Queensland Spotted Gum Hardwood Floor, Poly Gloss Finsih

I wish I was writing this post under different circumstances. We must have done something to insult the universe because we are being seriously punished at the moment. I will write a longer post next regarding this but it is with utter dismay and with the heaviest of hearts that I say that our stunning Spotted Gum flooring has been destroyed. It has all happened in the last 2 days and we are still in the process of going through it all but a brand new, yet defective dishwasher has slowly leaked water under our flooring for the past 2 weeks (unbeknownst to us). It has completely destroyed the floor, which will all need to be ripped up. It flooded through 2 rooms into the study and saturated the carpet there. Fischer and Paykel had their head guy come out and they found a broken pipe inside. We are completely devastated and its going to be a long journey to get back to where we are now. Our painter just finished filling and painting the skirting boards last week and we were finally ready to set all our furniture out. Instead we will soon need to begin packing again. 

Here is the flooring prior to this week (we only had 1 week of them). It turned out better than we had imagined and we could not have been happier with the final result. It was stunning.

Harwood timber flooring - QLD Spotted Gum 80 x 14mm select/standard mix
We deleted flooring in our Carlisle contract (to entry, hall, meals, kitchen and lounge) and then had our own company install the floors.

Flooring Timeline

• 31st October - Handover - got keys
• 3rd November - Flooring laid - took 1 week to lay
• We moved into the house (partly) on 7th November - floors were not sanded or polished
• Flooring then sat to allow them to acclimatise to the temperature and ensure minimal movement (as they came from Queensland) - nearly 2 weeks
• 19th November - we moved out and floors were sanded and polished. After polishing we couldn't move back for an extra 3 days to allow time for it to dry and set (also highly toxic)
• We moved back into the house on the 24th November
• (See now why I haven't had many posts!!!)
• We have been in the house just over 2 weeks....

Flooring Process

• Concrete scraped and cleaned
• Protective plastic laid
• 12mm layer of ply - screwed to the slab (what appeared to be 1000 screws!)
• QLD Spotted Gum timber glued and secret nailed
• Sanded and polished with 3 coats of solvent poly gloss finish

Protective Plastic Goes Down

 

Ply is Laid

 

 

 

Timber Gets Delivered!! It was soooo exciting seeing the timber. It gave us a good idea of the colour and what the end result would look like (this photo is in the garage under fluorescent lights).We were so excited by the colour variation and the feature to the timber. Timber really is an absolutely beautiful product.

 

More Natural Light

 

Here we Go!!! Goose bumps when we saw the first parts down!

 

The Next Night

So much completed in a day! These photos are under light at night time

 

While the floorers laid the floors during the night. I went back to the house at night and painted all the skirting boards! Enamel paint fumes in a garage send you a little crazy after a while!!

*Because our flooring was laid after hand-over and did not want quad on the floor under any circumstances, we had Carlisle leave the skirting boards off to all of the ground floor. They left us all the skirting boards in the packets and the paint to paint them. It was a bit painful at the time to try and get them done but the end result was worth it all. To avoid quad around the kitchen the floorer used caulking. Its a timber matched silicone that fills in the small gap needed to allow for movement.

 

Finished laying in the kitchen and lounge

*This is not yet sanded or polished

 

Close Up

It has those beautiful browns, reds, and ash colours

 

More Photos - not yet sanded or polished

 

Variation of Colour is Amazing!!

 

 

 

HERE IT IS - QLD SPOTTED GUM WITH POLY GLOSS: FINISHED!!!

Looking down the hall

 

So happy with the colour match of the timber staircase; Walnut

 

 

Entry to Study and Theatre carpets - Cat3 Takarra Ridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Blog is Not Finished!!!

I'm here and alive and well! So is the house!! We moved in, then we moved out again while the floor was being sanded and polished and we moved back in again this week!! This is a very short update of the things that have been happening so far. Over the weekend, I plan to go crazy with the camera and update properly with photos and more information. THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO WHEN YOU GET THE KEYS!!!! We have barely been able to draw breath let alone sit down and type a post!!

Exciting things that have happened since we got the keys!

• Our amazing Queensland Spotted Gum hardwood floors were laid (they remained unsanded/polished for 2 weeks to adjust to humidity levels etc.)
• Floors were sanded and polished!!!!
• We built all our retaining walls (this had to be done before our boundary fences could be put up) and when I say we built, I actually mean my husband and his band of 'brothers'!!
• Boundary fences are finished (just finished yesterday)
• I've sealed the grout on the porcelain tiles (has an impressive 15 year protection from stains etc). I wouldn't actually call this exciting more painful!!
• We painted all our ground floor skirting boards (whilst we were camping.....) and these have all now been put on. They were left off due to flooring being done post-handover
• Half of the double roller blinds have been installed (upstairs) - we had to wait till the floor was finished for downstairs, these are being done today - including our black fabric pelmets
• Victory came yesterday and installed sheer curtains to master and study and plantation shutters to both bathrooms and theatre. These are absolutely stunning! LOVE, love, love them!
• NBN is connected
• Half of our scratched doors and frames have been replaced - yes half, see below......
• Appliances were installed (eeek see below) 
• We had the Theatre painted - Dulux Raku, feature wall in bedroom - Dulux Stepney and the fire hob and bulkhead - Dulux Raku
• Drive way and other areas in the backyard were excavated yesterday ready for concrete! Good bye muddy mess! When I left today they were not there so not sure when it is being poured. The weather has not been very kind again
• Our side wing fence is up - looks great and after spending over a month at friends, our beautiful dog can finally come home (finished yesterday)
• Holes have been dug ready for the decking to begin in the backyard - sometime this century!
• Our reverse-cycle air conditioners were installed - post-handover (not through Carlisle Homes)
• It's been all about deliveries, deliveries, deliveries and workman everywhere!! Glad the blinds are on now!!
• Front door tinting is happening in the coming days (light tint from Tint Master) 

Frustrations and ongoing dilemmas!

