Window Decisions & The Theater.

Now that the building permit is issued, I have 2 significant things I'm working on.

1) Theater - We just received the designs from Dennis Erskine. I have to redesign downstairs a little to create a separate entrance to our dedicated gym & incorporate the theater design that Dennis did for us.

2) We received a price increase from our PVC/Vinyl window supplier so we're re-evaluating the decision to go with Vinyl windows.

Vinyl windows are superior from an insulation perspective to aluminum, like aluminum they don't require maintenance, unfortunately they are somewhat looked down upon here in Australia and our builder and others have commented that they wouldn't do good things to our property values.

We've narrowed down the decision to timber (cedar), or powder coated aluminum. Cedar is a much better insulator than aluminum. Aluminum is a good conductor and used to make things like cookware, hence it is less energy efficient. The upside of powder coated aluminum is that it never needs any maintenance. Once you put it in, there's no repainting involved. Cedar I'll need to re-stain every couple of years. It's a tough decision, but I'm leaning toward the warm look of the cedar. Cedar is a beautiful timber.

Some photos of the building site

 Here's a couple of photos of the building site before things get going. There's a retaining wall up the back that we're going to fill in with the soil that we excavate. You can also see the Greswell Wildlife Reserve. Kangaroos roam there :) To the left where the fence is one of our neighbors, his house is already finished. On the right we'll have another neighbor, but no word yet on who's going to be living there.

The water meter just got installed this week, but otherwise, not much happening until the new year when people get back from their xmas & new year's vacations.

Big week this week.

It was a big week this week.

We got a letter from the council saying that we needed to clear the block because it was overgrown and was a fire hazard. Now - anyone who's been in melbourne this past few weeks knows that it's been bucketing down with rain, everything is lush & green and there's no chance of a fire. In fact - it's been hard to find a clear dry day to get down there with the lawn mower and weed whacker to clear it. I finally got everything cleared up on Tuesday, all nice and ready for the builder.

We also just got our building permits approved today. Our builder is Rustic Builders and they are going to start just as soon as they can get people on site. The real challenge right now is the xmas break and trying to find contractors to come out and start work.

Finally - we're trying to decide on what types of windows we need for the house. Should we go with Vinyl, Timber or Powder Coated Aluminium. We're leaning towards cedar, but I'm a little anxious about the amount of maintenance needed by timber windows.

Building Contracts Signed

It took a long time getting started, but after 2 years of planning, we just signed building contracts a couple of weeks ago, and have filed our building permit application. We're hoping to get building permits this week