Frame up.

Well after only two days the frame is pretty much up. There a couple of little bits left but for all intents it's up !
It's a very surreal feeling going from a concrete block to the bones of a house in just a couple of days.
Here's some pics :-)

Frame going up

Well more of the frame has been arriving of the past couple days and then this morning it started to go up.
By this afternoon they were walking on the top floor and pretty much the bottom level was done.

We have a much better idea of the size of the rooms now. Its fantastic to actually see it laid out, rather than trying to picture it in our minds these last few months.
To see the house take shape gives us the "really on our
way"feeling. :-D

Frame Arrival & dash to Austral.

Yay ! A day early the frame arrived.
Means it should go up very nicely tomorrow.


In other news through a bit of serendipity on Sunday night, we suspected that the bricks we had spent many an hour choosing were now discontinued.

A quick email to Wisdom on Monday morning confirmed this !

So arranged time off work and went out to choose another brick at Austral.




Luckily there was something very close in another range. :-)
So now we are going with the "Carlisle" in the Whitsunday range.

More pics to come as the frame goes up.

Treches filled.

Short update.
As mentioned yesterday they were filling in the drainage and service trenches yesterday afternoon.
Managed to get around there today for some pics.

We have a lot better idea about the "lay of the land"now. :-)
On with the frame.

Big Saturday !

What a busy but great Saturday :-D

As it was the Easter long Weekend last week, things slowed down a little, but have taken off again in the past few days.
Essentially the piping and drainage went in during the week.
As you can see from the pictures, it all looks good, and being close the mains we can see exactly whats happening.
The frame is due to start on the 14th of April, so fingers crossed for that.

The other good news was that we have finally been meeting our new neighbors
in person.
I went by the house on Friday evening and met our neighbor 1 door down building the Metricon. They have a 14 year old daughter who is interested in babysitting work, I think she is going to have a lot of Saturday nights booked from the sounds of things.

Then today we met our next door neighbors and then some more from a few doors down.

Okay it was Gwumm (next door) and Andy_Min (couple houses down) that many know from the Homeone website - real names withheld to protect the innocent... or guilty ;-b
Great to met everyone and we are REALLY pleased that everyone seems so nice. (and Sane)

While we were talking to Andy and Min a truck with an excavator and bobcat comes by and parks on the lot next to ours. The guy offloads the Bobcat and then got to work filling in all the drainage trenches, around our house. This was at about 4:20pm on Saturday afternoon.
Good stuff Wisdom ! We hope they keep this pace going.

Turning to other house related news, we checked out the nursery we've been given special access to this morning.
Intending to just "see whats there"
Anyway, like always it seems, we found an advanced maple tree we both fell in love with. It looks fantastic and should go great in the front yard. It was more expensive than we had budgeted for but we think it will be well worth it.

After that we went for the final tile selection meeting. We have been going to Delorenzo Tiles on and off for about a year now. So thought we had it all worked out. Then they changed some tile selections (for the better IMO)
The Wife decided she wanted to change the floor tiles that we had agreed on some time ago and had built our colour scheme around. Both the old and new selections have advantages and drawbacks. So it's been getting some discussion.

We might have to make another trip back there......

Annnnyway...Next step - frame should kick off on Wednesday. :-)

Slab down - on a Saturday no less

WOW! - Well as today's Saturday we weren't expecting much to happen, but both of us had a little hope that the slab may get done.

Well, we went for a little drive this morning and woo-hooo the slab was being laid !

We saw the guys finishing it off and burying the utilities.




It's certainly been a productive week fo the house. Yay !

Building Kick off - proper

Well what a terrific week it's been. Lots of good news on a few fronts which is a very welcome change compared to the previous weeks and months.


Among the news was that Tuesday saw the piering and form work go onto the block, along with the porta loo.


The next couple of days saw more bits and pieces done, like the pipes going in, then Thursday the waffle pods and reinforcing was delivered and installed today- Friday.

Great to see some good progress !

It's been a few months since the last update and as usual there always seems hurdles to overcome.
The short version is that the land was not registered until the 22nd of Dec. Just in time for the industry to shut down for Christmas. It was a task getting things moving again in early Jan. Due to the delays some time limits had lapsed so we had to almost do the entire loan application again, then the Water board insisted on more inspections and engineers reports. I won't go there much,but we do think it was a bit overkill for the situation.
There were also lots of other little bumps in the road.
Anyway - just when we thought we were out of the woods with the final approval from the private certifier, we hit another bunch of unexpected delays.

However after some discussions with the builder we are happy to say that things are happening. Our sign and rubbish area netting went in yesterday and we are expecting piering and possibly a slab by the end of the week or early next week.
Here's hoping !!! :-)