16th December - The Slab is Poured

How exciting, the slab was poured today and fortunately I had the day off so I could go and watch.  We got the kids up at 6am so they could come to watch too.  Len was having his slab poured today as well, but ours started first (woo hoo).  The guys on site don’t seem to mind us taking pictures and videoing them as they work.  I’m sure it must be boring to everyone but I found it very exciting watching cement lorries arriving and concrete spewing out on the site…. 

 We spent a fair bit of time filming the pour before we had to take the kids to school.  Despite the mess, Andrew was enthralled and Evie could have stayed all day……

Clip of the pour

Whilst we were watching, a digger turned up to dig a trench and connect the  water…..

Clip of connecting up the site water 

The site has been handed back to us to get the pool dug. We couldn’t resist making our mark…..

In my bestest handwriting...

Quick Recap - Progress so far

As most of you know, Steve is a pretty good photographer and being a bit clever, he decided to take a photo of the block from the same spot in the road, same camera settings, same distance etc.  This, he reasoned, will provide an excellent time-lapse photography style presentation at the end of the project.  Here are a few shots so far......

In the beginning....

Haircut...

The tree was removed......

The land was scraped.....

The fence was put up and the shuttering put in place.....

Doh!....

 

 

 

 

 

Love where you live..... well, we would IF WE COULD SEE IT!!!!

Never mind, we'll find a new spot from where Steve can take a series of pictures. 

15th December - Ready for the Slab

Its all go here. The site team finished all the shuttering ready for the pour tomorrow.  My colleague Len is also having his house built (knockdown/rebuild) and we are in a bit of a race.  I told him about the progress this week and we have been sharing pictures.  He texted me earlier to ask if it would be OK to come in late tomorrow - he wanted to go to the site and see the pouring of the slab before work.  I wanted him to show some interest of course but I thought this was overdoing it a bit......and then I realised he was talking about his own slab which happens to be scheduled to be poured at the same time.

I think I laughed at myself for about 10 minutes!!

Anyway Len - if you're reading this.... WHERE IS YOUR BLOG??

Meanwhile, back to our lovely house build, here is a shot of the whole site (from the rear of the block) with everything now ready for the concrete slab which is scheduled to be poured tomorrow at 7am.

Ready for the pour

The whole family is getting up really early to go and see a man arrive with a truck full of concrete and pour it all over this nice clean polystyrene.

14th December - Really Motoring Now!!

The builders were putting piles of polystyrene all over the land today.  I was beginning to worry that the foundations were being built by the three little pigs! However, this will be covered in concrete by the weekend.  The guys were onsite until after 5pm so it is clear Metricon want to make good progress.  Steve was invited up to the land by the site manager today who explained they'll be back on site mid-Jan (wasn't expecting any progress until early February).

The polystyrene insulation, damp course and termite protection goes in

This metal reinforcement strengthens the concrete slab

It appears there was a slight error in the scheduling - Metricon were going to hand us the land before the slab was poured to get the pool dug.  However, the slab is scheduled to be poured on Friday and once Steve pointed this out, they said it would be OK for us to dig the pool after the slab was poured, which will work out much better for us.  So pleased with Metricon so far - very customer focussed at this stage. Hoping this keeps up.

Today the fence went up too so it is all happening.

Hey Len, here's the fence!!

Have been touching base with our neighbors who are not far behind us. It is so good to be sharing the experience with other people in the same position - the community is starting to establish prior to actually moving in. 

13th December - Actually Under Construction

Well, we were resigned to the fact that nothing was going to happen prior to Christmas - the rain seemed to be the final straw.  We hadn't been assigned a new customer contact for the next stage and had been advised that the next stage would involve buying all the stuff for the house and then the ground works would start.  I was sulking about it actually and asked Steve to chase things up.

Steve rang me at work following a discussion with Metricon to say that the land had been scraped yesterday and sorry, we forgot to tell you!! They have been piling today and by the time we got there tonight, they had started the shuttering!!  OMG I'm so excited its like being a child at Christmas time.

What a boring job

Pretending to watch TV in what will be our rumpus

Here is a little clip of the whole site after the scrape:-

We met a couple of our neighbors tonight too which added to the excitement and the Agent drove past and we had a bit of a chat.  Walking round the footprint of the house was really surprising - I hadn't quite realized how enormous it will be. The kids were so excited.  I have the day off on Friday which is when they plan to pour the slab.  Fingers crossed the rain holds off.

Land scraped, piling in, drainage and water installed

Family shot outside our new house (needs a bit of work)

1st Dec - Under Construction?

Not much happened over the last couple of weeks.  We have had a lot of rain so the pool contractor had to be delayed.  We have now agreed with Metricon that we will not dig the pool before the land is scraped - they'll hand it back to us for 4 weeks to get this done. This means we have handed the land over to them officially. Thank goodness - this means the penalties are at an end.  We've been driving past the land every couple of days and at the weekend we saw a sign on the land:

Its a sign!!       No, really - its just a sign.

Every tiny step feels exciting - foolish really but it really lifted our mood.  The next step will be a fence - if we get excited about a cardboard sign, imagine our reaction to a fence!

The grass has grown about a foot since Steve mowed it - stupid photosynthesis. Guess what Steve will be doing this weekend?

17th Nov - We now own the land!!

Its now Thursday 17th and the land transfer happened today.  More than a year after we put our deposit down and the spoil is still on the block - but nonetheless its ours (apart from the enormous mortgage).

There have been no big changes apart from 4 small red pegs. Nothing exciting but below is a piccy anyway. Steve was completely bewildered by the locations as they didn't mark the outline of the house or the block boundary - he was worried they had made a mistake.  Metricon later confirmed that they were pegging out the area that the contractors have to scrape.

The little red pegs that perplexed Steve. 

12th Nov 11 It's Started....

We've decided to post progress of the build on a blog to track our journey and keep friends and family up to date on the build.  See the photos as we go - we'll update as important changes occur.  The photo in the banner at the top of the blog is a 360 degree shot of our street with our block of land in the middle.

Land on Sat 12/11/11 (Before Work Started)

So, Saturday we started on the build. We still didn't own the land at that point (don't get me started) but we got permission to fell the tree that was rooted where our kitchen is going to be. See link to some video of that:-

....And...  After......

No more tree in the kitchen and the grass has had a haircut too!