A little rendering...

Not sure if this needs to be painted or not - the colour is pretty close to what we selected.

Sad news

You will notice that the picture above has returned to the original one with facebrick above the portico. I have just received a phone call from my CS Manager, Bev, who was the bearer of bad news. The bricks used cannot take the render according to the brick manufacturer, PGH. I suppose we could try to go ahead with it but to be dealing to render falling off constantly - no, thanks! I'll keep it as it was and pocket the $2.5K for something else. Disappointed in the outcome. To those thinking about building, I reiterate....check your plans carefully to save future headaches/heartaches.

Facade changes and brick progress

Up close of the area above portico

Up close of the brick colour

You will notice the cover page of the blog has the representation of the house with the render added. We made the decision to stick with Mountain Shadow on both the render and the cladding. Pretty sure we did the right thing and if not, it is easy enough (!) to change the cladding colour later on. The brick colour is a fair bit darker than the picture as you can see by the photos and the other thing is that the fascia above the front cladding will be done in Monument.
Thanks to AJ from (redo) my space who spent extra time this weekend mulling over colours for me and visiting the site to peer through the fences.

Facade Update

Well the decision has been made to leave it as is and hopefully once it is all completed and with time, I will get used to it. Without final costings, the rough estimation to change it was going to be about 4 weeks delay (ouch!), $4000 and all to get a gap of 200mm. The cost in both time and money was not going to get an outcome I was happy with either so it has been decided to move forward. Relief from everyone at Eden Brae, I am sure, though they were happy to do whatever they could to ensure I am pleased with the final outcome.

Whilst checking this all out, I have also discovered that a section of the facade is not listed to be rendered as per the advertised facade either. The area above the stackstone under the cladding on the roof gable is supposed to be rendered. We haven't paid for it to be built like that though we did ask for the Boston facade as per the website. Again, an oversight on the part of the Tender presenter that we also signed off on. This one is much easier to fix - it just involves money. Don't think we will do anything about it.

Both of these oversights highlight the importance of good communication every step of the way and the need to take time to discuss the build with your client. We asked for the Boston facade as per the photo on the website and trusted our builder to either put that into the tender document or explain why it could not be done like that. Saves great disappointment later on. Having said that, if these are the worst headaches we have during the build, we will be doing well. Such first world problems...

External Colours

Two days later and my head is still swimming with colours, designs and choices. It was a long and exhausting day, made that little bit easier by having Anastasia by my side. Here are the external colours we are using

BRICKS - Chocolatto

ROOF, GUTTERS, FASCIA, WATERTANK ETC - Colorbond Monument

RENDER, CLADDING & BARGE - Taubmans Mountain Shadow (no image)

FRONT DOOR - Taubmans Viking Grey (no image)

GARAGE DOOR - Colorbond Dune

EAVES & ALFRESCO CEILINGS - Bristol Greylocks

LAUNDRY DOOR - Taubmans Surfmist

WINDOWS & REAR STACKER DOORS - Airlite Bond Off White (no image)

Let's see how it actually turns out when on large areas, with shadowing, full sun etc. You can get the basic idea though...