HI everyone, so hopefully now I have worked out how to upload some more photos so you can more easily see the progress. *   Nothing much happened over the weekend except for Brett and I moving bits of timber around trying to see how big each room actually was.   Small panic when we discovered that my demands for a LARGE scullery have been granted and that it is almost twice the size of the entranceway!!!    (opps) Oh well, the way I see it is that i’ll be spending a lot more time in the kitchen scullery area than the front door so it deserves more room…

This morning heralded the arrival of three van loads of Advanced Plumbing gear and worker bees.  however a problem with the main water line into the subdivision still being silted up meant I had to call in a favour and have a shower in town so that my clients weren’t left wondering if I had really actually truly gone feral.

The guys were busy beavering away when I left and hopefully there will be some pipes running all over the floor area by the end of the day.  Wow – things really are moving quickly.

Yesterday I managed to “distribute” 5 kgs of rye/ clover grass seed all done the front of the newly scraped bank so that some grass can start to get a hold before we get another big rain.   Don’t want it all slipping away and creating a moat around the bottom of the section now.  That would be bad.

* – nope – technology is still failing me… sorry everyone but my phone is clearly so awesome at taking pictures it doesn’t want to let me shrink them.   Will have to do some more investigation and come back to you on this.  But trust me – we’re making progress.

So, yesterday I bunked out of work (sorry everyone in my office) so that i could be on site to see the digger arrive an start creating the base for our new home. As you will see, the morning started off very foggy but luckily the digger was a nice bright yellow colour so we couldn’t lose him.  Very obliging neighbours let us use their gate/ driveway so that the 12 tonne yellow creative monster could come up the front of the section / hill rather than going round 2 on our poor already destroyed driveway.

And with that – the work began.  The digger very nicely dug our the flaxes that were doing so well – but now in the way and two magnola’s trees that we have resurrected twice now from the brink of near death.  Here’s hoping that their sudden eviction from their home hasn’t finally tipped them over the edge.

By the time I returned to the section at just on 3:00pm the digger had finished the retaining wall excavation, done all the site scrape, scraped off the top layer on the front of the hill and then pushed all the remaining excess over the front so that we could crib a little more space on the western end where we needed it.

I’m told that the digger with the big auger (spelling??) drill bit was coming back today to drill the holes for the posts for the retaining wall so tomorrow will see us go back out there for a look see.  I also understand that the guys who are going to be responsible for the rib-raft floor pad were also planning to be on site today to start their bit.

The framing has been ordered and booked to arrive in 3 weeks!!!   Wow!!

So i guess that we’ll just be finishing the clean up from the permit and pad party then to go straight into a framing/ roof shout hahahaha.

Sorry for thelack of picutres in this post everyone but apparntly my camera on mysuper smart samgsung makes the files too big and i am yet to find a way to shrink them.   ( Some technology is just a bit beyond me.)

So, we had the digger on Wednesday last week doing it’s clever thing and the site srape was all finished that day.  Thursday heralded the arrival of the rib raft floor crew (who i am yet to meet) and by the time we got out there on Friday afternoon they had over halof the exterior floor layout boxed up!!  I’m not good on spacial perceptionin a two dimensional sense so loking at the boxing area mad me think we hadnt’ allowed enough room!  Despite the fact that the whole house is 277sqm!    I guess i’m just going to have to wait until the framing goes up and the roof goes on (not that i can actually then change anything at that point!).

So Brett and i spent about 2 hours on Friday afternoon with a measuring tape and some long pieces of boxing timber marking out the rooms and trying to work out whether the concept that had been in our heads had fully translated through.   We also had to try and understand where the kitchen dimensions were so that we can properly place the centre island bench as the plumbers arrive on Tuesday to start their thing and they won’t want me moving stuff I’m sure.  (That would be the 101 of how to test a good friendship with Mr Watkins and his crew. Lol)

Sadly the front dooe entranceway seems horribly narrow and the scullery (situated right next to it) ridiculously large!  Brett very nicely keeps reminding me that I had insisted that i didn’t want a pokey scullery and that it needed to be big.  hmmm.

So after a very long wait we’re off at a million niles an hour and now thetime pressure is on.

The glazing joinery and kitchen fit out are the next things on the list that need to be finalised.