The House Fuller Love

Muddy Hell

noreply@blogger.com (Dane & Kelly Fuller) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:19:00 +0000

Remind me again why we are building a house? Progress is very slow. Roof is on, some windows in and some electrical done. Plumbing roughed in and a few other bits and pieces. Frustrating to see everything so close but the cliched so far away.

We're In!

noreply@blogger.com (Dane & Kelly Fuller) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:11:00 +0000

No, not the house, but a caravan.

With two kids starting school at Coolamon, and little jobs on the house to be done in the afternoons, we have acquired a van to spend some nights on site.

Which means The Lad and Dad (and sometimes Hurricane V) are off on the bus to Wagga in the mornings.

The kids are loving the space outside and the novelty of the caravan. They have also been putting the trampoline they got for Xmas to good use.

More news soon.

We're Fixing A Hole

noreply@blogger.com (Dane & Kelly Fuller) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:09:00 +0000

The Big Bad Wolf made an unfortunate visit to our house of steel and foam on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, huffing and puffing and blowing down 6 panels.

As they were the 6m high panels, it amounts to about 45 square metres of back wall, but these things happen.

Replacements have been ordered and it will probably set us back about a week, although we can just keep plugging away on the garage wing and the bedroom wing and get them done ahead of schedule.

Oh well.

There's a house with some walls........

noreply@blogger.com (Dane & Kelly Fuller) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:21:00 +0000

Oops, with the holiday season, and other minor stuff like building a house, it really is hard to find the time to blog.

After the crane came out on the 20th and 21st, we managed to put up 31 of the big panels which make up the central section of the house.

Ideally, we would have got all 36 up but not everything went to plan (like it ever does!).

Crane will be back next week when hopefully we can have the entire roof erected over a couple of days.

The first panel is lifted by the crane.

... and put in place

.......the 2nd panel

......the inside

.....end of day 2, 3 panel short finish the centre

......end of day one

...the inside looking up into the mezz level and down into the kitchen

A Six Metre Erection

noreply@blogger.com (Dane & Kelly Fuller) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:06:00 +0000

Settle down ladies, we are talking about steel here.

The framework for the centre section of the house went up today. This is mainly to support the mezzanine level as well as some sections of the roof.

The garage and kids' wing will require minimal steel (just two columns and one beam each) due to the excellent structural properties of the insulated panels we are using to construct the house. (And yes, we will get around to giving more details about these panels in the coming days).

Joists for the mezzanine and the rest of the duragal flooring for the lounge/dining room will be completed over the next couple of days.

Yay!

From The Ground Up - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Dane & Kelly Fuller) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 10:18:00 +0000

More photos to get us up to date. Concrete being poured and the final slab read for construction.

First blood - The Lad comes a cropper on the concrete, tripping over the plumbing while trying to catch a handball.

From The Ground Up - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Dane & Kelly Fuller) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 09:54:00 +0000

After buying our block almost two years ago, we have started to see some action over the past two months with plumbing going in, followed by the concrete.

Survey pegs in and ready to go.

Little high rise cities of plumbing to cater for the kitchen, laundry, bathroom and three ensuites.

Pipes for one of the kids' ensuites

Downstairs bathroom waste and water.

Trenches and mesh for lounge/dining area.

Footings ready for concrete.

More footings to be poured.

And more.

Yes ... footings filled!

The boys take advantage of the one of the piles of dirt removed during excavation.

Strip footing for verandah columns.

Brickwork wasn't part of the original plans, but due to the slope of the block, the builder and concreter decided it was better than a huge chunk of concrete.

The brickwork changes allowed us to step down into the garage section of the house.

Filled, pest treated, water-proofed and meshed in preparation for the pour.

What we're building

noreply@blogger.com (Dane & Kelly Fuller) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:15:00 +0000

Plans as submitted to council, which are fairly similar to the ones we first took to the draughtsman/engineer (Gerard at Design2Consulting).

I think they are revision J so only about ten changes from the original idea, most of which were dimension changes based on the custom size of the sandwich panels we are using to build from (more on those later).

Oh, and the butterfly roof, which we have ditched because of the uncertainty of having giant box gutters in the centre of the house. This version is probably more leak proof.

First floor. Note sports car in garage 1 ready for mid life crisis.

Second floor mezzo parents' retreat

Original concepts in SketchUp

Who? What? Why? When? And Where?

noreply@blogger.com (Dane & Kelly Fuller) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:18:00 +0000

We have been married for 11 years and have four wonderful children - The Lad, 9; The Dancing Princess, 8; Noodle, 4; and Hurricane V, 2 years old.

Three years ago we looked at buying a 13-bedroom, former private hospital in Junee, 40km north east of Wagga … and here we are now, building a 5-bedroom home in Coolamon, 40km from Wagga (but in a slightly different direction).

The journey from heritage style, Junee hospital to industrial/modern Coolamon home is actually not that far, but that story can wait for another post.

In the meantime, we have sold one house, moved into the in-laws, added another child (V), bought an acre and a quarter at Coolamon and spent a lot of time planning and sketching and arguing, and sketching, and sketching and sketching and sketching. And arguing.

Thankfully, access to Pay TV and the Lifestyle Channel allowed us to watch many episodes of Grand Designs. From here we came up with some basic plans, with the main idea to build our house as almost three separate buildings. Building 1 as the kids’ wing, building 2 as the central living area (with mezz for us) and building 3 as the garage/shed.

It is a little bit Grand Designs Huf House, a little bit Stars Wars Tie Fighter and a lot weird and bizarre, typical Dane – with Kelly keeping a lid on anything too outrageous.

Our dream is for the kids to have room to hang with friends and stay out of trouble in their own wing and we will be able to enjoy our own space and hopefully one day soon wake up with out one or more of the children in bed with us.

The boys will have space for dirt bikes, cricket and football and the girls will have room to dress up, dance, have tea parties and put concerts on for us all. Fingers crossed it will cater for our young family, and as the kids grow up.

So after many disagreements, compromises and the occasional agreement (we spent five hours in Ikea and only fought once… yep once) we have come up with our forever home.

Welcome to our blog and come on our journey to build our house…..Fuller Love.