Slab stage complete!

I've been so busy lately that I've been a little behind in posting updates. The slab has finally been completed and the frames as well as the windows, stacker & sliding doors have all been delivered to site ready to go next week. Once the frames go up we'll get a real perspective of the house and how things are going to fit. Can't wait :-)

It has officially started!

Finally, plumbing was done last week and today they've dug the holes for the footings which are getting poured tomorrow. We should have a complete slab by the end of this week. This has made us very happy as we expected this to have all happened end of February/ early March. Main thing is it has now finally started and we should see lots happening over the next couple of months :-)

Surveyor, Plumber and the Fencing Guy

Well not a whole lot has happened since my last post BUT a little bit has happened. After the whole boundary peg fiasco it turned out the builder was waiting on the local surveyor to get back from leave to re-establish all of our boundary pegs, because 3 out of 4 pegs isn't enough apparently. Now the builder took this upon themselves to get the surveyor out, because apparently that's why the plumber hadn't done his thing yet. The builder didn't tell us to organise it and they haven't mentioned anything about the cost, so hopefully we don't end up paying for it at the pointy end of the build. Anyhow, that happened last week (27th March), we have some newly re-established boundary pegs and a pretty pink streamer/flag on a stick in the ground. I actually drove around to the block yesterday to see if anything more had changed and the builder was actually onsite with someone else (plumber maybe?) doing some markings on the dirt and there was a bunch of star-pickets in the ground, but I couldn't work out what that was for. I only did a drive-by as I didn't want to interrupt them and decided I'd go back later in the afternoon to see what they had done. After going back in the afternoon it looks like they have marked out the wet areas so plumbing will happen any day now and then hopefully a slab will finally follow shortly after.

Here is what we saw yesterday:

Now, jumping back to the fencing guy, who I am still yet to received a quote from, I really really want to mask off the back of the property because I'm so tired of looking at that shabby old ugly yellow building but even the fencing guy is lagging behind the timeline he gave me for the quote...must just be the way they roll out here.

ummm...huh?

I had a meeting with the fencing guy this morning who mentioned that the boundary of our block hasn't been marked and he'd prefer it was, and wondered if the builders were going to do that. I said I'd contact him and find out. I made the assumption that the site would be checked and marked out in prep for the slab and everything else as the builder would use that boundary to make their measurements. Seems that they weren't planning to and that I might need to get a surveyor out but I wouldn't have thought that would be our problem but the builders issue to sort, and up to this point NO ONE had mentioned that so I have no idea what they were planning to do when they finally do start the actual construction. He mentioned their builder may just mark it out himself but none of this helps the fencing guy really, sigh. So I'm going to add that to the list of possible expenses.
They are also getting a lot more vague when I ask for details as they really have no idea when the plumbers will bother to show up and do their bit, even though I was told it was happening beginning of this week (and it didn't happen) so I think I'm not going to bother calling them for a while as my frustration will begin to show soon. They did mention our slab was the next one on their list behind the one they are working on but even so we are still at the mercy of the plumbers. Maybe I'll have some real news to report next week :-/

Progress....sort of.

Had a horrible day today, unrelated to the house, we had to make the choice to put down our beloved Piper. My beautiful old girl had reached the end of her days today and we had to call the vet to peacefully put her to sleep. So have been feeling quite 'empty' I suppose you could say.

To keep my mind occupied I went for a drive to the block as the plumbers were supposed to have started early this week but there is no sign of them yet. However I did notice a delivery of materials used for the form work for the slab, so something HAS to start soon. I'm not too worried just yet, just would have liked to see something happen on the block that is a a little more exciting than a delivery of mesh and posts.

We also have a fencing guy coming out to the block to quote for us tomorrow morning which is good, if it comes in under $6000 for supply + install we'll probably get this guy in ASAP to screen the ugly building behind us. That building probably bothers me far more than it should but still can't wait to screen it off, not to mention the crappy old cars this guy is hoarding.

 

On a separate note, I realised I haven't uploaded the house plans so here it is: 

And so it begins!

Builder - Hotondo
Plan - The Jamieson 222
Land - 1200sqm

Today marked the start of an exciting journey as we build our first family home. It was such a nice surprise to venture to the land today to find that they had already scraped it, considering I was told that would be happening sometime next week. We were off to a good start with it only taking 3 weeks for council approval, then to find that they are ahead of the schedule already, I'm pretty impressed. 

So the timeline so far:

16th January 2015 - Land settlement day!

5th February 2015 - The sign went in this morning!  

9th February 2015 - Plans submitted to council.

10 February 2015 - Council requested copy of Contract of Sale as their records had not been updated for some reason.

4th March 2015 - Builder advised the plans had been approved through council (...and it was my birthday). 

6th March 2015 - Sometime between 4th & 6th  March the site scrape happened.