Sugarloaf Drive Build

Almost finished on the theater

2013-12-23T02:08:00.001-08:00

It's been a mad rush to try to finish before Xmas

Making the screen

2013-12-18T01:29:00.001-08:00

I decided to make my own accoustically transparent projection screen. This means the sound travels through the screen to you, instead if having to placd the speakers around the screen - a much more realistic experience - but with a slight trade off in gain.

These screens can be quite expensive so I made my own.

Chairs and lights finished

2013-12-08T23:07:00.001-08:00

The theater chairs are now installed. They are Salamander Talia seats with motorized recline and Clark Synthesis transducers to add some rumble.

The lights are from Schott's

Carpet and Lights

2013-11-25T02:19:00.001-08:00

Carpet got installed over the weekend.

The material we chose was a Feltex commercial carpet (Xion), with a commercial rubber based underlay - which should be great for acoustics.

It was supplied by Carpet World, and they contracted the installation work out to a professional laying service. The installer was from Mt. Eliza - don't recall his contact details, however he did a terrific job on the installation.

Also getting ready to finish up getting the lighting installed in the room. The brackets to hold up the lamps have had wood screwed onto them, and the lamps are fixed onto the brackets. The lamps themselves were ordered through Schots Home Emporium on Punt Rd, in Melbourne.

I spent a year looking for the right lamps to go on the wall - there's not much to pick from in the Art Deco space locally in Melbourne.

More theater woodwork

2013-11-21T13:44:00.001-08:00

More work over the past few days on the columns. My father has been working on making some shelves to go inside the columns so that we can store the bluray movies there, and also to mount the speaker. Looking at the close ups you can also see we've drilled the holes to mount the hinges so that eventually we can close these up.

We've also been doing some work on those two metal brackets that are poking out the wall. What we've made out of timber, is an upside down mini-column - best if I show you a picture.

The idea is we are going to bolt the table lamps to the top shelf, and the upside down mini-column bit, is going to conceal the electrical wiring box that's in the wall. All up I think it's going to tie together quite nicely.

None of this new timber work is painted yet - it just has a first coat of sealer on it. Next step will be to get it spray painted to match the columns.

Ongoing Theater Construction

2013-11-19T02:12:00.000-08:00

My father and I did some work over the past couple of weekends to paint and install the trim pieces around the fabric panels and soffits - this hides all the staples that we used to staple the fabric in place.

The moldings were all made with the custom art deco profile through Australian Moulding Company, they offer a great service and deliver the timber in 5.4M lengths to your address.

My wife and I also finished painting the ceiling, and the rope lights have now been plugged in. The rope lights are blue LEDs from Bunnings.

More Theater Progress

2013-11-09T02:28:00.001-08:00

Some more work on the movie room.

The fabric on the panels is from RIM fabrics, and is part of the Trilogy One range. Underneath the fabric is acoustic insulation - a mix of Fletcher Insulation 32kgm2 and 48kgm2.

Lighting control unit in the picture below is a Lutron Grafik Eye - purchased locally here in Australia to make sure it was compatible with 240V.

Theater progress

2013-10-20T12:24:00.001-07:00

Some progress over the past few months

Finishing the back yard

2013-10-14T13:53:00.001-07:00

Finished laying the turf, installed the fence, planted 300 plants and carried 6 cubic meters of mulch down the back 1 bucket at a time

Laying turf...

2013-09-06T02:15:00.001-07:00

Painting the fence

2013-05-13T22:17:00.001-07:00

New bookshelf

2013-05-06T00:54:00.001-07:00

I had the stair case company make a bookshelf for me in their factory. I drew up all the plans in google sketch up and they custom made it for me.

I am very happy with the work, and how the color came out

More progress on the hardscaping

2013-04-23T19:02:00.001-07:00

Pavers and river pebbles are in, as is the staircase.

Rear hardscaping progress

2013-04-09T23:51:00.001-07:00

We recently started work on levelling the back yard and bringing in some topsoil / starting on the pavers

Office Bookshelf

2013-04-06T15:53:00.002-07:00

Just had the office bookshelf installed, and we are getting ready to stain it.

