Due to my personal symptoms with mould and terpenes, especially pine terpenes, we chose to have a hardwood frame. I know of other people who’ve built houses over 20 years ago and they have allergy-free homes made using hardwood for the frame. So, you think it would be easy to source new, kiln-dried hardwood for a house frame, right? Well, it wasn’t!
With a great stroke of luck, Dan found the perfect carpentry team: Pristine Carpentry! He drove around looking at new houses around Pt Lonsdale; often the builders put signs up the front of their builds to say who did what. Dan said some of the houses looked shoddy but the very next day he was walking closer to where I was renting and saw a house that he thought looked perfect. He has high standards, being a handyman, himself! This house was being built by Pristine Carpentry and went up in record time while still remaining perfect looking, not at all like the messy building sites you often see. So Dan went back and spoke to them and grabbed a business card. So glad he did!
But before we even found our carpenter, our builder and us tried calling around other places and were told it’s not possible to find hardwood for a house; especially if the frame is custom built—as specified by our draftsperson. We believed that until we spoke with Pristine.
Our carpenter had to source it specially from Calco ~ Trusses and Timber.
We met up with Damien, the head of Pristine Carpentry, and worked out how we were going to go about sourcing the hardwood, testing materials, and sorted out schedules. He was so awesome with the chemical side of it; didn’t miss a beat and asked his crew to use the products we provided. They smoked outside, which was great too! Our builders looked over the contracts and pricing and all was well and good.
The one thing I can say about choosing a carpenter, or anyone who is going to be touching your hardwood frame, is choose someone who knows how to work with hardwood. This is immensely important. Otherwise you’re going to have workpeople who are just plain annoyed and cursing because their tools keep breaking (Yes, I watched this happen with three tradies): Pine is a much softer wood than hardwood; drills and what not get put to the test when used with hardwood. I watched one tradie go through three drills in a day!
It only took 10 days for them to get the bottom floor built. If not for having to wait on Boral Bricks, the top floor would’ve been done next but then we had no bricky because by the time the bricks arrived, our bricky was booked on another job. Mad scramble to find another bricky. Finally, once we found a decent bricky, the second floor went up just as quick (The roof was put up before this by ‘Blessed Roofers’.) and it began to look like a house. A safe house.
(The flooring is 20 ml FireCrunch MgO Board, previously called Modakboard, used instead of particle board, which I wrote about here.)
Another thing that we found most impressive was the way Pristine Carpentry handled our shoji door cavity slider problem: businesses who supply cavity sliders don’t make them in hardwood or oak or anything besides pine. Once our team found this out, they were like, “Oh, well, we’ll just make them up out of hardwood!”
It was to our delight and surprise when Damien turned up the next day with all 7 cavity sliders, handcrafted from hardwood.
It cost a bit more but was worth it as it was our only option; besides, they look great. All up we have 7 cavity sliders.
Did I not tell you this team of carpenters are awesome?
Okay, so now I show you what I’m most impressed with. Dan, not so much. I’m a bathroom girl. Love a good soak; and have been planning my upstairs bathroom for a long time (Dan can have control of the downstairs one.). It’s taken two years to get to the look right in my head: floor to ceiling travertine look-a-like tiles from Bella Tiles in Ocean Grove (awesome people for us allergy sufferers because they too, understood our situation and were most helpful as they have tiled a whole house for someone else with the same condition as me: extreme mould illness. Fantastic show room too! They also come up on the list of ‘Top ten tilers in Ocean Grove’.
(The blue tiles are for the downstairs bathroom to break it up a bit. Oh, sorry, am I taking control of the downstairs bathroom? Best leave that for Dan, but yes, he does like the blue tiles I chose.) Think of a bathroom carved out of the mountainside in Turkey, which is where real travertine comes from (real travertine needs epoxy and coatings of just too many chemicals for us to risk. Then there’s the price… But I’ll be posting more about bathrooms, safer products, etc. later.
So this is downstairs bath hob created by our carpentry team:
And this is the upstairs hob. As you can see, I’ve been playing around with design elements and accents already. It’s all in the planning, you see?
Pristine Carpentry: Phone 0417 573 832
So what have you used as a house frame? And how has it worked out in regards to your medical condition?
This crew looks to be “the” best one around, at least judging from your experiences. I’m glad you’ve had a great experience with the frame installation
Thank you 🙂 Me too. It feels good to go inside a house that doesn’t make me feel ill, even if it’s not quite finished. xo
PS I love that blue tile!!!
Yes! Thank you. I have a thing for blue and white porcelain. Just love it. <3
Wonderful!!! I’m SO glad you found Pristine Carpentry. We ended up with Douglas fir framing, but I am not sensitive to terpenes, thankfully. They did use some pine in the framing of interior doors, shelves, etc., but I am ok with it. Though to keep my exposure down, I did cover the pine framing in my bedroom with foil tape. Hopefully this way I won’t get “overloaded,” especially because we have many pine trees on the property!
I’m happy you found Douglas Fir Framing! We need more Chippies like this for our community. It’s a great idea to have covered it with foil in your bedroom. It’s just not worth the risk; especially in a safe are like your bedroom where recovery is paramount to being able to live a life where we can go out and do what needs to be done. Hope all is well, Christa xo
PS: Now where is that email you sent me? Just kidding. I’ve been revelling in my recovery but I’m ready to come back to work now 🙂
lol I totally understand!!! Sometimes we just gotta take a break from everything. I am SOOOO happy you are doing better!!!
Me too. It’s possibly strange for you to hear this but a fast recovery is shock in itself. I think I’ve adjusted though. Still sensitive to fragrances etc. but not being bed bound and being able to walk in the sunshine is a gift in itself. Thank you for being happy for me. 🙂