.Week 8 at the Block.

Construction of our new house is well under way. It took so long for everything pre-construction to take place that it seems strange that the actual building is going so fast! We are already up to week 8 and hope to be moving in before Christmas - maybe even earlier if things keep running smoothly. The last time I posted about the house was back in March when we were just getting ready to break ground. I do share regular, weekly updates on Instagram though...here's a look at the weekly progress over the last 8 weeks:

Thought it was time to do a more detailed post about the house and where we are up to now. First of all, here's the floor plan (click on the image to see it bigger):

Besides running out of bedroom space for our growing family, our main motivation for the new house was so that Jaron can work solely from home. The house is quite a bit bigger than what we are in now and is designed to suit all of our needs...Jaron's office is directly inside the front door so that when he has clients coming to see him they don't have to come into the living areas at all. We have separated the rumpus and sewing area with a nib wall which has timber posts dividing the top half, giving privacy but still letting in light and enabling me to easily see out. I think everything else is self-explanatory. (Honestly, I'm the worst at visualising spaces...so glad that Jaron knows what he is doing here! He came up with pretty much everything and I just gave the nod of approval!! Every time I visit the block I discover something new - what? another cupboard here?! All good things though, but I seriously have no clue!)

We are using a mostly timber, limestone and polished concrete as the feature finishes of the house (see rendered images of the house in this older blog post). We are drawing on the inspiration of timber, concrete and white for all of our decorating and finishes - VERY different to our bright lime green-inspired house now but I'm looking forward to a change. Instead of a timber deck which requires a lot of maintenance and care, we have opted for polished concrete decks and some polished concrete on the porch, entrance, Jaron's office, laundry and one toilet. I'm excited about this flooring...part of the concrete areas have had a first polish and it is looking great so far. The cleaning and maintenance is going to be so easy too. It's dirty and patchy at the moment, but will polish up beautifully at the end!

The house has a big band of windows wrapping around the front, it is going to let in so much natural light and be really warm all year 'round too.

The back wall of the house is slanted and the iron on the roof will wrap down the wall. The windows in this wall (bedrooms and bathroom) are going to be set back like little portholes in the wall.

This is the shed at the back of the house which will also hold our solar panels.

The front of the house:

The rumpus room has a sliding door opening onto a covered deck - the kids are really excited about being able to use this as extended play area...I'm thinking a couple of hanging chairs out there would be great - or maybe a swing?!

The back of the house. The entrance to the house is at the back, through the porch:

The end of the house - that's my big bedroom window there!

This photo is taken from the furthest corner of the house and kind of shows how much land we have (to landscape - let's not think about that yet!). We are on 1 acre and it seems like the perfect size land to have great space for the kids to run around on as well as room for some chooks, a vegie garden and orchard.

And here's a look at the inside frame work. I love the repetition of lines:

No doubt I'll be back with more as things keep progressing. If you want more regular updates though, keep checking Instagram - I find it so much easier to post day-to-day events there than on the blog now!