to others in the area as it is getting disheartening in some cases. Some have overtaken ours when they started weeks and nearly months after us, yet some are very similar. As long as we are finished by early December as per contract  we will be happy!

This is the pipe area that has not settled yet. Wondering if all of the fill on site is meant to go into that hole? lots of tiles through the dirt too??

Well the pool is back on as we said in previous posts. The "pool man" came to have a look at the access (as the neighbours were starting their build which could limit our access) as we will soon be built out on all boundaries. The Pool Man said he could access from behind the neighbours properties as two doors up they have still not started.  That would mean accessing across two other properties into ours. It was the easiest option so we thought we would suss it out!! First phone call to SS next door, they said that they could not see a problem with accessing through the back. Looking good. Second call to next SS. We had to go to their head office. Sounded like a reasonable request , they would be happy to talk more!. Thirdly, called our SS to discuss access and having the pool installed behind a temporary fence now that the externals of the house are completed. "No Way".

They have control of the site and it is in the contract. No access til handover!! Dad asked who is next in the chain of command to ask? That would be the site project manager. Called him.....and still waiting for his return phone call. The pool will take 6 weeks or so to get approval and to be ordered etc. Not sure if it is worth the effort to even broach the subject with them again. We have approx. 7 weeks left of the contract!! woo hoo

The SS has contacted us once, which was to meet on site for the piering. We have not heard anything  from him since. Do other SS text, email or call their clients at all? Are we asking too much? We would really love to have been involved in the build and become knowledgable of the building process and what is involved. To us you pay money every few months and at the end of  the contract you get the house you asked for. No questions asked or contact unless a variation in between!

We have a wide access down the alfresco side of the house hopefully we can still get that pool down here! Our neighbours had their slab installed today. Looking forwar to meeting them.

The electrician contacted us directly which was fine by us as he was a top bloke and very friendly and informative. We have met some tradies on site but have not seen the SS on site whilst we were there. Maybe we are being hard on the SS for not giving us updates? Maybe we should be directly contacting Alkira for updates??Please help? Should we be contacting either for updates or should they provide their customers with courtesy updates? What do you think is suitable? What service do you get? Does the squeaky wheel get the oil or the fly in their soup? We would love your feedback to know whether we should be asking more questions to be involved or if they should just be couteously providing updates? Feel better after venting. May even edit the blog tomorrow after sleeping on it again.

The house looks great by the way!

Over and out!

The shell is completed.... we think??? Watch that speed hump!

Well it has been a long time between posts. There have been school holidays, soccer presentations, camping trips, coastal visits, work and lots of Body Shop parties in the interim. We the A-Z Family have been very busy and so have the builders..well sort of!!

Since the last post the roof tiles have gone on..ever so slowly. They were started on the 14 September and they are still not pointed and the roof above the front door entrance has not been tiled. Not sure what the hold up is/was as our SS has NO contact with us at all and we don't want to annoy him. Plus we were firmly told that he will not contact us unless there is a problem. Mum thinks there is a problem when the home owner has absolutely no idea what stage the build is up to or what is next. Dad just is thankful that some work is being undertaken. The tradies have been good at what they do and are very friendly when we see them on site. Dad is such an optimist.

Anyway, the roof tiling commenced on the 14 September so nearly one month ago. In that time the bricks were all cleaned on the 26th and the scaffold came down. The bricks look superb as we always knew they would. They were well worth the extra $$ to upgrade!

On the 29th September the garage roof and alfresco were tiled on the roof (the scaffold had to come down before that was undertaken- as it was in the way). There was a large stack of bricks left over from our build that were stacked on the neighbours property for weeks. Unfortunatley these have now dissapeared and we are a bit miffed as we would have loved to use these for our letterbox and garden edging etc..and pretty sure that we paid for them..excess or not!!

Our neighbour on the right (facing the street) has started and they are powering along we met the owner who will suffer dearly with three screeching girls living next door. Actually four if you count Mum! They have their framework up. On the left hand side they have had a fence installed and the site cleared. There was a lot of scaffold and our bricks stacked on their block and that was where Mum took her Alfresco shot from the back. so she will not be able to do that photo point anymore. We are happy for the neighbours to start building. The right is a single storey so they will probably be in before us. The left is a double storey like us...but hey they might be in before us too..... our build seems like it is going so slow. It has hit a speed hump! or so it seems.....hoping to meet the left side soon.

On the 3rd October the cladding above the Alfresco was installed. On our way to our annual camping trip to Del Rio Resert http://www.delrioresort.com.au/ for the October long weekend we drove past the house to see if anything had occured or if anything looked different!. It certainly did. It looked finished.We are not sure if it has been painted yet as the colour we chose is similar to the colour of the raw cladding and we cannot get in to see it up close. Oh and our SS doesn't advise us of any programmed work whatsoever!

The girls think the house looks great! They say that it "looks like a house now!" They have started talking about who they will have over first and what they will do and where they will play. They also talk about the pool which is back on the cards now that we finally have all of our updated inclusions tallied!! The dramas with the pool can have their own post. Stay tuned for that one!

The electrician has contact Dad and has met him on site weeks ago for a consultation. He is very informative and knowledgable and has helped us make some informed decisions. Mum and Dad both have a brother each who is a sparky so this was the only part we were not too worried about. But the subbie is so far a good tradesman and is meeting Dad tomorrow for the rough in. The same electrician did Phil and Bels and they were really happy with his work so fingers crossed he keeps it up. I am sure that he will. Hopefully it goes well and keeps the project rolling.

Not sure what comes after that??? Will update it all again tomorrow.

Over and out!

taken in September