Second Floor Appears

The builder has made some great progress on the second floor framing and has already installed the majority of windows and doors.

These are the PFC beams for the front deck. The courtyard sits below the deck. The corner "floats" providing cover for the front door.

Here's another shot of the front deck, showing all the front-facing windows on the second floor.

The windows extend from floor to roof. There's no distinction between roof and ceiling with a Ritek roof. The attempted illusion is the roof floats on glass walls. Too early yet to know if it worked.

This photo shows the steel "outriggers" that will hold up the Ritek roof panels. This shot is behind the front pod of the house, looking up at the window above the kitchen sink.

The roof is running a bit behind schedule, but should be installed sometime this week or next.

Framing Begins

The builder took a deserved break for Christmas but he's back to work in early January. Within the first week the ground floor framing is almost complete. 

Here's a view from the study to the living room in the rear pavilion. In-between these two rooms is the main garden area. All rooms adjoining the garden have glass doors and windows.

This integration between rooms and gardens is one of the things that convinced me to start this rebuild rather than renovate the old house, so it's exciting to see it in person rather than just imagining it from a blueprint.

Here you can see the view from the front door. The large space in the middle of this picture is for the stairwell.

Here is a view from the rear bedroom. There's another garden area directly behind the two bedrooms, effectively a private garden, which connects to both bedrooms through floor-to-ceiling windows.

Here's a view of the house from the street.

Concrete Slab

The concrete slab has been poured and she's a beauty. The whole day was cloudy and overcast which meant the slab avoided direct sun while it was curing.

The surface is covered in a white powder. The builder says this is salt (?) coming out of the concrete, and after a pressure clean will come out much darker.

You can see the bathrooms, ensuite and laundry have been lowered 20mm into the slab, so when they are tiled they sit flush with the rest of the ground floor.

In this detail of the slab you can see the edge insulation, the plastic sheet, the burnished finish, and a groove to encourage cracking. The slab will crack, it's just a matter of where, so you try and encourage it along lines where it doesn't matter. This line is underneath the ensuite/bedroom wall.

Slab Heating

Footings and sewerage pipes have been installed. Now the various preparations for the concrete slab pour are underway.

This is the hydronic in-slab heating. The 30kW gas boiler is outside with the hydronic manifold inside the laundry cupboard. This will double up as a drying cupboard.

You can see the slab reinforcement mesh. The engineer has specified slightly thicker mesh than you normally use for residential slabs, because of the sloping block and the height above ground.

The outer course of bricks is a veneer. The inner course transfers the weight from the slab down to the footings. Underneath the black plastic is foam insulation.

The builder now needs to wait for a good day to pour the slab. Too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet, or too windy, will all mean an inferior slab. This is going to be a burnished concrete finish, so it needs to be just right.

Foundations Laid

The builder wastes no time putting in the footings for the concrete slab.

Until now I've only seen the house in diagrams and 3D renders. The footings give me a much better idea of the size and layout. 

The footprint is larger than I expected. The builder says that the house will seem even larger once the walls, roof and plaster is finished. I was aiming for modest. I think I've missed that target.

Demolition Time

The past few months have been a frustrating bureaucratic exercise. Without going into too much detail, here are some warnings for anybody considering a knockdown-rebuild.

• Banks don't like architect designed homes; I think it's fear of the unknown.
• The local council's only purpose is to make your project difficult.

But after several months I finally have approved plans, certification ticked off, a builder onboard, construction diagrams, and the total price is still within budget.

So without further ado, here is the demolition of the old house.

This is a 20 tonne excavator. 

The demolition seemed to take about 15 minutes. But the excavator needed several hours to load all the rubble into a convoy of trucks.

It was an odd mixture of emotions watching the house come down. A little sadness to see my former home destroyed, but mostly uncertainty as to whether I'd made the right decision.

Too late to back out now!

Experts Only

A knockdown-rebuild is now looking more likely than renovations. The options are a project home, or a unique architect designed home. I approach TT Architecture to get some rough drafts. Then if I don't like their design it's only a few $k lost on drawings. No big deal.

Needless to say, they hit a home-run with the very first draft.

Wow. That's great. The TT design has two pavilions. The front pavilion has the main bedroom and study. The rear pavilion is for kids bedrooms and living room. The corridor between them holds the utility rooms such as bathroom and  laundry.

This is the upstairs for the front pavilion. This area includes the dining room, family room, kitchen, scullery, and decks. 

My favourite thing about this design is the orientation on the block. Rather than being square to the street, the house is angled to face the sun. The angle creates four outdoor areas which are "tied" to the house through windows, doors, and decks.

This integration of the outdoor areas with the indoor rooms finally convinces me that a knockdown-rebuild is the best option.