Tordal Mortensen Family Blog: April 2020

It feels really strange to write about being in lock-down. Who would have predicted that a virus could close down most countries for months on end when 2020 started?!

In these COVID-19 virus times, Victoria are currently under Stage 3 restrictions, which means we are only allowed to leave our house for 4 reasons:

Shopping for what we need - food and essential supplies
Medical, care or compassionate needs
Exercise in compliance with the public gathering requirements (min 1.5m distance to other people, only 2 people exercising together except from the same household).
Work and study if you can't work or learn remotely

We have also received news that all of Term 2 of Oscar's school will be remote learning, so he will be home schooled learning on the computer! So this is from Wednesday 15th April until Friday 26th June!! It will be interesting how that's going to go... we might do a few blog posts on that!

Well, back to topic for the blog post, our daily exercise trip outside...

Yesterday afternoon, it finally cleared up after 3 days with lots of rain, and we grabbed the chance of getting outside in the sunshine to get some fresh air and exercise. Oscar on his bike, and mum & dad walking, mum with her camera in tow 😃

Here are some pictures of our trip to Sanctuary Lakes - we have a nice walking/bike path all the way.

Outside the driveway, ready to go!

Oscar and Dad are off down the street

Oscar races ahead on the bike path in the park

Are you catching up, Mum?

We are having a little waiting break.
Mum was a bit slow, as she was taking pictures along the way.

I'm so cool on my bike 😏

Having a half-way break at Sanctuary Lakes

Bike was parked in the grass

Oscar is done with his break and ready to go

Kasper enjoying the relaxing break

Full speed ahead on the way home

Full speed around the corner!

Making sure the bike is not getting stuck in the mud.

Apart from the fun bicycle pictures, I also took some pictures of the beautiful nature and local birds on our trip.

Little ducks (Australian Coot) in the pond

Olives on olive tree in Sanctuary Lakes

One of the local birds in the wetlands, could be a White Egret.

Long grass

White Australian Ibis in the local wetlands

Wow, I did have plans to do more updates on our build, but have fallen behind, so here's a long one on progress from February and March into early April.

As with everything else in the World, Australia has closed down for everything except essential services because of the COVID-19 virus, BUT luckily for us, CONSTRUCTION is still an essential service, so our house build continues! 😅

February

Towards the end of February, our frame started going up. It was great to see the rooms taking shape and get an idea about space in each room. As Oscar was in school around the corner, we could do a quick drive-by every afternoon to see what progress had been made.

27th February, excited to see chippies on site building the frame 😊

28th February, Oscar and I check out the house after school. First walk-through to see room layout and sizes.

So excited to finally getting an idea about how tall our raked ceiling will be!!

House seen from backyard, the open corner will be our alfresco.

29th February, weekend trip in the nice weather so Kasper could check out the frame.

checking out the laundry area.

Woop woop, excited about the tall ceilings in living room!!

March

In March, the rest of the frame and ceiling trusses went on, along with windows and sliding doors. It was great checking out the quality of the windows and doors we have upgraded to, much better quality than the usual crap they use in house building!!! We are excited to see the performance of these when we move in.

6th March, drive-by in the morning shows the builder is on site finalising the frame/roof trusses.

Afternoon 6th March The rest of the frame with roof trusses have gone up.
Here's a view from our alfresco into the big kitchen/living area with the raked ceiling.

checking out windows in the front room.

Entry hallway. We came by after school pick-up. As you can see, we've had a lot of rain and there is mud everywhere on the concrete slab 😒

Our big kitchen/living area with raked ceiling. With the roof trusses on, you really get a good idea of how tall the ceilings will be 😃

Roof trusses and scaffold in the kitchen area.

Oscar checking out his future bathroom.

View from front bedroom over the street.

From mid-March to the end of March, the fascia and gutter went on, and then our Colorbond roof (metal roof).

It was exciting to see everything after the roof had gone on, and scaffold been removed from kitchen area, we could really see how nice and big this room will be 😃

15th March - Fascia and gutter going on the garage.

Fascia and gutter on the front of the house, we can begin to see the roof outline.

Back of the house seen from garden. Spectacular sunny day

Back of the house, alfresco area

Back of the house and side.

26th March, roof is on 😃 another spectacular sunny day!!
Mum and Oscar went for an afternoon picnic at our house.

Excited to see our BIG living/dining and kitchen area with raked ceilings without the scaffold.

Living room and alfresco at the back of the house.

The big kitchen/dining /living area seen from the other side.

Oscar checking out the kitchen area.

Wow look at the high ceiling mum!

Front of house with roof on.

April

As we now have restrictions on what we can go out for, we planned a "take-away lunch trip" to check out the house and the wrapping that we were told had been put on.

It makes such a difference with the wrapping, as you get a really good idea of how the rooms feel/look, but also the frame is protected from the weather until the outer walls go up.

We have been told the outer walls will go up this week (Easter week), so fingers crossed that will happen!!