Doorsome!

So we lived in America for two years where the only two adjectives are "awesome" and "brutal" but never really picked them up. We start building a house a year later and suddenly everything is "awesome". Who knows why, but at least we have found a way to personalise it to best meet this week's needs - it has been a "doorsome" week!

Our twelve internal doors presented themselves late yesterday, bringing a little thrill to Mr Laird's heart. You see, there are Certain Things that are Extremely Important to his sense of how this house Should Be. His deepest fear was bad doors. (Second to that would be bad skirting boards).

 That fear has been assuaged. Lovely  4 panel timber doors are safely stowed, along with an excellent vestibule door that will receive custom leadlight, and even the timber and glass door for the butler's pantry. The latter needed to be an unusual size  but luckily was found lurking quietly on its own, away from the other doors, at the emporium a couple of weeks ago.  

Fast House Squasher continues to toy with us, parallel parking his knocker-downer on the front lawn but failing to do anything with it. Now it is the Easter long weekend so maybe no action until next Tuesday. But at least now we have collateral!

Doorsome Door

Our new garden feature

Like it?

Time to draw the line?

I may or may not sack the Fast House Squasher tomorrow. First engaged back in January, it is now nearly April. Promises have been made and broken. Time to draw the line?

Career moves

In the past couple of weeks I got my psychologists registration back up and running, plus our permission from the Building Commission to be owner-builders came through. It's an interesting combination: Psycho-builder!

Stairway to heaven

Well not exactly...just the stairway to upstairs. It was time for whole new topic after being on the flooring for the last few weeks so I decided to get on with quotes for the staircase. Which is a vertical floor I guess...

So, we have 18 stairs going up in a straight line and needing to be produced in a traditional style to match the timber floors. Maybe a little like these ones on the left:

Losing my marbles

A couple of weeks ago we were tracking a great deal on some marble tile - until I got distracted by another batch of tiles, decided to risk missing out on the first batch to pursue them, and ended up losing out on all my marbles. They are not that rare, though, and within days Mr Laird had procured exactly what we needed for less than half the retail price. This not the truck we got the tiles off the back off - this is the back of my SUV laden with 16 sqm of very heavy tiles. I feared for the Cx-9 but she is fine. Apparently.

Unfortunately, even this saving is not enough to offset the dizzying heights of The Kitchen Quote. Lindy the Lovely Kitchen Lady came to present the final plan and quote. I quickly flicked through the presentation folder at the beginning of the meeting, glimpsed the bottom line, and then gently closed it, possibly thinking it might somehow metamorphose into a different number if I didn't let it too far into my consciousness just yet. Let's just say that Lindy has been sent back to the drawing board for the time being. Options are being explored. Cough.

Unfortunately (uh oh - that is two unfortunatelys!) we then went straight from that meeting to the timber floor meeting, which helped us choose a lovely timber - but again the numbers are big! Finally, a break in the clouds that weekend with Schots having their autumn sale. By the end of the weekend we had purchased all the internal timber doors (4 panel Victorians) and we were back in the black on at least one budget item.

By Monday we were well underway with our shopping around. Most of the taps etc are now here - see pic below. There's also a pic of the general scheme we are plotting for the ensuite. Toilet suites selected, butlers' pantry sink here, laundry sink ready to be collected. We will dazzle our tradespeople with our readiness! I did drive from Blackburn, to Richmond, to Bayswater and back to Blackburn all in a morning on my frameless shower screen quest, only to find the one I liked best is discontinued. Sigh.

Demolition still has not happened! Applied some gentle pressure to the Fast House Squasher and it turns out he does think I am a nagging housewife as he clearly got a bit cross with me, took on a rather parental tone, and said it would be done but that perhaps we should end the call at that point! I may have laughed.

Not all tradespeople are that way though, by a long shot. Saturday NIGHT I had an actual plumber sitting in my house providing a very helpful consultation whilst being pleasant and communicative. It doesn't get much better than that in my little world at the moment.

Totally floored 2

Ok - flooring decided: Spotted Gum, 180mm wide. No further discussion about the hardwood floors will be had. In the words of the exasperated older daughter : "Good!".

News flash!

Building regulation variation approved!

Celebrated by buying a laundry sink.

That is all.

Totally floored.

There have been over 355 views of this blog so far - but no house has materialised. Questions are being asked! Mostly by other people, wondering how the demolition went, has the new house been started, etc etc.

Mr Demolition Man, whose business name I will not mention but is a synonym for Fast House-Squashing, has not been living up to that moniker on either count.

I have penned him a missive (sent an email) suggesting that the time for action is NOW. I am picturing a Barack Obama-style of urgency in that "now", while Demo Dude is probably picturing a naggy housewife. But whatever works.

Meanwhile, we are expecting that the building regulation variation we applied for will be approved and in our hot little hands within the next few days. That then allows the full set of building plans to be drawn up and the building permit itself to be applied for. At my reckoning it will be at least 6 weeks before any building works can commence. Riveting, I know - but you did ask.

Rather than sit idly by, we have been working on the flooring issue this week. We are determined to have solid hardwood floors, but what variety? What price? And how to overcome the ins and outs of laying over a slab onto battens, which means the floor would be about 60mm higher than the bottoms of the exterior door frames and any other abutting flooring such as tiles and carpet.

Jason has been working on the latter, consulting with the Lovely Building Company and the Eager and Helpful Carpenter. I will be happy to simply receive the solution once it is arrived at but it seems to involve the slab design and hence our sense of urgency to get the flooring sorted out.

Tossing up: jarrah or spotted gum? Favouring a tung oil finish, and 180mm wide boards are not only our preference but cheaper - who'd have thought? For those who know and care: we are a top-nail kind of family, no secret nailing for us please.

In my quest for best price, I've been working on quotes this week but interestingly there has been little variation between suppliers.

Also on flooring: a previous post mentioned I was eyeing off a great deal on some marble tile for the bathroom - and it WAS a great deal, selling off at about 20% of cost. But in the dying hours before that opportunity closed off, we suddenly got distracted by another great deal of some larger format marble tiles that we liked even more! Hoping to snap those up tomorrow...

As "The Nanny" used to say: Never pay retail!!

If it's the most expensive one, then that's what I want

....or so it sometimes seems! Ever noticed how whenever you are shown a selection of anything, it is usually the most expensive one you want - I mean - must have for Very Sound Reasons?

That would be why I am eyeing off a four- figure kitchen tap I suppose! (Dear Santa, I am talking about the Perrin and Rowe "the Provence" kitchen mixer, bench-mounted - at your convenience, of course..).

Back in the land of reality. I have found a whole new evening hobby: trawling the entire WWW for house fittings at amazing prices. You've seen the girls' new bath, purchased online at about 60% of the price of anything similar. Some excellent traditional bath taps are also jetting their way to me (free shipping, FYI) for about 20% of the cost of the regular retail outlet ones. And I am currently stalking a phenomenal deal on some marble flooring for the master bathroom brand new in box, and left over from a Toorak renovation - stay tuned for THAT one!

This generally results in excellent positive reinforcement from Mr Laird and he assures me that such clever savings will handily support other line items that might need some extra "resourcing". Like a fancy kitchen tap. For example. Ahem.