Selections!

Well, on Thursday 15th of October, I went to "The Edge" studio to do all my colours/selections for my house. Here is the final outcome:

Selections:

Exterior

Bricks:
Boral - Brushwood
Mortar - Raked - Natural




Contract Bricks:
Boral - Espresso
Mortar - Flush - Natural




Concrete Roof Tiles:
CSR Monier - Elabana - Barramundi



Meter Box:
Monument

Gutter/Fascia/Downpipes:
Monument



Garage Door:
Dune

Garage Infills:
Dune

Rear Garage Access Door:
Dune

Alfresco Beam:
Dune

Alfresco Infills:
Dune

Window Infills:
Dune



Clothesline:
Fold-away Clothesline - Colour: Primrose

Aluminum Windows:
Bradnams - Colour - Custom Black Matt

Front Entry Door:
Corinthian - PSC4 Solidcarve 4 Panel - Taubmans - Wizard Grey - T167-7

Eaves/Verandah Lining Colour:
Burbank White

Portico Lining:
Burbank White

Alfresco Lining:
Burbank White

Colour Concrete:
Charcoal

Letterbox:
Pre-cast Letterbox - Colour: Charcoal

Interior

Wall Tiles:
Kitchen Splashback: 300w x 100mm Mushroom Matt (Grout: Davco #8 Espresso)
Bathrooom Tiles: 300w x 200mm White Gloss (Grout: Davco #1 White)
Ensuite Tiles: 300w x 200mm White Gloss (Grout: Davco #1 White)
Laundry: 300w x 200mm White Gloss (Grout: Davco #1 White)

Floor Tiles:
Fidama Mocha - 450 x 450mm (Grout: Davco #8 Espresso) - Entry/Kitchen/Living/Family/Wet-areas



Bathroom Benchtops:
Formica - Iron Ore - Velour Finish

Bathroom Base Cabinets:
Formica - Iron Ore - Velour Finish




Vanity Basin:
Stylus - W36300 Cerabo Vessel Above Counter Basin




Oven/Stove:
Technika B9GEFTSS




Canopy:
Technika D1900



Walls:
P189 - N1 Ashwood

Vertical Blinds:
Holland Blind - Focus Blockout - Colour: Espresso



Carpet:
Mornington - Autumn Leaf



Kitchen Base Cabinets:
Laminex - Oyster Linea - Natural
Grain to run vertically

Kickboard:
Laminex - Oyster Linea - Natural
Grain to run vertically




Overhead Cabinets:
Laminex - Pumice - Natural




Kitchen Benchtops:
Laminex - Stipple Seal - Natural
Edge Profile: Square-edge




That's pretty much it!

If you have any thoughts on the colours, let me know.

Cheers!

Big Red!

The Concept

Chieftons/Chieflettes,

Before I continue with the blog-post, it's important that I first inform you of how fucking rediculous my week has been.

- Monday: Worked from 8:30am - 3:00am (18.5 hours)
- Tuesday: Worked from 9:00am - 2:00am (17 hours)
- Wednesday: Worked from 9:00am - 11:00pm (14 hours)
- Thursday: Worked from 10:00am - 9:00pm (11 hours)
- Friday: Worked for 4 hours
- Saturday: Worked for 4 hours

That's a 70 hour week people, but you know what, I still find time to spend 3hrs writing a blog entry for you guys. That is dedication, FIGJAM.

Anyways, let's move on to purpose of this post. I've been thinking to myself over the last month or so, how I'm going to utilise the space I have, to reflect my personality, hobbies and all that shit. Now I think it's fair to say that you all know I love a frothy, love a piece of steak, and there's no doubting my love for cue sports.

So, after a long week worth of work, I thought it's time to crack open the cold hard Victoria Bitters and start moving some ideas to paper/Google Sketchup!

Below is a picture of how the house will look with internal/external furnishings. Please note that Landscaping for both front and backyard areas is still be worked on.

