We are out of the ground!

Our first stumps are in and so we are now officially out of the ground! I'm so excited!

I didn't go onto the site as the guys were just shutting up when I arrived, however I managed to take a few shots through the fence:

Our fantastic Site Supervisor Mark on the left

In this picture you can see the "H" stumps, which support the back deck. The remaining stumps support the house.

Tomorrow Mark and Craig and team will finish off the stumps and then next week we start on the flooring, then the first frames. Can't wait!

On another note, I am exceedingly grateful that DH and I have gone with Garth Chapman. The team has been exemplary in every respect, and I can't recommend them highly enough. They have been so thorough and work to achieve the best outcome for us. While our build has hit a few hurdles, the team has been courteous and informative, and the wonderful Steve has gone above and beyond the call of duty to get things done for us. And he has put up with me calling him often (very often - he really deserves a medal). I've heard so many terrible stories, and while I'm very grateful that's not our experience, I wanted to put a happy story out there. These guys are fantastic!

Happy weekend everyone!

Pier digging has started!

I popped out to the block this afternoon to show dad the block (he and mum are visiting for a couple of weeks from NSW) and the digger was still in action. We were able to watch our builders drill some holes, and I was able to have a chat to one of our lovely builders, Craig. He explained some of the surveyor markings for us - the ones I remember are that the blue crosses are for steel posts and the pink crosses for the timber posts.

Here are some photos from this afternoon:

Love seeing the dirt / rock as it is shaken off the drill 

The lovely Craig

Craig avec digger!

So to tomorrow - there will be more digging and hopefully the first posts going in. Early next week we should start to see some flooring and then (drumroll), the frame! You can't tell I'm a little bit excited.

One of my other house related jobs today is to pick up our sink, ordered about 6 weeks ago. We have bought the black Schock sink from Abey:

At first I wanted a butlers sink, however we ultimately preferred this one. It won out on size and functionality. What I particularly love is that it has anti bacterial properties and dirt can't adhere to it. I'm hoping it will prove easier to keep clean! 

Our beautiful retaining wall!

A retaining wall has never looked as good to me as the one on our block does now. It means progress and that our house build will be starting again this week. I'm very excited and can't quite believe it.

I went back to the block every day last week to check the progress of the wall. This is where we started:

And this is what happened last week (Wednesday 31 July to Friday 2nd):

These posts go 3 metres into the ground! 

And voila, we have a retaining wall at last! :

Not sure what has happened to that single missing sleeper in the middle, however I'm assuming it will be added in ... I will follow it up later this week if not.

Standing on the site, the height of of the wall is really quite deceptive. The wall looks much higher than it should be to level out the building platform. We think it will look very different once filled in and flattened.

We can't fill in the western corner of the wall (in the photo above) until the side retaining is completed. This is due to start in the next couple of weeks. Our neighbours have organised the side retaining wall as it was initially part of their plan in designing their house. They cut in approx 2.6 m into their block to build their house.

However, as our needs changed and we were required to build this back retaining wall, we have subsequently asked if we can retain the height of their wall to the corner of our boundary to give us a flat space. Our neighbours have been great about it, and very happy to accommodate our changes.We will pay for our component but have the one person complete the wall at the one time. A win win! I'm looking forward to seeing it done mostly to visualise the space we will end up with. We can't put up the fence on that side either until the wall is completed!

So today out excess soil should have been removed and tomorrow the surveyor needs to re-peg the site. Then Wednesday, the piers should be dug and some real action starts!

I hope to share some more pictures soon. Have a great week!

Goodness, we have movement at the station!!

Finally we have something happening! Our back retaining wall started today, late, but better late than never!

I only took a couple of snaps, however here goes:

I took this photo because of the plans sitting on the slab!

I spoke with the contractor building the wall. He told me that today they were scraping back the soil to locate the services (the sewage and storm water drains) before digging the holes for the posts. The delay in getting to this point has been that our wall needed particular engineering as it's located so closely to the service lines.  

Once the posts are done, the contractors hope to build and complete the wall by Friday, Monday at the latest. So yah! Hopefully this time next week we have a beautiful and complete retaining wall. I honestly didn't think that I could be so excited by a retaining wall - but I am!  