• Telephone is not working - going round in circles with Telstra, NBN and Argus Technologies - should get a better answer by the end of today... Should....
• Half of our windows and doors were replaced. Absolute incompetence by our SS. This has been a big issue through the build and it somewhat escalated last week when A & L showed up with half of the works - they were completely unaware of the other half - even though it was on our completion of works list to be done post-handover our SS only fulfilled some of it. A lot of angry calls were made as well as emails, discussions with managers of all.. It will all be done and has been ordered but now our floors are done we are not happy with it!! Lots more detail to come about this.....
• Of the 6 appliances we had installed (fire place, ovens x2, cooktop, range, hot water service) only 2 were correct, not damaged, not defective..... The ovens were perfect. More to come on this - most of this has been rectified but still some issues!
• 2 areas of the kitchen vinyl wrap was damaged by the installers of the range and the window people post-handover - this is going to be fixed
• Still waiting for our one and only timber infill to be painted the correct colour. It was painted white, instead of Woodland Grey as it should have been. Such a minor thing in the scheme of things now but frustrating all the same
• When we collected our keys our SS put wrong door handles in two rooms (doors and WIR) - still waiting for this to be done

Looking forward to doing some major updating of things in detail in the coming days. First to come has to be the floors - stay tuned!

Deluxe Staircase Stained Walnut

Our staircase has had it's staining done!! They are not yet finished. The risers still need further coats of white paint (Dulux Lexicon Quarter) - stairs are stained in 'Cabot's Walnut Stain'(We're not sure if the staining/lacquer is finished yet). There are parts that still need a tidy up. They look really different! I was kind of used to the way they looked in their raw state! It's great to see the colour and with the doors in the same stain, they are tying in really nicely. We had a look at a photo of our flooring that will go down after handover (QLD Spotted Gum) and we think the colours in the timber will match well. Just hoping that they both do each other justice in their own right! 

Stained in Walnut - and lovely and dusty...

Not the worlds best photography - only had my phone

Halfway - Looking Down

Stainless Steel Balusters with Double Handrail

Matching Front Doors - Stained in Rich Walnut

Similar Colour of Flooring (hopefully) - QLD Spotted Gum

Our Timber Flooring Process

As I have mentioned before, we are having our timber flooring done post handover. Our flooring company have been great to deal with and have been very understanding and accommodating with our difficulty of locking in a date. We have had to move and change the dates 4 times so far. We now have it locked in again in three and a half weeks. Our SS was so confident it would be fine for the dates (and some of those dates have passed us already - by weeks!). I'm feeling very nervous about it now as we have just under 4 weeks until we have to be out of our rental property. That means the house needs to be done and the flooring finished in that time..... It's not going to happen! Looks like we will have to put everything in storage for a few weeks - what a pain!!!!!! Anyway, we also found out something with the flooring that we didn't know or hadn't anticipated;

The flooring will be laid and take approximately 3 to 4 days to lay.
As the flooring is Queensland Spotted Gum and the temperature and humidity levels are very different here in Victoria - the timber will then have humidity testing over approximately 3 weeks and when they are happy with the results it will then be sanded and polished. This process takes approximately 3 days and after those 3 days we will not be able to go into the house for 48 hours minimum. Which means - for about a month we wont really be able to set our furniture up on the flooring (or we will but then have to dismantle everything). We will also have to be out of the house basically for the week! It's going to be worth the wait but getting the house set out perfectly (as everyone wants when they first move in) is going to take a little longer than the first weekend!!!

Flooring Booked

There still seems so long to go before we move in, but we are now making decisions about curtains and getting the ball rolling for our hardwood flooring and fencing to be done after handover. 
Our SS informed us a few weeks ago that our completion date should be about 5/6 weeks away. We have been keeping in contact with our flooring company and they have measured and ordered all our flooring and we have now booked this in for 29th September (but may need to change if things are slower)!!

FLOORING
We are having Hardwood QLD Spotted Gum flooring - select grade 80 x 14mm (narrow) with gloss finish (polyurethane). We looked at both NSW and QLD Spotted Gum and decided we liked the QLD a little better. It seems to have more variation of colour and has more brownish/chocolatey tones compared to the NSW, which is much lighter. Our flooring company will also do the skirting boards to all the ground floor - after the timber is laid . The flooring will run through the entry and hall into the kitchen, lounge and dining. Carpet and Tiles to wet areas are all being done through Carlisle Homes.

Ground Floor

Here is a photo of their work

QLD Hardwood Spotted Gum (post handover)

Other Colour Selections for Ground Flooring

Crystal Super White Porcelain Tiles 

300 x 600 - (to laundry, powder room and ensuite)

Takarra Ridge 520 Carpet (Cat 3) - 

(to master bedroom, study and theatre)