Mentionable Items:
* The Garage - Holden Commodore, Bar, TV (This is for when sport is on and have friends around)
* Brew Shed - This is where Big Red Beer is brewed. This beer is served on-tap at The Garage, and the Alfresco Bar.
* The Alfresco - The Alfresco area is for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The key mentionable at The Alfresco is the 'Alfresco Bar'. It has Big Red Beer (BRB) on-tap, and also cooking equipment (Spit, Coal Weber, and 6 Burner BBQ).
* Hangover Recovery Center (HRC) - The HRC is actually just another Bedroom, but for my Guest(s). It's adjacent to the Urine Depot in case the guest(s) feel a little bit worse for wear in the middle of the night! That's thinking at it's finest.
* The Wing-Chun Room (WCR) - The WCR is where Big Red pretends to know how to fight in the Wing-Chun art form. It will house gym equipment, Wing-Chun wooden dummy and other sports fighting equipment. Please note that this room will never actually be used.

I have also been working on Food Menu's for both Alfresco Bar and The Garage bar. These can be seen at the following link:

Bar_Menu

Went shopping today also, picked up a few extra goodies, including:
* Ladle
* Covered Spoon
* Wooden Spoons
* Tongs
* 30cm Fry Pan
* 4 Bourbon Glasses (They have a proper name)
* 3 Stubby Holders (Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee, Scarface)
* Jack Daniels Bar Runner

I'll take some pictures of the interesting stuff another day, but you all know what a spoon, ladle and a frypan looks like.

Anyways, give me your thoughts on whatever.

Cheers,

Big Red

Shopping Session 1

Chieftons,

Haven't done a blog update for a little while. The steak knives are still sitting there in the box gathering a bit of dust; however, it's not the only thing gathering dust. I have since purchased some additional shit for the kitchen, including:

* 6 Piece Cookware Set
* Cooking Utensils
* 20 Piece Rotating Spice-Rack

Now, I could post pictures of the above mentioned stuff, but let's face it, no one gives a shit about a spice-rack or a saucepan.

So let's move on to something far more interesting, my new pool cue! I should probably change the title of the blog to "Big Red's Cue and Balls", no doubt that'll have the ladies interested. (by the way, still single).

It's a 57" Maple 2-Piece cue, check this bad boy out:
[Pictures Coming - Camera charging up]

In additional the purchases, I've been window-shopping for the other rooms, here are some ideas:

Front of the House:
Hawthorn Hawks Door Mat

Hawthorn Hawks Flag (down when we lose, half-mast for a draw, up when we win!)

Hawthorn Hawks "Little Red" Security Guard

Hawthorn Hawks House Key

Outside Bar:
Carlton Draught Bar-Runner

Victoria Bitter Bar-Runner

Selection of Stubby Holders

Family Room:

TV Cabinet

Living Room / Pool Room:

Astra Billiards "Royal" 9 Foot Pool Table w/Green Competition Cloth (pic has blue cloth):

Cue Rack:

Master Bedroom
The Godfather "Horsehead" Pillow

Scarface Blanket (Queen-Size)

Scarface Bed-Side "Machine Gun" Lamp:

Scarface Bed-Side "The World Is Yours" Lamp:

Hallway Artwork:

That pretty much covers the blog entry for this month! Any feedback on any of the purchases, or "window-shopping" purchases are welcome! Just don't be surprised if you wake up with a horse-head next to you if dislike any of them :-)

Cheers,

Big Red

That's not a knife, this is a knife

Well, it's been a great day, I decided it was time to make a purchase for the Kitchen area of the house, and what better way to start, then a set of steak knives.

I picked up an 8 piece steak set (4 jumbo steak knives, 4 long-handled forks) for $50.00 at King of Knives. Brand of the set is Tramontina. We own a few Tramontina knives at our family house, and have been used everyday for the last 20 years and they still cut through a steak like it's butter (the original knife can be seen in the first picture, under the new one).

Below are a few pictures:

They are made from Natural Polywood.
Tell me what you think of the knives, if you don't like them, then yes, I will kill you with them.

