FRAMED!!

We finally have a frame.. Yippee!!

I can't tell you how excited we are! Things are moving along very quickly and we couldn't be happier. I am hoping all the colours we selected so long ago come together nicely.

Half the windows have been installed and I am wrapped with the size of the kitchen and lounge windows - Bigger than I thought - but on the flip side now I have to work out coverings for them!

# Facing house - Right hand side view

# Looking from the backyard

# Right hand side -looking at Alfresco

# Looking from the Left hand side

# Looking into the lounge, dinning and kitchen area

# View from the kitchen looking at the dinning and lounge rooms

The independent inspector is coming on Friday 18th. We advised the site supervisor prior, so hopefully with them knowing this things will be done right the first time! Well again, I have my fingers & this time toes crossed also... xxxxx

WOW - 52 Piers!!

Wow 52 Piers..

I couldn't get over how big the 52 piers actually are! They measure 600mm in diameter and were drilled more than 750mm (some deeper) to hit natural ground! The footings were also drilled for our Alfresco and Verandah having to be 1000mm min deep and founded into stiff clays! Crack control bars, measuring 2000mm long will also be incorporated and tied to the underside of slab mesh. Our plans are below showing them spread across the house. The piers are the round circle everywhere..

Below are photo's of pier's drilled and what they looked like before being filled with concrete...

These are the piers now they have been filled with concrete... they are massive I tell you.. hopefully this helps with house to stay in the one spot with minimal to no cracked walls in future!

And the 2 photos above show that our plumbing has been installed.. yippee...

The site manager called today advising they are currently boxing it all up and laying the base for the slab to be poured which has now been pushed back to Thursday - 4th Feb! It was meant to be poured by Monday 31st, but I think they want to pour the slab next door to us at the same time as it is also a Greybox home. Time will tell..

Our slice of Heaven!

Wow - life has been crazy! Where do I start?
Finally we settled on our slice of heaven on 1st October. We were very excited and was told that our slab would most likely be down by Christmas, but of course we were not holding our breath!

Our excitement soon turned to disbelief when we received our soil and engineering reports. We were advised that due to so much fill on the land we had to upgrade (not sure if you call it an upgrade - feels like a downgrade) to a P class slab and that we would also require 52 concrete piers to be placed under the slab with an additional $8,500 price tag! Wow, Merry Christmas to us and there goes my plantation shutters.. :-( We had a friend look over the reports to get a second opinion and he advised pretty much the same - with that amount of fill, this is what would need to be done..

We had a final meeting prior to Christmas with the builder to ensure we were happy with our specifications and also our working drawings. I don't know how but my kitchen island bench went from being 1.45(w) x 2.5(l) down to 1.2(w) x 2.5(l). I was not impressed to say the least as this wasn't the first time changes had been made to our drawings without any communication. Other minor things also needed to be corrected and these were done before we signed off! At this meeting the builder advised that due to being so close to Christmas they wanted to hold off and start fresh when all the tradies returned - which we agreed as we didn't want exposed pipes or a frame sitting their over the shut down period.

To our surprise, our site manager called a few days before Christmas saying that they had cut the site, marked & pegged it out, connected the power and also had the temporary fencing up! He also advised that our piers would be installed today - 18th Jan (not sure if they have been, but will take a drive and check tomorrow), our slab is booked in to be poured on 31st Jan and we should see a frame by the end of the first week of Feb! Wow, we couldn't believe what we were hearing and decided to jump in the car that afternoon and go for a look. Finally, we could see progress.


So hopefully we will be able to see some more progress this week and that the rain holds off for a while so we can start to see it all coming together... what a journey it already has been so far and we know there is just soooooooo much more to come!

Stage 7A - Complete - SO WE THOUGHT!!!

Hope you can view our house plans above..

Well so much for thinking back at the beginning of Aug that we were ready to go.. Stage 7A is still in the titles office awaiting approval... yes it has been over a month with no word of what the hold up is!! Once it is finally approved we still have to wait another 14 days to settle and then hopefully all systems ago!

As promised I have upload our house plans.. very exciting - 36sq including garage, veranda and alfresco that looks out to the 11th green. Nice big open kitchen, my dream pantry that I could sleep in and the study I can't wait to get in and make my own!! Just realised this is an older drawing... oops... but just minor changes since, re: change to the kitchen bi-fold window and moving the island bench closer to the sink.

It feels like a life time ago now that we finalised these plans and picked external and internal colours, fixtures and features...

The only positive to waiting for our titles is that we have been saving, saving, saving...
Fingers crossed we hear this week in regards to a settlement date!!

Ciao for now :-)

Stage 7A - Complete & ready to go!!

Finally - Stage 7A is complete...

After waiting for months due to Eynesbury having to employ a new company to construct the roads, we finally got word today that our builder, Greybox Homes are able to get on site and start soil testing... :-) This is very exciting and it has been a long, long process to get to this point!

We firstly put a deposit on our block back in January of this year (2010). From then until only Friday of last week (6th Aug), it has been a bumpy ride. First of all we sat down with Greybox and decided that we would like to build a custom home. Argh!! If I had known what is was going to be like I think I might have just opted for the stock standard one... how do I explain... constant miss communication between us, Greybox and the architect, things missing from our contract, incorrect spelling of our names - the list goes on and on...

Anyway, hopefully with a bit of luck the process will go a lot smoother from now - not holding my breath, especially reading other blogs from people who are building in Eynesbury and with Greybox... but I will keep you all posted as I am sure there will be plenty of things to write about and a lot photos to post on here ... next blog I will upload our house plans... :-)