Week 1 - Summary

Monday 21/11 - Sunday 27/11

Site Start came with a whole lot of excitement for us! We started our building journey on day one of 2011, and it has taken us 47 weeks to get to this point.

Leanne & I generally believed that building a house could do more damage than good, especially when we considered the stories of our friends and family. However, I always had a deep seated sense of wanting to build our own home, and Leanne really admires a beautifully designed and decorated house. What could possibly go wrong?!

We've both learnt a great deal about homes, construction, the building industry and decorating over the last year, and when we look back to some of our initial notes on what we wanted in our new home, they are quite amusing!

Driving around to so many parts of Melbourne looking at bricks, and colours and fittings seems like a world away now, and we hope all the effort in bringing our selections together, gives us the result we are after... and when you wait so long to start on site, you can't help but second guess yourself.  It almost makes the journey a bit unreal because it is all just on paper... "are we ever really going to build this thing!?"

But here we are... and the sense of relief and excitement that has come with the following innocuous activities is quite incredible!

Progress from 24seven

Friday 11/11:
Signed off Construction drawings and Final Variations List, and received building permit.  Couldn't get a site start date as their systems were dead.

Monday 14/11:
Call from BC advising site start date was booked for Monday 21/11.

Friday 18/11:
Port-a-loo delivered and site scraped.

Monday 21/11:
SS calls to introduce himself and we have a quick chat about what to expect over the coming weeks.  Slab pour booked in for Thursday 1/12.

Tuesday 22/11:
Rubbish cage delivered.

Rubbish cage & port-a-loo

Wednesday 23/11:
Electricity cables run and building envelope staked.

Stakes and electricity

Thursday 24/11:
Security perimeter fence installed.

Cyclone fencing

Plan for next week:

Plumbing
Slab formwork
Slab pour

Port-A-Loo

We went out to the block this evening and to our surprise we have a port-a-loo.

Port-a-loo

Site start is Monday but they have already started doing some kind of scrape! It seems like they have done a bit of the master bedroom, portico and main living area. We will have to go back tomorrow and have a proper look when its not so dark.

Final Drawings

We had our construction appointment last Friday and it went really well. Everything was sorted from the 7 PCV's. The few things that were not done were fixed in minutes. Being all good, we signed them off. We had everything that needing amending from our contract drawings highlighted, so it was just a matter of cross referencing it all.

Our slab structure was modified due to more accurate soil surveying, the site is still classed as a P. The 60 piers from the original drawings are gone and we have some strengthening around the slab perimeter instead.

Our building permit is in and out site start is the 21st of November !!!

We are both just soooo excited. Bring on the port-a-loo !!!

Here are some of the final drawings:

Siting

Floorplan

West (Front) and North Elevations

South and East Elevations

Kitchen, Pantry and Ensuite Elevations

Bathroom and Laundry Elevations 

Electrical

We Have Water

This is not really all that blog worthy, but, we have a TAP !! Things should really start happening now. We have our construction drawings appointment this Friday, and our building permit should be in by the end of the week. Fingers crossed our site start is soon.

Our Tap