Cheers,

Big Red!

It's Big Enough!

Chieftons/Chieflettes,

Just a quick update, I have done some additional calculations (this is a lie, I went to software for help), and the 9 foot pool table will fit...comfortably!

Below is a picture of the exact measurements for the placement of the pool table, and guess what? The RAW vs Corner Pocket is no longer an issue!

The distance of the corner pocket to the RAW equates to: 1683.8mm

It's an awesome day.

Cheers,

Big Red

Is It Big Enough?

Alright guys, For those that are big fans of Big Red's building blog from the very beginning, you'll know that I posted an entry regarding the possibility of pool table for my house. Now, the main reason I'm moving out of home is to have my own pool table, I really don't care about the kitchen, the family room, bedrooms, alfresco, that's all kiddie shit. The pool table room is critical, it's criticality is far more important than that of the Global Warming.

Anyways, I've decided that it may be time to actually do some proper analysis on the build plan layout, so I can work out whether or not I can fit a 9 foot pool table in the house. Before I tell you whether or not I can, let's run through the basics of pool table room sizes once more for those who are deadshits.

The required playing field around a pool table is 1.52M (152CM / 1520MM). This means that on each side of the pool table, 1.52M of empty space is required. This number is calculated in a very logical process based on the largest cue stick for Pool/Snooker. The largest cue stick for Pool/Snooker is 58 inches, this is 1.47M (147CM / 1470MM) in normal measurement.

Now, one would think that only 1.47M would be required around the playing table then, well you'd be fucking wrong. You need to include the .05M for the cue-swing. So, for those who are still scratching their heads, I have done some magic in Microsoft Paint to explain this a little better.

Now that we've estabalished the basics of pool table surrounding space, let's calculate the minimum size room to house a 9 foot pool table with the 1.52M surrounding space.

A 9 foot pool table in length, is, surprisingly, 9 feet. This is 2.75m (more accurately 2743.2mm) in length. A pool table has a 1:2 ratio, so the width is half of the length which equates to 1.375M. Let's do another picture shall we:

So for a 9 foot pool table to fit in a house with the required playing field, the following calculations need to be made for length and width respectively:

Length: 2.75M + 1.52M + 1.52M = 5.79M (5790MM)
Width: 1.375M + 1.52M + 1.52M = 4.415M (4415MM)

Now, my pool room is 6660MM in length, and 4090MM in width. Now, you're probably thinking "well you have no chance of meeting the requirements, you dickhead". However, my pool table room is actually wider than 4090MM as it's adjacent to the Kitchen area, but there are additional complications that require great math to solve this critical problem.

The below picture shows the border of the living room (pool table room) and kitchen/meals area.

As you can see to the right of the red line, there is some additional space that could possibly make the width requirement for the minimum room size of the 9 foot table. The critical part comes in here though, and it's a question that is probably all on your minds..."how much space is between the red line and that damn kitchen bench?" Well, I FINALLY have the answer. Three-hundred and fifty millimetres (350MM / 35CM).

So let's go back to the width of my room, 4090MM plus the additional 350MM of space, equates to: 4440MM. Now if we then go back to the required width of a room to house a 9 foot pool table, it is 4415MM. FUCKKK YEAH!!!! It'll fit with a whopping 25mm spare (2.5CM)! This is the shit that dreams are made of.

Before you all get excited for me, there's actually an additional complication! Yup, this shit just doesn't end. I now have the required width, or do I? The answer is no, I don't have the additional width due to something called "Return Air". Now, firstly, I don't know what the hell this return air, and quite frankly, I don't want it - but stiff shit, it's a mandatory thing for houses with heating/cooling.

Now, this "Return Air" has been embedded into a wall that sticks out from the kitchen bench to where the red line is on the above picture. I have included a picture below which circles the Return Air wall below:

The return wall is the reason for why the living room is limited at 4090MM. The return wall uses that 35CM that I was talking about before. It's not so much the wall that may cause the problems, it's the corner of the wall when playing shots near the pockets on a 45 degree angle from that of the table that may cause the problem. This is because the end of the cue stick may hit the corner of the wall here (I ain't worried about damage to the wall, it's the left/right english on the cue ball that matters!

