Manage your expectations (and don't sweat the small stuff)

Hello again!

It's really panning out to be an eventful week, with our brickies starting a few days earlier than expected and now looking to be almost finished by week's end. And the impact is amazing. Thank goodness.

You see, the bricks is one of the elements we had to adjust our thinking on several times. I wrote here about some of the constraints of building that we encountered. One of them was regarding the cladding material, which meant we had to adjust the mental picture of our new house from a weatherboard-look, to being mostly brick.

This wasn't an easy thing to do, because we'd built up an emotional attachment to a particular outcome. Detaching from that, and adjusting to the idea of a partly brick house was a fair shift, and finding a brick we liked, that would fit the bill aesthetically was a bit of a struggle.

However, we did find a brick we liked, and then became quite attached to it. It was a recycled brick, which fitted with my idea of trying to bring recycled or preloved elements into the build. I loved it.

But of course, recycled is de rigour now, and it's a material which is not easily sourced or cleaned.

When the builder tried to order for us, disaster struck. To our utter dismay, we found that the demand for our lovely recycled brick way outstripped supply. We were looking at minimum three to four months waiting, with no guarantees. We were gutted. We rang supplier after supplier but it was no good. Our brick was not going to be a part of our build.

At this point we were in a fair pickle. Bricks needed to be ordered quickly to keep the build moving so we had to make a quick decision about a replacement, which seemed crazy given how long it took to find the other one and then fall in love with it. And yes, I'm saying this about bricks, such is the nature of building a home.

Our local brick supplier, to their credit, offered a pretty good alternative, which was a brand new brick just released to the market, so new that the mortar on their own brick display wall hadn't even dried yet. It's a brick made to resemble a recycled product, with glaze and tumbling applied. Although not quite as red as the other one, and obviously lacking the provenance, we settled on our brick, the brick which now graces the walls of our new home.

It's the Tribeca 'Manhattan' brick from PGH, with an off-white mortar.

I can't say that this choice sits totally comfortably with me yet, but it's growing and I'm feeling very positive about the final outcome. Being a totally new product, I've only found one very small wall on a half-built house locally to give me a sense of how it might look on a larger scale. After seeing that small wall I had two reactions: the first was that I was worried I would hate it (being that I was comparing it in my mind to the previous brick), and that the mortar had to be light to give it a chance to get the antiquey look we wanted.

So after some eleventh-hour emails, we upgraded to an off-white mortar, which I'm glad we did, because it's going to look great once it fully dries. We also decided to go to an upright header above the windows and doors which really lifts the finish.

And the brickies love it. They thought it was a recycled product, so good is the effect. They also like that it's lighter than old bricks and is consistent in shape and size, making it easier to lay.

There have been several instances similar to this, albeit not as major, where we've had to readjust our expectations of how things are going to look. This can be a result of lack of communication, assumptions on behalf of various stakeholders, financial squeeze, or, as in the case of our bricks, availability.

Having to shift mindset from one expectation to another at short notice, is somewhat difficult, but sometimes it just needs to be. Losing sleep over our brick was a possibility, but now I know that was probably a waste of energy and desperately needed rest.

My philosophy now is to try to keep an open mind about alternative possibilities. There's often upside, so long as there's not an unwarranted or significant financial impact. Don't sweat the small stuff, just open your mind and let go of old ideas.

And in the case of our bricks, I can definitely see a new friendship developing.

Size and other matters.

Last Tuesday, a few days later than initially expected but before our Christmas deadline, our house slab was poured. A major milestone to cap off a hectic year.

We avoided being there for the pour, not wanting to get in the way of a fleet of cement trucks. The weather was pretty unbearable for most, being over 40 degrees C and humid with a little rain - but perfect for concrete going off.

On Thursday I had the chance to quickly pop up and take seven seconds of video, panning across the slab with the view of Wodonga and Albury and beyond in the background. And it gave the impression that maybe our new house will be...sizeable.

Yes, our new house is on the big side.

This was never our intention but our requirements meant that it evolved this way. In fact, our brief to our designer was that we'd rather not have a big house. But it is what it is.

 I won't defend our choice of house size but will explain how it came to be. The main reason was that we need to accommodate a child with a disability and we weren't constrained by a typical suburban block to do this justice.

Looking at the video, I can see how our slab might look ridiculously big.

Ridiculous until you realised that this house has an extra wide hall, which essentially runs the length of the house, for a mostly-out-of-control walker driven by a 9 year with a wonky gait. Add in an oversized main bathroom to accommodate a wheelchair-style shower commode, and an oversized kitchen/family/meals space so that walker can negotiate it's way past the couch, dining table and chairs and kitchen bench without gouging chunks on its way past - well the metre-age adds up.

Granted, there is some gratuitous space added - a kids rumpus room (principally to free up navigation space in Jack's bedroom by moving books, toys and desk out), a bath in the ensuite (how much can I not wait for my own bath! Bliss!) and a guest bedroom with powder room for guests. We added a little study which will double as a small sewing space and a small lounge. No gym, no media room, no formal dining, no 'man cave'. The long ranch-style of the house adds to the perception of size, necessary to accommodate the sloping site.

The slab also includes the garage and 'al fresco' (ewh, I really don't like that term) or verandah off the meals space. I don't apologise for the garage size. We opted to give the double garage an extra metre of width due to the need to get Jack in and out of the car without constantly dinging the car door. It's a constant burden to be trying to transfer him with very little space to manoeuvre, a problem which has led to me often having a sore back. We are also realists that in future years we will likely end up with a modified car, so we're hoping investing in this bit of space now will save messing around in the future.

The big verandah is something we wanted to be able to enjoy the serenity and have an undercover space where we could live through the summer and, when we eventually add some weather blinds, enjoy during winter too. Plus, real Aussie houses always have a verandah!

One thing we were adamant about, given the length of the house, is that we wouldn't be split up as a family. We're non-believers in the current trend for a 'parents wing' and 'kids wing' at opposite ends of the house.

We have a 'family wing' and a 'guest wing'. This means we will hear our kids when they need us and in particular reduces the distance travelled to get up to Jack as we currently do several times a night. Both Rob and I grew up in houses where our bedrooms where not too far from our parents and it was fine. I never felt deprived of privacy, even as a teenager. We survived and so did our parents.

Plus, our guests will thank us for giving them their own space away from our morning chaos!

So, yeah, our house slab is big, for lots of reasons. We designed it to accommodate our needs, our circumstances, our lifestyle and the land. To each their own, and as our new house rises from the slab I'm sure we'll think of some new ways to describe it.

Like 'ours'.