Day 87 - 08/05/2012 - Quite a bit has happened in the last two weeks. The brickies have finished their job with the final touches done today. The plasters came in on Wednesday and have have finished the rough plastering. The garage still has no roof and the balcony is yet to be rendered. I have put some before and after shots of the plastering. We are having some issues with the flooring namely finding the right product to suit our needs. We have settled on engineered timber flooring throughout the house and have narrowed it down to an oak wide board look. The search continues. We have not had any updates from Mainvue regarding the progress, but from what we can tell, its full steam ahead. One mistake we made was not choosing the glass staircase option, but at over 10K its probably not worth the $$. The luxury lighting package at over 4K is not worth the expense for the sake of about 30 down lights and extra power points, its far too expensive for what they offer.

Day 72 - 23/04/2012 The brickies have completed most of the downstairs and the scaffolding is due to arrive later this week for the final bricks to be laid upstairs. Electrical roughing has started and most of this has been completed. The plasters are due to arrive next week. The bricks have come up nicely with the guys working on the house leaving the bricks relatively clean and free of excess mortar, I suppose this means less cleaning later on. We have started the process of looking for timber flooring which is going to be a nightmare considering all the different types of timber there is on the market. We have already secured our source of Merbau decking at a very good price in fact the best price we could find, from a company called JTR Timber www.jtrtimber.com.au  in Melbourne with all lengths in excess of 4 meters, which is the best for larger areas. The site supervisor advises there will be a site clean before the plasters start. To date Mainvue have been great and the site has been kept fairly tidy, unlike other building sites you see. They have protected the windows with a goo covering which has helped protect the window panes from falling mortar. We have continued to receive regular updates from the office and our site supervisor.

Day 64 - 15th of April 2012, the brickies have been on site and have finished the bottom floor, we have selected an Austral Brick - Chocolate colour with natural rolled mortar. We are a little concerned that the mortar is a little dark, but time will tell once it has a chance to dry.  We are hopeful that the the mortar will dry to a lighter colour, as it has done in places on top of several bricks. We are quite happy with the overall colour of the bricks, going well both the timber windows and Aluminum windows we have down the side of the house. Lots of activity inside the house with the carpenter in straightening walls getting them ready for plastering. We expect the house will soon be at lock up which means no access to our own  house without a chaperon.

Day 52 - 2nd of April 2012. Not much has happened on site this week, apart from a meeting with the hydronic heating plumber where we went through radiator locations throughout the house. We made a few modifications to sizes and locations of the radiators given certain restrictions on window height and so forth. Our site supervisor was very accommodating, offering to make small modifications to ensure the radiators fit.   We can understand why Mainvue have decided not to pursue hydronic heating  given its complexity. The roof guards have been removed and all the upstairs windows have been installed. We have been told the bricklayers will be on site this Wednesday, hopefully to make a start.

 






Day 44 - 25th of March 2012. The roof tiles were delivered on Tuesday and the scaffolding went up on Wednesday. The Roof tilers were on site Thursday/Friday and finished the roof. The front balcony has been framed in addition to most of the windows installed on the ground floor along with foil wrapping.  We met with our site supervisor on Friday who was really helpful and took the time to explain the building process and our time line of expected completion. He knew his stuff and picked up on a few issues that Mainvue will rectify; this gave us confidence that he was on top of things. We have been told the bricks should be delivered on site next week and the brickies are due to move in for about 3 weeks. This means we should be at lock up by the end of April.

Day 36 - 17th of March 2012. The roof trusses were delivered on Tuesday and put up the next day, the framers are close to finishing their part with the plumbers moving in on Friday. Speaking to Mainvue on Thursday we have been advised that the roof tiles should be up next week. The only issue this week has been the rain with quite a bit falling. Our timber windows and timber sliders were left on the garage floor and are full of water. Given the timber is untreated, we hope this does not affect them too much. We have our first meet and great with the site supervisor on Friday.

Day 29 - 10th of March 2012. The second floor frame has been completed and several windows have been delivered to site. We visited the site on Friday and briefly spoke to the tradesmen; according to them the roof trusses will be delivered on Tuesday next week and should take a day to install. We are starting to panic a bit now, as we realise how much work we are going to have when we move in. Mainvue's communication has been been great so far and our coordinator is very responsive to questions and e-mails.