Excavating the backyard

About a third of the way done. By the end of today two thirds had been done.

Joshy on the digger

Josh and Chris (the twins) getting refreshed- hot day!

Chris having a go driving the digger under Josh's watchful eye- not as easy as it looks!

Framing continues!

The facade- not quite finished yet- more walls to go up.


Looking through the Kid's Retreat double door frame and through to the kitchen and entrance hallway.

Cleaning up a bit with the blower.

Their first mistake :-( The study door frame (inset) is double and the Master Bedroom (further in background) should be double too but they have built a 1 and 1/2. We changed this before signing the final contracts but the builders have obviously been given the wrong set of plans. Easy enough to fix as long as they get onto it asap before the roof goes on. Have emailed to let them know.

We've been framed!!!!!!

Half the external frame went up today! So exciting! The rest of it has been marked out on the ground- was so fun walking through each room. But the markings on the floor make it look pretty small. Stood in the WIR and was like- is there enough space in here?????????

Two ensuite windows.

The three minor bedroom windows can be seen in this shot. They will wrap around the outside of the Kids' Retreat.

3 Master Bedroom windows

Sides of the kitchen, WIP and study are ready to go up!

Frame delivered

Got the frame delivered today and a new load of gravel spread out on our driveway. Looks much nicer :-) Chippies should start tomorrow perhaps?

Think these are our two sliding doors... Yay!

Slab Day!

We have a slab!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's not dry enough to dance on yet, and only just wet enough to scratch a bit of a memory in.

All boxed up and ready to pour

View from the back- alfresco is bottom left, garage is top right.

Front of house, showing entryway.

Chris and the Boy making sure everything measures up

Got our progress email from Henley yesterday which explained that the concretors would be in early in the week. Apparently they've been held up at other jobs because of the 2-3 days of bad weather we had last week. No matter, it's all still steaming ahead. Fully boxed up now (yay) Went out; measured everything and made sure there were no bends in the timber used for the sides of the boxing. Threw a few coins in for good luck. Everybody always says the slab looks small, but we think ours looks pretty big!! Plenty big enough for us anyway!

Looks like the excavation will happen next weekend...

Got the 'reo'

Steel reinforcement stuff got delivered today. Other than that it doesn't look like they've done anything on ours or next door since yesterday. Slab pour tomorrow? We shall see...

Ready to be boxed!

We have some beautiful squares topped with sand now! Ryan says "Those trenches are your footings. They provide contact to virgin ground. Theory is to have it sitting on untouched soil for better stability." To which I replied, "uh, they're not untouched now because we ran around in them...!" Pic above is taken from back corner, looking forward. Pic below shows the front- the half square will be the portico.

Our crossover protector thingy has been tossed up onto the driveway!

Makin my mark in the sand :-)

Getting slab prepped

Discovered a big pile of orange sand in the driveway tonight! We will be getting boxed up very soon!!! Yay!

View from the side (standing under our neighbours lovely big Burbank frame!) The digger is there to um.... dig....some dirt.... or something. We don't know...

We've decided the backyard excavation is going ahead, as there's no way it can be done practically if we wait until all the surrounding fences are up. Josh is going to putt by on Saturday to see how big the job will be. How exciting!

To excavate or not?

Have broached the subject of digging out the rest of our backyard during the build (ideally ASAP) with our SS and he was not overly keen on it. He explained the builder's official position etc but then said if we hadn't have asked and just done it, then that would be a different story. Very confused. Is that code for 'go ahead, I won't object but I can't give you the nod officially'??? Not sure what to do... Don't want to be penalised for doing our own work. Will discuss the dig out with our friendly excavation guru Josh and see what he recommends. Perhaps we can do it at handover, before the dividing fence is built...? Or maybe sneak in at midnight for a stealth dig operation!? Lol.

We have a meter box!

Didn't think they'd do anything today because of the rain. Wrong! We have a meter box... and some puddles! Thanks for the pics Ryan xo

Plumbing is finished!!

Very muddy @ the block today! We are going to keep our gumboots in the car from now on! All the plumbing is done and the trenches filled in. Wonder what they'll do tomorrow??

Plumbing under way

The underground plumbing trench was dug today and the man I spoke to said that will be finished about lunchtime tomorrow :-)
Had to hang around about 20 minutes til they all left before I got these pics. Didn't want our plumbers to feel like they were getting papped!

Piles of crushed rock were delivered this afternoon, ready to be spread out as soon as all the plumbing is in.





This ditch is about 2-3 metres deep and there was a man standing in it when I arrived!



Wiring for the meter box

Site excavated- more pics

We have been looed! Looks like Henley is only putting the one dunny on for both our sites to save their $. Makes sense.


We have a shiny new water meter.

We've started!!!!!

Wow prayers- answered haha! Can't believe it! Thanks for the pic Nerida :-) We have been dug out. Yay! We will zoom out after work to have a look in person. This is so exciting!!

Ok... We won't...

No action out at the block today.
On the other hand we have been contacted by our neighbour across the back, wanting to get the fence built. She was really good and very understanding when we asked if they would mind waiting until our build starts (whenever that may be!) so that the fencer doesn't remove boundary pegs and we then have to pay for a new survey.

(Head bowed) And now let's pray (for an excavator) haha.

Will we or won't we?

We were told that today is the day for some site action. Not holding our breath though. Contacted the builder on Tuesday just to ask if everything was still going ahead as planned and were told our site supervisor is 'not known at this stage' and that we are also getting a new admin person, who is also not known at this stage. Doesn't sound like they're ready then! Ah well... We'll see. *sigh*

2 days until site start

Final plans arrived on Friday while we were away on hols. Everything looks fine; the doors are right now, so we are signing tonight and sending them back. We've been told to expect to see some action out at the block any time from Thursday onwards!