Now the "Return Air" wall, let's call it the RAW (Return Air Wall), the RAW has the dimensions of: 950mm (L) and 350mm (W). Now we know that the pool table has to have 1.52M from the bottom wall to that of the table cloth to meet the requirements. So effectively, the pool table will stick out 570mm from the RAW length (1520mm - 950MM = 570MM). If you're a bit confused, what I'm trying to do here is remove the width from being the problem, and making the length the issue as there's more length than width to throw around to fit the pool table in.

I'm trying to make the corner of the pool table 1.52M away from that damned corner. So at the moment, the pool table is dead center of the length-way of the room, but we're only 570mm away from the corner of the RAW, but we need an additional 950MM (1520mm - 570mm).

How do we get this 950mm extra? We'll, I know for a fact that I won't be able to get every millimetre for it, but let's see what we can grab from the extra length we have. Let's go back to the length of my room, 6660mm.

So let's remove 1520mm from the 6660mm and force that space at the top length-part of the living room/pool table room. So we remove 1520mm from 6660mm leaving 5140mm. Then we include the pool table, which is 2750mm in length. We remove that from the remaining 5140mm, leaving 2390mm. This means, we can have the pool table sticking out 2390mm from the bottom wall of the living room. Now, let's then include the 950mm of the RAW, so 2390mm minus 950mm equates to 1440mm. This means we now have a total of 1440mm of required playing space around the table next to the RAW. Now, this is unfortunately, not quite enough space, as 1520MM is required.

I am 80MM (8CM) too close to the damned RAW. So to finalise, there's no method of having 1.52M playing space around the entire table to have this 9 foot table fit. Unfortunately, bad luck to me, but we need to remember that this is based on a 58" cue, if I were to use the 52" cue on the corner near the RAW, that would give me 15CM difference and the shot would be comfortably playable.

So for those who are wondering, "is this good enough for big red?" (honestly, if you thought that, get a fucking life), but to answer the question, it is good enough for me.. I don't give a fuck anymore, I'm putting that fucking 9 foot fucking pool table in my fucking house whether I have to smash that fucking RAW to fucking bits and fucking pieces.

On another note, I have been informed by my sister that she has purchased something for my pool table room, and it's an awesome present, but I'll take some pictures of it when I actually get it. It's hands down, the greatest present I have yet to receive, ever.

Anyways, if there was any confusion on the pool table / room size in this blog entry, post a comment, or just ask me when we're at the pub next!

Cheers,

Big Red

BBQ

Alright ladies,

Every one knows that I love a good BBQ, so it's critical that the perfect BBQ is purchased for the house. Now, there's only really 2 or 3 important things to purchase when buying a house, these are:
* BBQ
* Pool Table
* TV

Anything else is luxury (eg: a bed).

Since the Pool Table has already been covered on this blog, I figured it's time to post a blog about the research of BBQs that I have recently done. Now, I'm hardly a chef, hell I can barely microwave frozen meals, but I shine on the BBQ. Except for the time I decided to light the BBQ after leaving the gas on for 10 minutes - they dont call me big red no reason!

Anyways,

I'm lucky enough to have been brought up in a family that has 2 large rotisseries, and yup, I'm stealing the old man's one. Now this rotisserie can rotate an entire cow if it had to, she's a beast. So I'm pretty much sorted in the 'roast' department.

Now, using a rotisserie for a just a small roast lamb is excessively over the top, so I'm thinking, I need a coal Weber! This will sort out butterflied roasts perfectly for 1-4 people.

So far in this post, I have covered the following:
* Large dinners
* Close friends, family dinner

However, I haven't touched the surface of just a standard 6 burner BBQ. This is where the choice selection becomes difficult. I love a big BBQ, but I want my BBQ to look like it gets used.

