Brickwork done. Gutters on.

The brickwork is done but the major thing that happened this week was that the gutters and facia boards went on in preparation for the roof which will happen this week. I will be glad when that is done since we won't be at the mercy of the weather so much anymore - not that it has been bad so far, thankfully. I will be the first to admit that I may have gotten the colour scheme not 100% right outside - we'll see once the roof is on so before anybody squints a bit if it comes out looking a little dodge, I am aware of that! I believe that we have got the inside decor right if nothing else - but we can poll on both once it is finished - everybody's taste is different so we'll see. Why face brick and aluminium? Well firstly maintenance-free but more importantly rendering (plastering) is hugely expensive here because labour for anything is high. I guesstimate it may have added 20-30 000 dollars to the house at the end of the day if we had plastered and then you still have to paint it. If you think South African houses are better built - yes they are more solid but less well insulated. South Africans do tend to have better colour co-ordination - most houses in Aus look like the old railway houses in South Africa from the 70's with red or cream brick and cream aluminium window frames. Melbourne is, I hear, slightly more modern in their taste. You still get a lot of oak finish here in NSW in kitchens and 'Biggie Best'and 'lace' steel decor on stoeps and patios. Anyway to each their own I guess. The thing is if you go too far away from the norm, you will never be able to resell, so you have to be aware of that. And yes the stacka doors etc. were left over a few days and weekend onsite with no security and the fence wide open as in the pics! See you next week!

From right front

From front left

From the rear left of the house into the Alfresco

A view from the rear right of the house.

Looking out onto the Alfresco. The gaps in the wall will have decorative timber slats in them initially but will be replaced with aluminium louvres to allow for variable light in summer and protection from the weather in winter when we do the Alfresco aluminium weather shutters - expected to be in total around$10k so we decided to hold off for a while on those. The supporting timber pillar in the middle will be removed once the roof is on and should open the room up a bit. The built in barbecue will go below those slats. The type of effect we are aiming at is something similar to this below which we got from a brochure we saw once - apologies for the poor quality:

The 6 stacka doors waiting in the garage ready for installation on the Alfresco. If they look short, it may be because our celings are 2750 high and the garage ceiling with the stepdown from the house will probably end up being around 3 metres.

The kitchen window is finally in! At last! (The gap was bugging me.)

All the roof tiles stacked at the back ready to go on. They will be on by next week.