I will pop out to the site tomorrow and take some more pics. Fingers crossed I see some concrete going up! 3 or 4 days for a retaining wall seems quick, but I won't complain :-) Love seeing progress!

Appliances

It's the first time I've entered into the world of appliances. Whenever we have moved houses we have just used what came with the house. I haven't ever had to buy a new oven, cooktop or rangehood. So out foray into this world has been fun but confusing - there is too much choice!

We started by visiting appliance shops, including Harvey Norman, The Good Guys and our local retravision to see what was out there. I was really shocked at how much everything costs! (it was obvious that I hadn't been appliance shopping before!). I didn't even know there were pyrolytic ovens!

I then hopped online to research brands / functions / reviews. This led me onto the building forums and advice from others building and renovating. Here I picked up the idea of importing our appliances from the UK. From all of my research, I really like the AEG and Neff ovens, however like Miele, the price in Australia is fixed across the board, and the price discrepancy between these brands and the mid range appliances (like Fisher &Paykel, Westinghouse, Bosch etc) is massive.

I found a couple of suppliers in the UK that other had used and I contacted them via email to enquire about the ovens I liked. One of the suppliers offered to call me from the UK - he was great and talked me through all of the appliances and what they recommended etc. When I had decided on the specific models, he sent me the quotes and I was blown away. We pay so much more here!

I am trying to achieve a Hamptons look in our kitchen, and to fit the theme we did seriously consider the traditional cookers. I loved the black and cream Rangemasters and similar, however again they were so expensive in Australia. Ultimately functionality won out, and we decided to go with slimline wall ovens. We are going to have them stacked in a wall unit - no bending over to access the oven anymore!!

We had decided to buy 2 ovens instead of one large one. From our research 2 ovens would be more economical (doesn't take as much power or time to heat or maintain heat) and wouldn't cross contaminate flavours. When it came to the cooktop, we had been going with gas due to cost, however the UK price of an induction cooktop was so good and induction is SO much easier to clean. So induction it is!

So I decided on the following appliances:

Neff B46C74N3GB Single Oven - Stainless Steel - Slide Away Door 
http://www.neff.co.uk/showroom//ovens/single-ovens/B46C74N3GB.html?source=search

Neff B16P52N3GB Single Oven - Stainless Steel  

http://www.neff.co.uk/showroom//ovens/single-ovens/B16P52N3GB.html?source=search

Neff T44T97N0 Flexinduction Hob - Stainless Steel Trim - Point & Twist 

http://www.neff.co.uk/showroom/hobs/T54T97N2.html

Our rangehood we are buying in Australia. I have ordered this one, Fisher & Paykel 90cm Rangehood, hopefully it will come in next week:

Have a great weekend everyone! 

Playing the Waiting Game

Still waiting!

We can't move forward until our back retaining wall goes up. I had an update from our SS and the wall is designed, materials ordered, just waiting on the certifier to give the ok. They are hoping for the official ok early next week and then they can start. Fingers crossed!

The rain in Brisbane just won't go away either, and I so I'm hoping that it doesn't delay works in the next few weeks. Once the wall goes up we start on the piers, and we need the site to be dry to get the digger on site - too wet and it will sink! Winter in Brisbane is normally reliably dry, however this year is frustratingly wet, and supposed to remain that way until we get to the "wet season" in summer. Oh joy!

This building lark is really testing my patience!! I'm sure we won't be in by Christmas this year, and I'm currently thinking Easter next year.

In the meantime I'll share some pics I took at the site the other day (after some rain). My next post I'll show you our appliance choices - very excited about them!

We have a slab!

Our garage slab was poured this morning. I arrived on site at 8am, and the guys had been there since 5.30am. They were about to start smoothing it back. They said it would be ready to walk on this afternoon.

Here are some pics for you:

I spoke with our site foreman yesterday, and we don't know when the retaining wall will start yet. The wheels are in motion, however it is still being designed by the engineers and then will need to be approved by council. Until that happens not much else can happen on site. Fingers crossed for good weather and the start of the retaining wall next week.