No post last week as we just didn't get around to it. Took lots of photos though.

We are officially at the 'lockup' stage (this means the property is sealed from the weather) but as you can see from the images there are still two doors missing downstairs and windows missing in the rumpus and master bathroom. So not exactly sealed.

The scaffold has been taken down and the top floor has had the bricks 'cleaned' but it might need a little more work to get the bricks and mortar up to scratch.

The oven and stove top will be installed in the alcove, with the kitchen island in the middle of the floor (where the pipes are coming out of the floor). The pantry is off to the right of the kitchen, with the laundry in the background.

The kitchen and dining room, with the cornicing on the floor, I guess during this week the cornice will be put up and the plaster board will have a skim of plaster over it to get everything good and smooth.

And here is the 'before' the batts (insulation) has been put into all the wall space and roof space, but the gaps around the windows and doors make it a little pointless :-)

On this photo you can see the sockets mounted on the frame.

This is (obviously) the 'after' shot: here is the media room with plaster in place. What I am a little confused about is this. All the wires are in place in the walls (as are the metal brackets for the plug sockets etc) so why are there no holes in the plasterboard for plug sockets and other wires ? Hopefully they don't need to cut lots of holes to find the correct places

The house is now starting to look like a home. Monday the plaster's arrived and started to put plaster board up on the wooden framing. Here's a photo from the lounge looking to the back garden. We can start to get a feel for how the rooms are going to be (it was a little difficult when you could see through the walls), and to some extent how light each room is going to be (the staircase is still not in place so no light from upstairs yet).

Here is the plasterwork in the master bathroom, the shower tray looks massive now. The bath is still to be put in place (alongside side everything else in the house).At last a view of the house with no scaffold around it. The bricks still need to be cleaned (properly) as can be seen and the down pipes need to be added (not sure why they didn't do that when the scaffold was in place)? Still a lot of builders rubble around the site that needs to be tidied up, but we helped by rescuing bricks from around the site (only whole bricks). Giorgia is to-scale so you can judge the sizes.

We moved 1800 bricks from around the site into piles of 400 at the back of the plot. This will allow us to build some extra pillars for the covered decking (about 180 bricks needed per pillar). Still need to move 560 bricks (next weekend) as it was getting dark.

The area down the side of the house will be used as a vegetable garden (only veg in this area).

Fruit trees and bushes will be at the back of the house, giving us some fresh produce.

A lovely sunny Winters day on the Queens birthday weekend. As you can see the brickwork is almost finished. Only under the eaves at the front of the house is missing the skin of bricks. The garage is almost complete (still needs a roof and a back door). Two white (internal?) doors have been put on at the front (too big to close). Water has been plumbed into the house now and the water meter plumbed in at the front.Up on the scaffold to check out the roof, the external part of the air conditioning systemAs the brickwork is almost finished (as has the roofing) we took advantage of the scaffold still being in-place to get a view from the roof out across the reserve (with the car in the parking bay). As next week the scaffold will be taken down. Still no progress on plots 913 and 915, hopefully single story houses (as they are built much faster). The house behind ours is taking up almost all of the land.

The wiring is now starting to be pulled through the house. Here you can see the wiring for the cinema room. Most of the network system has been pulled through as well as the TV and phone points. Plaster board has been delivered (as seen from the picture). Guess walls or ceilings will be going up in the next few days (will have to check that the insulation is put in).

Evaporative heating and cooling system is now in place. This is both the air conditioning (for Summer) and heating system (for those colder days). Lets hope it works a little better than the system we have at the moment (doesn't really spread the heat around). The system will at least allow us to control the temperature down stairs and upstairs separately.

Pipe for the bidet finally moved, so one less thing to worry about.

Most of the pipe work is now in place in the ceiling (with the photo's we should be able to locate the pipes in the event of a leak).

Space for the bath in the master bedroom. looks like the kind of place I could spend a lot of time in. Looks to be a good size, the only weird thing is it's surrounded by windows (and not frosted glass type windows).

Around at the house first thing this morning (9.30am) but the brickies where on site again.

So we just took a couple of photo's and decided to return later in the day (4pm) to check out the progress.

Scaffold has been put up all around the house and the vapour barrier put in place on the second floor. This should have been done on Monday/Tuesday this week.

The bricks are now about 3/4 of the way up on all the walls.

Still missing bricks over the study window and the garage, both need the steel lintels to be put in-place (both are sitting in the front garden). More views of the house brick work from the back garden. Watching the tradies getting the bricks onto the scaffold this morning, a little conveyor belt moving the bricks up (no more climbing with a hod on your shoulder. Hopefully by next weekend the brickwork is all finished and perhaps doors have been installed.

Climbing upstairs and then onto the scaffold we get a good view of the back garden. It isn't looking too good at the moment with piles of broken bricks and other building debris.

Its also easy to see that the garden doesn't absorb water very well, so some drainage may be needed (it's the same at the side of the house). We should start to check the 'type' of soil we have (and the depth of any pipes/wires running through the back garden).

Side of the house, brickie working at the back getting the bricks conveyor'd up to him (although he could not keep up with the bricks and dropped a fair few.

Once the builders had left we decided to get into the house and look whats changed on the inside. In all of the bathrooms the shower trays have been installed with plastic placed over the top to protect the tray. The three en-suites have the same size trays, with the master bedroom having a double size shower tray. The pipes for the bidets have STILL not been moved (we have been informed again that they know they need to be moved) we will have to wait and see when they will do it.

So the tiles are on, and a friend from work suggested we check the overlap, as it has ben known that builders don't leave any overlap (less tiles but more leaks). Looking at the roof structure from the inside it looks like the distance between the wood batons are spaced to give more than an inch in overlap. Will measure the distance properly on our next visit.

Climbing out onto the masters balcony and then onto the scaffold to get a view of the side of the house. Not a bad view across the Toomuc Creek and the (yet to be planted) traditional parkland and walkway. On the other side of the trees some more houses will be built, but once the trees grow, it should all be Parrots and Kookaburra's.

This will be the view from the top of the stairs, though the rumpus room and out across the Toomuc Creek. We wanted as many windows as possible in this room, as its likely we will spend most of our time in this room (unless we are outside).