Firstly, we must rule out these rediculously lame ass "Modular BBQs", the ones that can have add-ons attached to it (such addons include: fridge, sink, corner bends). I mean really, if you need your BBQ to go around a corner and have a sink on it, you're just a poof.

Half the fun in a BBQ, comes down to preparing the meats in the little space that you have, why would you ruin that fun with a 20m BBQ that has a kitchen bench attached to it, stupid shit. Those type of BBQs have little rotisseries in them too, which would hold a whopping 1kg of lamb before the pole snaps in half, like I said, stupid shit. Below are some pictures of the BBQs which should be banned from Australia:

They're no good these BBQs, no good at all.

I'm thinking something along the lines of:

The only problem with the above picture, is it's a 4 burner. I can't seem to find any in the style of a 6 burner. Further research will be conducted, but I'm a tad on the tired side at the moment.

Please give me your negative thoughts on Modular BBQs / Kitchen-spec BBQs in the comments section!

Cheers,

Big Red!

Burbank The Edge Studio

Two updates in one month!

Yup, took an hour off work today and went out to Burbank's "The Edge" studio.

I saw more bricks in the place, then you would need to build my house! The lady went through all the possible upgrades for me, benchtops, tiles, carpet, bricks, roof tiles, guttering, door framing (not sure on the correct term, it sounded like a french word), doors, garage, driveways, electrical etc....

Now I haven't actually selected anything, this comes at a later date where the lady said it will probably take 8 hours to select all the colours and shit. I don't know about you, but if it takes 8 hours to do it, I ain't going. I'll let the wonderful lady choose everything with a defined budget!

Here's what got me though, before walking in there I thought "why am I doing this? I don't need upgrades". Then when I saw the selection, ugh, I'm going to be even more in debt than I originally thought.

Things I've already decided I'll upgrade:
* Bricks
* Toilet
* Carpet
* Tiles

However, this will probably change when I find out the /actual/ cost of upgrading the above mentioned items.

Reasons for brick upgrade:
* no reason

Reasons for Toilet:
* the standard toilet looks a little flimsy, I'm a heavy unit - this is justifed!

Reasons for Carpet:
* look, again, I'm a big unit, I drag my feet, gonna wear it out pretty quick with the standard spec

Reasons for Tiles:
* not sure really, I prefer the bigger tiles rather than the small spec, but eh, not entirely necessary.

Standard inclusions I like:
* Oven (if it holds spuds, I'm good to go)
* Rangehood (a wha?)
* Stove (I can't cook)
* Vanity (meh)
* Kitchen sink (it's a sink)
* Laundry sink and taps (I really don't quite understand why anyone would bother with upgrading this)
* Door Handles (The only time I'll ever look at these is the second before I put my hand over it to open it - another pointless upgrade if you ask me)
* Doors - It'a a piece of wood.

If you guys think I should be a little more serious about this, please say so! But I can't see how the above can affect resale value.

Anyways, give me your opinions! :-) I'm very open-minded *cough*

Cheers,

bigred

Land, Money, Noodles and Birth!

Well, it's been a very busy month with all the things going on at the moment.

I have since paid the remainder of my land deposit, so now I no longer have a deposit for the broker (uh-oh!), time to eat 2 minute noodles, drink ALDI bourbon, and use all my silver coins for any purchases!

For those who are following my blog (*cough* lets be honest, no one is), one of my best mates has recently purchases a block of land in the same estate as myself, infact, the same damn freaking Stage of the estate! :-) That's right, me good mate jimmy has purchased a block about 163M away from mine. Not to worry, I'm still about 10 metres closer to the nearest pub - increasing the value of mine 10 fold.

I actually bothered to have a read of some of the estate regulations, and noticed that two months after stepping through the front door, the front landscaping needs to be complete. Jebus! Looks like some bribary through a slab of the best mans friend, Victoria Bitter will need to come into play here.

