Second storey bricks

Our House By The Water has grown.  Three weeks of brickwork has seen the house go from single storey to double.  As photos have landed in my inbox each week, I’ve become increasingly excited.

Week One:

Thank you Mark from Best West Building.

Second storey bricks.

Week Two:

Harry, you are the best!

Week Three:

Thanks to new reader and future neighbour, Tracy.

Nearly done.

Front facade. The feature column will be bricked to 80 courses.

Most of the house is 63 courses high, double brick.  That’s a lot of bricks.  Work has come to a temporary halt.  The feature column on our front facade (that will eventually be clad in stack stone) is 80 courses high.  The brickies need an extra “lift” of scaffolding so that they may complete the taller sections of the brickwork.  The scaffolders are booked for next week.

In other news, following on from my “I love Linen” post, I won a little competition!   Ink and Spindle is a Melbourne based company that print gorgeous Australian-inspired prints on 100% linen, cotton and hemp.  You can buy their fabric or ready-made homewares using their existing prints, or you can choose one of their prints and customise it to your own colour way.  They have just introduced some new colours and celebrated with a competition.  My favourite colour combination proved popular and won me some fabric!  One 100% linen Silver Gum doona cover in Bluestone and River Salt on Oatmeal coming up!

My winning entry.

Of course, then I had to play with mood boards for the master bedroom, to check that my current front runner for linen curtains (Pottery Barn) and the new fabric will work together.

I’m happy with the blues, woods and linen that form the back bone of my master bedroom grand scheme.

I’ve had a heavy week on Polyvore, playing with mood boards.  It started with the question of linen versus leather  for sofas in our living room.  Leather is so practical and has my husband’s vote, but I love so many linen sofas.  This week a leather sofa that really appealed to me crossed my laptop screen, so I plugged it into Polyvore.  These decisions are always multifactorial, so I tested some of my favourite rugs and pieces of aboriginal art too.

Living room 1

Living room 2

Living room 3

Don’t tell, but I spent a whole Friday afternoon doing this!  It was blissful.

My conclusions are:

• Artwork and floor rug should be considered together.  For example, patterned artwork and patterned rug is a bit too much.  Pick one star, then don’t upstage it.
• Either leather or linen couch could work, but both together, hmmm..??

Which living room version do you like the best?  Why?  

Should linen couches and children occupy the same space?  

I’d love to find a really nice, Australian-made, linen sofa with removable/washable covers.  

Any tips?

Finally, to some money saving news, for a change!  Tracy alerted me to a potential rebate on stamp duty!  In Western Australia we pay a lot of money in tax/duty when we buy land.  Our “stamp duty” was in excess of $30K!  However, residential land is taxed at a slightly lower rate, so if you commence building within 5 years of land purchase you may be eligible for a rebate.  For us, it could be worth almost $3000.  That’s a sofa nice little bite off our mortgage.  Already I have secured a “Newly Constructed Residential  Exemption” from annual land tax, a separate bill of a couple of hundred dollars, by filling in a form and sending the department of finance proof that we’ve commenced construction.  As always, there is some fine print, but if you haven’t already investigated these potential savings, it could be worth your while.  Now, just to find our original stamp duty document….

5 fascinating facts about brick walls.

The second little Pig would approve.

Don’t you find brick walls fascinating?  I’ve been staring at this brick wall for hours.

 Did you know?

1. There are 391 bricks used for just one bedroom wall.
2. That weighs more than 2 tonne!  Or about 3 adult cows!  Let’s say, accounting for a doorway and windows, 10 adult cows are responsible for holding up the slab of the second floor above the bedroom.  I reckon they can do it.  (Can you tell I’m a country girl?)
3. Typically, the height of a brick plus one layer of mortar equates to 86 mm, and is known as “one course of bricks”.  Our bricks are 2 courses high.
4. In Western Australia, we love to build double brick walls.  Two layers of bricks, with insulation in between.  It keeps the Big, Bad Wolf out.
5. You can just about have any colour brick you like these days.  Our bricks are red (probably due to the iron ore content in local clay).  They are not very pretty.  They’ll be covered up on the outside by render and on the inside by plaster.

Here’s what’s been going on since the slab was poured 5 weeks ago:

Slab – looking neat and tidy:

All dug up for drains for the sewerage and storm water:

Bricks and windows were delivered:

Flag poles? masts? – nope.  Downpipes.

The brickies got started:

Across alfresco to living room.

Neighbour’s garage and the start of ours.

Scullery window

Living room.

Dining room (from canal).

Webb and Brown-Neaves’ famous microwave.

I’m thrilled with the progress.  When I pop by Western Australia in January, I’ll be able to walk through the ground floor rooms.  I must go and put my measuring tape and a piece of chalk in my suitcase.