Not much time for updates today, but floors in... check, painting
well under way.... check, joinery started... check, deck nearly
finished.... check. Everything is very white... like trying to find a
polar bear in a snowstorm. Latest move happened on the weekend - back
to Chris and Jen's to earn our keep looking after the cat whilst they're
on holidays.
No time to learn the wonders of html to format these images better either. 
The floor's been sanded down to be level, in preparation for the bamboo floor to be laid next week. This will then get covered up with protective foam and boards while everything else happens, with joinery carcasses to follow soon. And the deck timber is due to go on next week. Full steam ahead! We've had the tree out the front trimmed and it's looking a lot better but still so enormous that it casts a lot of shadow on the front yard. May have to rethink that plan for a fruit orchard. 
Another month, another house. Late this month saw us moving out of the Bayswater rental to a house sit in Ormond, where we're looking after Milly the labrador, Tigger the cat, and lots of fish (no names that we know of). We're here for all of April and DrK is enjoying having kitchen utensils again. Ruby is enjoying the company of Milly and discovering her inner bully. Now that the window saga seems to finally be over, the builder can finally make some progress on the interiors. So the insulation is in and the plasterer is shortly going to be covering all this up. After a bit of a clash with the architect, we've also picked colours for the outside trim (gutters, fascia, porch posts etc) - all done in a bit of a rush as the builder needed it to finish the roof flashing. Woodland grey has triumphed over federation green. It's good to see things on the move again. And we've found some housing that'll take us to the end of June, so here's hoping that'll be the last move.
Other things that have happened recently - battens are in for the plaster work and the electrician was just finishing off the first fix of all the wiring, so we expect to have insulation and plasterboard coming soon. The builder has had to reframe the opening for the attic stepladder, as the supplier has suddently decided that the one we originally specified isn't available any more (after being "on order" for six months and just waiting for stock to come in) so that's a bit annoying for him, but at least we didn't have to pay an extra $300 for a custom made ladder. The lining for the staircase is in, although we hope they're going to frame the gaping hole that currently exists to the underside of the kitchen floor. Spent a not too painful period choosing between about 12 shades of white for the wall colour and joinery colour. When we say "not too painful" it was a bit like being at the optometrist's doing pairwise comparisons - which looks better, antique white or shoji white? Now which looks better, antique white or chalk? About 20 comparisons later, we managed to make some choices, no doubt which we won't be able to tell the difference between when they're all in place. 
A bit of a delayed post - photos from 29 Feb in this one - as DrK's been really frantic getting grant applications done. So at the last site meeting, just as we thought the window saga was all over and done with, they came and did the install of the big window. This involved a crane and building a platform big enough to take the 500kg of window + the 10 men required to lift it into place! Looks alright from the outside so far doesn't it...... well look a bit closer, where we've apparently been given extra ventilation. Yep, after all the saga about getting the measurements incorrect, which led to an increase in glass thickness, which led to an increase in price.... THEY BUILT IT 5CM TOO SHORT!!!! So apparently now that it's going to cost them $$$ to do a new one, they've also discovered that the opening window that goes next to the corner, CAN be wider than designed - in fact, coincidentally it's 5cm wider than designed.... so now they're going to have to redo the frame. The only good news from this particularly sorry saga is that they're going to take back the price increase provided we agree on accepting the (incorrectly) sized windows they've already made. All this was supposed to be to everyone's benefit as it was only going to take a few days to fix rather than 2+ weeks to manufacture a new window, and obviously it saves them quite a bit of money to avoid making new glazing units. 
But today Rob happened to drop by and found not only has the big window not been fixed, but also that the back door glazing to the bathroom/laundry is not obscure as it should be but clear. All I can say is this window company has held up the job probably around 4 weeks and they're the most incompetent bunch of clowns we've ever come across. We're feeling more and more like those hapless folk on Grand Designs whose builds run grossly overtime and over budget. Other minor things that have come up are what the finish should be for a bulkhead in the kitchen (usual robust discussion about what the architect wants to do vs what we've already told them is our decision on what will be done). Waiting on a paint sample to finalise the joinery colours. This week we also took advantage of 25% off tables at blueprint and bought a dining table. Fortunately they're ok to store it for quite a while.... 
and I've just had to tell the lighting retailer for the dining table pendant that we're not quite ready to pick that up yet so could they store that for a bit longer.... sigh. This week sees us moving from our short term rental in Glen Waverley to a different rental (same management company) in Bayswater. Not too bad a commute for me, but we're going to borrow Mum's car for a month to make it a bit easier for Rob. Turns out the Bayswater place is a fair bit nicer than the Glen Waverley one, for exactly the same price, so at least the commute is worth it. This one's a unit so not so much room for Ruby as it's only got a small yard, but she seems happy enough.
Some more obvious signs of progress at this week's site meeting - not
only has the deck got stumps and bearers, but the roof is on! Or at
least pretty much most of the roof is on. We're not waterproof yet, as
the joins to the tiled parts aren't flashed properly, still no windows, and there's a few
details yet to be worked out (nothing is straight in an old house), but
the inside looks a lot darker now that we have actually covered up the
rafters in the new part.... no cladding on the walls yet but since the
sarking is up we get a reasonable idea of how the inside works. No
glazing as yet, as still in dispute over the large window. It would
help if the window company would actually take less than about 5 working
days to respond each time we need some info from them. They're
definitely delaying the job now as we won't be waterproof until we get
the windows in obviously, and that means that none of the plasterers etc
can start either.... but there's not a lot we can do about it until we
settle the cost increases that it looks like we have choice but to stump
up. We don't be recommending them to anyone else to put it mildly. 
With the exception of the big window though, most of the frames for the
other windows are in, including the enormous door from the car parking
area into the living room. Resolved the door architraves (yet again, it
seems) today; bathroom joinery also being made, although we may have to
tweak the layout a little as the vanity sinks are wider than was
allowed for. And maybe one day we'll get to see the interior paint colours....... if we ask the architect another few dozen times. It's almost as painful as the tree permit - for which we got the bad news last week that we haven't been able to get a permit to remove the oak tree near the front fence. It puts a bit of a downer on the plan to have fruit trees in the front yard as they may not get enough sun....but again, not much we can do about it. Sigh. 