I was meant to attend Burbank's colour studio today to have a look around; however, work got into the way and I was unable to make it, luckily the lady over there understood and we've rescheduled it. It's quite surprising, all the bad stories you hear about the builders with people yacking about bad customer service, but I've had nothing of such. Everyone has been extremely polite, easy to communicate with, and even when you get voice mail, they call back within 5 minutes apologizing as if I'm Don Corleone. Let's just hope the build process of the house is smooth and easy with minor to no issues.

Some great personal life news too, I'm an uncle! Well technically I'm not an uncle, but close enough. My cousin and his parter welcomed a young one into the world today at around 3-4AM.

Yup, that'll do the blog post for this month I think.

Leave a message!

Cheers,

bigred!

Contracts Signed

Hey,

Been a relatively busy last month, but all the Home and Land contracts have been signed. Just awaiting final approval from the brokers. Once this is complete, it's the waiting game still for the land-release.

My cousin is also about to move out to Pakenham, his house is expected to be built before Christmas some time. I also have a good mate in 'jamesb' who is now a "Follower" of this blog moving out to Pakenham, expected to have his house complete in early 2010, probably at a very similar time to mine.

Anyways, on to the more important, funiture in the house. As you may have seen in my previous blog entry, I'm putting in a pool table in my 'Living' area. Surprisingly, not a damn thing about pool table purchasing is simple, quite the complete opposite.

The various styles, sizes, finishings - just doesn't end. At my current house, the old man has a great table from a company called 'Astra Billiards'. It's an 8 x 4 sized table, and looks almost identical to the 'Monark' style, which can be seen below:

I like this style quite a bit; however, I'd prefer to go the larger size in the 9 by 4.5. The problem here is that it could be tight fit based on a 58" cue, effectively requiring 1520mm distance around the table. The table will be going into a room that is 4090 (W) x 6660 (L). The next problem is that each Billiard table maker is stating different minimum and recommended room sizes for the table.

Astra Billiards:
Eight Foot Table: 3963mm x 5182mm
Nine Foot Table: 4100mm x 5500mm

Pool Table World (Melbourne):
Eight-foot table: 4' x 8':
(Playing area: 44" x 88")
48" Cue: 3658mm x 4725mm
52" Cue: 3810mm x 4877mm
58" Cue: 4115mm x 5182mm

Nine-foot table: 4.5' x 9':
(Playing area: 50" x 100")
48" Cue: 3810mm x 5030mm
52" Cue: 3963mm x 5182mm
58" Cue: 4268mm x 5487mm

Billiards.com
Eight-Foot Table: 4242mm x 5284mm
Nine-Foot Table: 4420mm x 5588mm

There's no issue with the length of the table whatsoever, there's plenty of room; however, the width is where the issue lies. With the width of the room being marked as '4090mm', I can safely play an eight-foot table without question. 4.5' converted is 1.3716 metres. Adding the 1.52m (5 foot) at both sides of the table, equates to 3.04 metres. So adding 3.04 for the playing room, plus 1.3716 equates to 4.4116m required.


So the width of the room needs to be 4411.6 millimeters, and it's currently 4090mm. 321.6mm additional is required on the width of the room to have a 9 foot table with the specified 5 foot playing space surrounding the table.

Here's where it gets more complex; the Living area of the house is probably greater than 4090mm because it's marked at 4090mm due to a small wall of the Kitchen pantry that sticks out; however, if you were to completely ignore that, there's around about 420mm extra from the kitchen bench. Giving me the required 321.6mm plus an extra 10cm or so for the 9 foot table to work. However, it just may mean that on the pool table corner there, I may have to use a smaller cue stick. Below is there culprit area in which I'm talking about.

Very rarely do you have a straight shot from the side, more often than not it will be slightly angled, and the angle will affect the required playing field around the table to a small distance. I would be able to play shots using a 52" cue if necessary, or even a smaller cue such as a 48".

I still haven't decided on which size, still got about a year up my sleave before I have to decide!

Any comments on this are welcome.

Cheers,

Big Red.