We have a garage and front room floor!

We have concrete! The front part of the slab has been poured, which is pretty damn good. It has to be poured in two sections as we have a split level - front section and then the rest of the house. You can see where the waffle pods sit, at the moment, but that will fade as the concrete sets - the 'beams' have more concrete and therefore hold more moisture.

Woo hoo!

Waffles, anyone?

I was a little hasty in my last post. I thought concrete was going in today, but no - the waffle pods were put in place ready for thr first pour tomorrow (Thurs). So it begins, tomorrow. We will have concrete. And this time next week, we will have the whole slab!! My god this house looks massive already! The kids were quite impressed though, that they could 'see' where their rooms will be .. Zali's is the jutting out bit at the bottom of the photo, on the LHS. And Max's room is further to the left and up a little. No progress yet on the water tapping, from what I can tell. The Water co still have to come and fix it. We have movement on power though, there are some conduits moving through the slab/boxing up. Next we have to dig a trench!

Boxed and ready for concrete..

The concreter (El Guapo) and crew have been working hard today boxing up the front lower area ready to pour the concrete. The piers have magically shrunk into little circles of concrete, just peeping above the crushed rock placed to make a beautiful flat surface. About half is boxed with the rocks down ready to pour the concrete. El Guapo will be back on site tomorrow to box out the rest of the slab, ready for the first pour of concrete on Thursday! We had another win today - with Bikeman and the blue one bidding successfully via Grays Online on a frameless shower screen. $373, which is $227 under budget. Bring on more savings! Blue was particularly excited, telling his sister that 'we won a shower, we won a shower!' which was very cute. We have another bid out now on the other shower, so fingers crossed! On a more sour note, the plumber has had a problem tapping our water out the front. He's dug out where the water co told him to, no luck. Water co came out to mark exactly where tapping was located, so he dug directly down from there, no luck. So now it is up to the water co to come out and find it and fix it - goodness knows how long that might take! Thankfully our lovely neighbours have allowed us to use some more of their water, until it is all sorted. The neighbours also remember having a similar problem with their tapping, it was going to end up right in the middle of the driveway - so they had theirs moved. I'm thinking we'll probably end up in the same predicament! Anyway time will tell... And if you squint into the background you can see that the retaining wall is all but completed! Capping stones just have to be bon-creted on, which will happen later. Plans are to put a tarp or some other plastic over the retaining wall to protect it during the building process. Moving up, up, up, up.....

Plumbing to match the fixtures...

Inch by inch.... we have plumbing! The plumbers were hard at it early this morning, digging trenches and laying pipes and measuring this and that. In the end we have these pipes just waiting for some concrete to be poured over them and then to be connected up to our newly purchased fixtures. I think we even have water, if not now then we will tomorrow.

Boxing out for the slab should be happening later on this week. Oh my god the slab!!!! How exciting... Come on there must be some of you out there just as excited as me????

(Note the beautiful retaining wall in the background... all finished bar the capping pavers! And if you squint really hard, you can see the fence posts between our place and our lovely neighbours, it will be a shame not to see them as often when the fence goes up! Will just have to have them over for a BBQ and drinks instead...)

Completion and War Wounds

We had a big day Saturday. After a number of false starts, due to hot weather, fires, and other commitments, we were able to get a whole lot done. A big big thanks to our helpers for the day, Pops, Stevie B, Lee-Lee, AOB next door and our chippie Scotty without whom it would have been a much longer day! The aims for the day were as follows: 1. Concrete in fence posts for side fence 2. Complete set out ready for plumber on Monday 3. Finish concrete and blocks on retaining wall 4. Talk to concreter We were able to finish all but 3 of the fence posts, completed most of the setout (enough for the plumber) and finished all but the capping stones on the retaining wall. Our concreter, El Guapo, appeared to have a chat, which was great and looks like we're still on schedule. Stevie B brought with him his fantastic machine which made every job so much quicker! Scoria behind the retaining wall, check. Dirt behind the retaining wall, check. Crushed rock around the concrete piers, check. Wow!!! Sorry there are no photos but a little disagreement with a mallet meant a rushed trip to the doctors and seven stitches in my left index finger. What a lovely way (not) to end the day! I will take some photos tomorrow and post soon...

We have fixtures!

The search for the perfect (cost-effective) toilet is over as quickly as it began. I found 2 very reasonably priced toilets today at E & S Trading. Great!!! And I figured while I was there I may as well buy the bath, and the sinks for the vanities. God I love spending money! Not too bad, went a little over on the toilets and ensuite/bathroom basins but was able to rake that back by the basin in the toilet and the bath. So an end deficit of only $130, that's not too bad - surely we can eat beans for a week or two to make that one up (and then make thoroughly good use of the toilet!!!!).

Auctions and the search for a porcelain bus

Last weekend we decided to go to Grays Auction house to see if we couldn't bag ourselves a couple of great deals. It was going to be a stinking hot day (and in hindsight one of the most disastrous days in Australia's history) so we went early and took the kids with us. The kids were great (even though they were hot and BORED), and we learned a lot about how the auction system works. There were some fantastic bargains to be had, if you knew your prices and could get in and be the highest bidder. We went with the hope of buying a toilet, and also had our eyes on some frameless shower screens. There were 3 auctions being run at the same time, one for furniture, one for whitegoods, ovens and electrical, and another for everything else (tiles, kitchens, bathroom stuff, etc etc). Toilets weren't what we hoped for, weren't that many available and went for way higher than we were willing to pay. Turns out, from further investigation today that they are a little more expensive than we thought so perhaps they weren't such a high price after all! Frameless shower screen we missed out on, they went for $500 which was what we were willing to pay (and a bargain!) but we were busy watching an auction in another area and missed out. So we'll be back again in a few weeks, once we know what number of tiles and floorboards we need, to have another crack. Unfortunately it will be too late for the porcelain bus, we have to have one bought (or at least decided upon) by Monday for the plumber to do the roughing in. So the search is on!!!

Bushfires in Victoria

I would like to express my sincere, heartfelt condolences to all the victims of the recent Victorian bushfires. To those who lost their house, their friends, their family or their faith in humankind I wish you all the luck in the world and a speedy recovery, both physical and mental. With such sorrow and sadness comes the amazing discovery that our there are so many beautiful people out there who are willing to help others, I am so proud to be part of this great nation! May your rebuilding (house and or lives) be swift, those lost will be etched in the minds of all Victorians for many years to come. x

Retaining Wall Photo

Crack of Dawn stuff

Ok well maybe it wasn't the crack of dawn. But it was early and I was there, ready to work! We were under time constraints as we were going to a surprise birthday party for Quinny (those parties you just can't be late for!) so Bikeman, Pops, The Friendly Prussian and my good self worked at a cracking pace. Was going quite well til one of the blocks decided it couldn't hold it's concrete at the back and as fast as we filled it up it was pouring out. Bit of scoria behind the wall was able to stop the leak and we could continue on our merry way. We're getting there! Nearly finished, probably another 1/2 day of work and we'll be done. It's forecast again for 38 on Sat so that's not ideal, we are supposed to be doing the post uprights this weekend with our lovely new neighbours so I guess we'll just keep an eye on the weather. Plumber has been booked in for Monday 16th Feb, so once he has been the concreter can come in .... da da da da! The slab!!!