We had it custom made to exactly fit the space

Very happy to have loads of storage, and finally be able to unpack all the books :)

Kitchen is complete

2013-02-21T16:20:00.001-08:00

The kitchen is now finished.

Right before xmas, Clearly Frameless installed the kitchen back splash and we can finally call the kitchen finished. Clearly Frameless also did all the glass in the bathroom.

The cabinetry was all done by Smith and Smith, and the two range hoods are from Qasair

Rear fence goes up

2012-11-15T13:23:00.002-08:00

We used steel posts on this, since we already had steel i-beams in place for the retaining wall. It should last much longer this way - and less risk of damaging buried pipes, since no digging was involved

Landscaping Progress

2012-10-05T03:53:00.002-07:00

Plants are now in.

Still some work to do on the lighting and the irrigation

Landscaping update

2012-09-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

The driveway and front retaining walls are now completed, granite rocks installed, and the tiler has almost finished up all the bluestone paving at the front of the house, as well as all the capping on the retaining walls. Hoping to have this finished up this week.

The renderer (thanks to my brother-in-law), is going to render the retaining wall this week, and I've already started on the irrigation system.

Plants are booked in to arrive on Friday, so it's going to be a busy week when I'm not tied up with my day job.

Deck Tiling Begins

2012-08-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

Just started tiling the pool deck

Kitchen progress

2012-08-20T09:26:00.003-07:00

Marble counter tops were installed in the kitchen today, and Dad and I spent the last weekend installing the 2 x Qasair Range Hoods. These are each ~1.3M long, but given the height of the room and size of the kitchen, I think they make a great center piece.

Only one thing left - installing the cooktop to complete the kitchen

More Floorboards

2012-07-25T05:23:00.002-07:00

More floor boards finally arrived last week (after a 2 month delay), and my dad, my wife and I managed to lay around 80m2 last weekend.... All up, that puts us at about 200m2 of american oak installed

We have another 100m to go, and will do as much as we can this weekend.

Good news is that the kitchen cabinetry gets installed tomorrow, and installation will start before the weeks out.

We also started moving in our shipping boxes from Seattle. I'm planning to move in on Monday.....looks like a long way to go, but we're in the home stretch! We'll finish things up as we live in it.

HVAC system installed

2012-07-25T05:16:00.000-07:00

The Toshiba HVAC system was just installed and commissioned.

7 separate zones of heating or cooling - we plan to use it only for cooling, since we also have a hydronic system and 2 fireplaces for heating.... but since our gas line has taken 3 months to get installed, in the interim it will be serving double duty.

It was a few hundred KG, and they had to crane it in.... to put the size into perspective - the unit is as tall as me.

Swimming Pool Inspection

2012-07-03T03:39:00.002-07:00

The swimming pool passed the final inspection today - great news for us, and we can't wait to fill it with water and have summer come around.

We did have to get a 2nd final inspection, because the first time the inspector came around, the window restrictors to the deck windows were set at 125mm, and he wanted us to adjust them to 100mm.

I don't know a baby capable of crawling out a 125mm window gap, but, as they say, the inspector is always right and we've made the adjustments had our final inspection, and everything now meets with his approval.

Next step this coming week is the floorboard delivery for downstairs (assuming they finally clear customs), as well as glass balustrades being installed on the staircase to finish that up.

Paint Schedule

2012-06-25T04:17:00.002-07:00

Just getting caught up on this blog after not updating it in a while.

We had our paint schedule drawn up by Ferrari Interiors.

Bernadette there was of great assistance in helping us figure out the main colors.

Dulux Limed White - main color on the Ceilings and Walls
Feature wall color was Dulux Carriage & Dulux Camel Train
Pink feature wall in our daughter's bedroom (Bristol Sandblast)
A slight beige was used in some rooms that needed it (where the limed white created too much contrast).
Quarter strength Dulux Royal Beige to blend with the Pink.
Half Dulux Royal Beige in the wardrobes to blend with the limed oak.
Floorboards are american oak stained mocha/mink
All timber work is stained with Sikkens Cetol HLS20 and Filter 7 (ebony)