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.

Backfilling, steel and our own port-a-loo

You're know you're underway on your site when you have your own loo on site. Ours arrived today:

I have to confess I've had a good giggle at some of the names on the port-a-loo's used on the various builds in our street. Only in Australia do you get "Dial-a Dunny" and "Phone-a-Throne" :-)

Moving back to the build, the wall has been backfilled and steel laid in preparation for the slab going down tomorrow. The slab will be down before 8am. Here are some photos for you - I hope to get back to the site in the morning with the children to take some shots of the slab being poured.