Bricks are here...

Went to the block today during lunchbreak knowing our bricks would be delivered sometime today, hoping they would be there already... and... they were. Bricks have been something i have been a little worried about.

We knew the brick we wanted, and we knew we loved its color... but...... They can vary. We had seen a house in Lara and absolutely loved it. Another house using the same brick around the corner from us in Grovedale has the brick but its darker, and that extra bit of darkness in it kinda goes close to killing the look we wanted.

Eagerly, i walked around looking at the bricks. Without even getting close to them i could see the color was aweseome. It might even be a touch lighter than the house in Lara we loved, and that makes it even better.

Wow... 3 paragraphs on bricks. Really?? You are reading this?? You must be bored.

Anyway... The block with our bricks on it.

And... While not so interesting, a couple of photos. One of the house in Lara we like the brick of, and the one around the corner which is a touch darker and changes the look totally.

Lara House The one we like

Grovedale House The one we don't like as much - too dark

And we have a slab!!

Exciting news!! Well.. exciting for us. We have a slab!!

They started pouring early this morning....

Tonight when we went past the block it was totally complete. All boards removed and everything ready to go :-)


Tomorrow we should get our meter box. Around the block is still a stack of dirt. That should be removed over the weekend, with the bricks arriving next week. Power has been organised to be connected so that should be done in about 10 days, and then the frame and everything else will be able to begin.

Getting closer to the slab..

Looks like the slab will be poured on Wednesday now. Everything is very close to being ready.


Interestingly, we thought the whole base would be slab, but we were incorrect. The back part of the house is slab and the garage will also be slab. The front section of the house the footings will be concrete, and the floor will be on beams. Will be interesting to see it done.

Getting ready for the slab

Today work started on getting ready for the slab to be poured. We already had a big pile of dirt beside our block, now that pile has multiplied and we now have a few extra piles of dirt, and that is only going to increase until the slab goes down. Anyone know where we can offload about 200 cubic metres of dirt??

Progress half way through the day

By days end, everyone has gone home. Only the bottom part of the block has really been done so far with the remaining boarding, digging and sanding etc to be done on Monday. At this point, it looks like our slab will laid on Tuesday. Exciting..

We have water

Went past the block today not expecting anything else to be done, and found we had a tap with running water.

Word on the street is that the boarding for the slab will be started tomorrow and hopefully by early next week we will have the slab poured.

Next Thursday our bricks are due to arrive.

In just over 2 weeks time we are moving out to Ocean Grove for the remaining period prior to the house being completed. It was only a couple of weeks ago we thought the house wouldn't be started before this move, and now its looking more and more likely we will have a slab and some of the frame up.

The frame won't be prefab, and will be built onsite from scratch. Will be interesting to see how that goes. Hopefully the carpenters know what they are doing :-)

Pipes are in...

We have some pipes in the ground. Friday afternoon they finished putting all the drainage and house plumbing pipes in.

2 photos above show the block as it was Thursday afternoon. The ones lines is sand to show where the drainage pipe points and house plumbing needed to be dug and installed in the ground.


And as of Friday afternoon, this is the plumbing in the ground.

Hopefully sometime this week we should have a slab. That will be really interesting. The split level means there will be 2 levels, and im intrigued to see the difference between the 2 living levels, and even the garage.

Oh.. and we now have a porta potty on our block :-)

The Land is Cut!

OK. Its day 1, and we officially have a problem.

8am - Col is at the block
12pm - Col is at the block
4:15pm - Renee is at the block
5pm - Col & Renee are at the block
8:30pm - Col & Renee are at the block

On my way to work I swang past the block, during my lunch break at work i drove past to have a look, after work i had a look, and then went back after the kids were asleep. I'm starting to think the biggest expense of this whole process might be petrol.

At 8am, prior to everything starting the block was pegged out so the guy driving the little thing that lifts dirt and puts it somewhere else

At Midday, while eating my Hungry Jacks lunch and sitting in the car, i watch as he continued to dig out the bottom part of the block.

At 5pm, the bottom part of the block is complete and the top part has had a fair chunk of dirt removed. He estimated it would take a further couple of hours to complete. We overhead our bobcat driver and the one across the road commenting on how horrible the soil (clay) is.

Once the kids were asleep and before it got dark we headed back to the block to see the completed excavation. Its nice to see the block cut and things starting to happen.

We hear that the slab will be down next week, but need to confirm the exact date.

Starting Date!

Land settlement has occured on 30th January. We are now the owners of a bare bit of dirt. While it was exciting to get it, we also thought we would need to wait until the title of the block was updated to have our names on it before we could get the building permit done. I had spoken to a couple of people, and both said they had to wait 4-5 weeks to get the actual title.

The afternoon we settled, I for interests sake bought a copy of title. It didn't have our name on it, but after speaking to the builder, he thought that copy of the title along with the letter from our Conveyancer could be enough to get the building permit.

Yesterday afternoon we heard that it was enough to get the permit, and that excavation of the block would start on Wednesday 8th of February. Now that is exciting!! Not only because our house is finally starting, but its a good 4-6 weeks earlier than I thought it might have been. Everything is coming up Milhouse.

How things will look

Photoshop is my friend. We have driven around and looked and lots of different houses trying to work out the look of the house we wanted. Originally, when we had the idea of a single story house, we were going to go dark. But, with the change to the multi level house we thought dark would be too dark, so we changed our look and instead wanted a lighter house.

We had a basic idea of what we wanted. Brownish bricks, Grey windows and colorbond roof. Unfortanutely, after looking and looking we haven't seen anyone do what we are wanting to do which i'm not sure is a good thing or a bad thing.

Anyway... There is a link on the right side of the page which shows the different colors we are going to use. Below is a photoshop representation of what the house will look like. Its not going to be very accurate, but it does give an indication of how things will look.