Join the Dots...

The markers have gone in. The outline of the building can now be imagined if you join the dots in your mind.



There is a dot at each point where the building changes shape. The dots in the picture are at the back corner where the children's bedrooms will go. The crosses are for the posts of the front portico.

Despite the fluoro pink paint we didn't notice them at first during a walkover of the site with a friend today. Too busy looking at how close everyone else is building to the 3.5 metre high rock retaining wall!









It was interesting to compare the streetscape today:

with that of four months ago when we last visited the site together:

Why Morgan Street?

We are building in an area of North Lakes called "The Outlook". Many of the street names around here appear to be surnames...Forrestal, Rawlins, Carmody, and Morgan. But surnames of whom? Politics? Pioneers? Nothing springs to mind.

Therefore, I went on a hunt to find out. Could it be the likes of Elaine Forrestal, Donna Rawlins, Isobelle Carmody, Robin Klein, Sonia Hartnett, Libby Gleeson, James Moloney, Alison Lester and Allan Baillie? Yes, the pattern was revealed, and the developer has confirmed it...the streets around here are named after Australian children's authors!

Our own street is named after Sally Morgan, a Perth artist and writer who, after discovering as a teenager that she was of Aboriginal descent, wrote a book about her quest for identity called My Place Her children's books include The Flying Emu and other Australian Stories She is a Professor at the School of Indigenous Studies at the University of Western Australia.

According to part of an interview published on abc.net.au Sallys advice to children is: "Follow your dreams, even if other people think that your dream is silly or they think that you haven't got the ability to achieve it, just don't listen to the negative stuff , you know you've got to follow your dreams because if you have enough determination you will get there, you will get there eventually - just don't let other people put you off."

Colour Selections

From the beginning my vision for the house has been "light, white, bright and airy".

Most of the display homes around here are still working in shades of brown (albeit with contemporary names like moccha and cappuccino). So instead I've settled on a white and charcoal grey theme with accents of teal and plum.

The exterior will be mostly white (Colorbond "Surfmist"), with the portico highlighted in charcoal grey (Colorbond "Ironstone") and the roof tiles will be Bristile "Magnum".

For exterior contrast I'm thinking of plants with purple flowers such as lavender, wisteria and agapanthus.

Inside, the walls will be Dulux "Whisper White" and the floor tiles will be large (450mm x 450mm) polished ceramic in white. Completing the white theme will be a Caesarstone benchtop in the kitchen in "Snow".

I considered a feature wall in the kitchen/living area in a teal, such as Taubmans "Graphica" (larger sample of blue above) but decided to create a large canvas to hang on the wall instead. Perhaps something with a family photo on a teal backdrop.

Contrast in the kitchen will be provided by the glass splashback, which is likely to be something like this: "Black Super Sparkle".

This would complement the green/black glass mosaic tiles I have chosen for the bathroom, ensuite and laundry very nicely.

The mosaics will be used around the top of the island bath, in the recess of the shower, and as inserts on the bathroom and laundry walls. They look really smart against the white horizontal 300mm x 100mm white wall tiles.

The remainder of the bathroom and laundry areas will be quite neutral with benchtops in Laminex "Platinum Micro/Flint Finish" and vanity/cupboard doors in Laminex "White/Flint Finish". The tile for the showers is Avant Garde "Bianco", which has a very similar colour and fleck to the "Platinum Micro".

The only feature wall will be in the main bedroom - I've chosen a shade of plum called Dulux "Regal Violet" (see lighter shade of mauve above).

The darker plum/grape (Dulux "Salvation") and bright teal (Wattyl "Marine Blue") above will be used for accents like soft furnishings.

Doorway to...delay

Here it is 10 days later and not much else has happened on the block, except for the fact that the neighbours found it a useful place to rest their fibreglass pool and provide access for the earthmoving equipment. Both of the neighbours have their frames up already.

Despite the fact that the final details being sorted are only relatively minor, the builder is refusing to move forward until every "t" is crossed and "i" dotted. Sigh.

The biggest issue has been what to do about the front door. I never imagined it could be so complicated. The starting point - about four months ago - was when I requested one of those fabulous "wow factor" extra-wide pivot entry doors. The quote came back to say that it would be an "extra" $1300. Gulp. But more importantly, I learned that you cannot put a security screen on it because of the pivot placement.

As I have gone for a more environmentally sustainable design than the average for this area, this was a problem. I have opted for orientation, insulation and cross-ventilation, rather than the closed front doors and ducted air conditioning that are all the rage in this area at the moment.

So it was back to the drawing board and I was pretty proud of how quickly I was able to settle on an alternative. What nobody explained to me at the time was that the extra width and height that would have been taken up by a pivot door still needed to be filled somehow. The drafters drew in a sidelight, but it was only at the 11th hour that someone discovered a highlight was also needed and the proposed standard layout on offer was an unbalanced series of four panels of glass around my chosen door. Something like this:


To me, that looks very "bitsy" and unbalanced in the overall design. Even upgrading to single panels of glass on the top and side didn't seem to solve the problem.
Now that the front door was under the microscope other problems were exposed, including the fact that there was no ideal way to hinge the door as it would either overlap double interior doors on one side, or a decorative cutout on the other side (this situation was the result of some modifications to the standard floor plan to enlarge some rooms). It was also revealed that the internal doors would be larger than the front and back door, as they were automatically upgraded from 2040mm high to 2340mm high when I selected the super high ceilings (2740mm or 9 foot) option. If only all of this had been explained to me earlier...

Anyway, to cut a long story short, this is what I have now come up with - a taller door with a slightly different design, balanced between two narrow sidelights. I went for the six glass panel because I thought it had more impact in the taller version and because I thought it balanced the six windows of the facade (I hope it's not too symmetrical now). The back door will be the same, minus the sidelights, both in charcoal grey (Colorbond Ironstone), while the internal doors will have a similar design with four routed panels, painted white.

The end result should look like this. I hope I've made the right decision... Anyway, as a result of all this we now have a slab pour date: October 9!

Ground Zero

Well, here it begins. Six months after paying the initial deposit and three months after signing the contract we are finally at the point where construction can begin. There are still some finishes to be worked out, but at last we seem to be moving forward. Today the site was levelled in preparation for the slab!

We are building with Ausbuild and doing a modified Kimberley LKI with Island facade in North Lakes, on the outskirts of Brisbane, Queensland. Here's what it will look like (from the Plans, tricked up with Publisher).


The house is a single-storey four-bedroom with computer networked study (for me) and Kidzone (for the kids). The alfresco is on the side, facing north, where eventually the pool will be. We are still working out how to make a feature of the massive rock retaining wall at the back.


The kids were excited to see that the slabs had been poured on either side of us. Now to fill in the gap!