Long over due update...Footings

So I've been really slack again, but finally feel in the mood to update the blog. We have started building obviously! Official site start was way back in May some time, and the build was meant to be about 11 months in total, but with the record wet weather we've had in both June and August, we are already about 2 months behind, but as I keep reminding myself...At least I'm not the one having to work out in this atrocious weather.

So anyway some piccies to get everything up to date...

Site cut, as left by the civil contractors...and we have a new little digger.


Site preparations.



Box work for 1st floor footings


Excavations for ground floor footings


Footings poured...yay!

Will we ever build???

Sometimes I wonder if it will ever happen...I'm sure a lot of people feel like this, but we will get there eventually...won't we??

We have chosen the builder, and we are really happy with him so far. Great communication and very professional. We are yet to sign the contract though, as we are waiting on the titles to be issued so we can get some money!!! For some reason the builder doesn't want to start until he can see that we can actually pay him...picky, picky, picky...huh?

For some reason it hadn't actually occurred to us that we don't actually have any money at the moment. We were so focused on getting the subdivision finished, we hadn't really thought this next step through. So now we sit and wait until the blocks settle. I think I've said it before...I HATE WAITING!!!

The builder has some great ideas and is happy for us to do somethings ourselves to save money. So at this stage, we are looking at doing the painting and few other things, so we can still afford to have our polished concrete and a few other little luxuries.

The Finished Subdivision

Well, how slack have I been!! But given that every one's favourite home building forum is down for the weekend, I thought I'd make the most of it and update our blog.

So the subdivision was finally finished at the beginning of February...3rd of Feb to be exact...that's when we had the Practical Completion Inspection, and that's when we were told that it would take them about 4 weeks to seal the plans and get them to the titles office. Oh gee, guess what...6+ weeks and the plans are still with council. We'll be lucky to get the titles through to the Titles office by the beginning of April, where it is meant to take another 4 weeks. We have to have Titles issued by 20th May or else the sales of the blocks fall through...:(


Soooo, some pics of the completed subdivision...

Our Site Cut



Retaining wall for our block.

And from another angle. Originally the wall was only meant to be 1m high...It's now 3m high. Hmmm, a slight miscalculation by the engineer???

And the finished driveway, with open rock drain along side, in which we now have a lovely assortment of weeds growing. Should be fun weeding that...not!

Our view now. Tom and I walk up the driveway just to take in the view and re-energise. It's our way of making ourselves realise that it will be all worth while in the end...whenever that may be!

Down in the Trenches!

Progress! Progress! Progress!

Well we finally have some progress on site. Officially work on the subdivision began on Monday but we didn't really see anything happening until Wednesday, when we got.....

a portaloo

Some site sheds

And 2 20 tonne excavators

Day 1...Knocking down my father-in-law's pine trees, that he loved so much :( , to create a barrier for rocks etc.

And clearing the way for the stormwater and sewerage

Marking out the driveway

Day 2
One trench
Lots of rock!!!

And some of these...

...manholes for the stormwater and sewerage.

Day 3 Some pipes in our trench (sewerage , stormwater and a subsoil drain)

More rock.

Any one need some pipes?

I have to say I was stressing a bit yesterday when I heard the rock breaker going all day. We have some allowance in the contract for rock, but I'm not sure how much...so hopefully it won't cost us too much more than their original tender. But on the bright side, we won't need to buy rock for landscaping.

I did an adult ed course a couple of weeks back on Dry stone walls and I'm itching to get my hands on some of that rock, but I'm not sure how much will be left once they take what they need for fill for the driveway.

On the house front, we are still trying to finalise the exterior cladding. I found something that I just love, but MC says it is very expensive and not really suited to the sloping part of our house. Problem is, now that I've seen this product, I'm not happy with anything else :(

Now it won't be to everyone's taste....it's a rusted, coppery metal looking material by Axolotl!!!

I can picture something like this on the house (or even in the house like in this last picture), but I'm still not too sure about the Indiana copper.

We pretty much have to decide in the next week or so. I picked up some more Alucobond samples today, and MC will be lending a couple of folders of samples to us of a different metal cladding over the weekend, so we will see if we can get any closer to finalising this!!

Oh and I almost forgot to mention that we are now officially selling our blocks of land!!! (I forgot to take a photo of the For Sale sign though...will do that tomorrow). We have put ads on domain.com (Property ID: 2007452942) and a few other property websites, as well as in the local realestate guide and we will be doing a letter box drop around our area this WE. We have already had quite a bit of interest so we'll wait and see how we go. We decided to sell by tender to get around people putting in dummy offers. This way people put in their best offer and then we chose...we don't have to chose the highest offer even...so we get to chose our neighbours :)

Finally, one step closer: we have a....

Well we finally have council approval for our house DA. There are a few conditions attached to the permit (as always), but we have already met most of the conditions through the sub-division process.

The only thing of small concern is the colour scheme, which was not approved. Council did not like the Shale Grey colorbond for the roof. Too light they said, so it will be too visible. Given that our house is 100m up a hill from the nearest road, our roof is sloped upwards so it can't be seen from the road, we own the 4 hectares behind the house and it can't be subdivided, we only have one neighbour.....why are they worried about the colour of our roof.

"The colour scheme must propose exterior colours and finishes of muted, subdued tones that will blend in with the surrounding natural environment. Colorbond Shale Grey will not be permitted"

They didn't say anything about the proposed exterior cladding though, hmmmmm?

MC has suggested we use a product called alucobond, in Indiana copper, which is what that orangey colour in the rendered picture is meant to represent.

Tom and I are still not 100% sure about this, it's very hard to visualise and is a bit bolder than I am used to being!!

Anyway, back to the roof colour, I've been looking at the colorbond site and I really don't want to go much darker than Windspray or Bushland. They couldn't reject Bushland, could they, given their requirement that it blends into the bushland? I'll have to get some samples and see what looks OK with the Indiana Copper.

Things have been progressing on the sub-division front too. We put the drawings out for tender, despite them not yet being approved by council...don't ask!!! Well, tenders closed last Monday, and 3 out of the 4 contractors put in a tender, 4th was too busy, which is fair enough. The 1st one mustn't have wanted the job either as their tender was $90,000 more than the lowest one!!!!!

So we have chosen the contractor and they have said they can start Sept/Oct depending on when the drawings are approved by council. The tender documents stipulated a 12 week time frame, so we are hoping to have the driveway and services completed by February....please, please let it be so!!!

This would maybe allow us to start building by March, if they (the powers-that-be) are super fast and issue titles really quickly and then issue the building permit really quickly...I have my doubts. Strictly speaking they are not meant to issue a building permit until we have a title for our new block, and we won't get titles issued until the driveway and services are completed.

More to talk about regarding sale of the blocks, but I think I will leave that for another time :)

Must stay calm!

OK trying not to let things get to us, me a little bit more successfully than Tom.

So we had some good news today...we got a copy of the tender papers for the subdivision works from our engineer, which he has sent to 4 contractors, with a deadline of 8 September. So we need to do a few things, like organise finance!!

The reason Tom was so stressed and the reason I'm now feeling soooo drained, is that I emailed our planner (RM) at the council to follow things up. It had been 2 weeks since I submitted the driveway information they had requested and we still hadn't heard anything. Well, we got an email back saying he was glad I had contacted him and that he was very sorry, but he had got confused and left our papers sitting in his intray for 2 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!! But to cut to the chase, the DA will be advertised this week. This, however did not please MC (designer) as he had forgotten that we are zoned discretionary and that it even had to be advertised.

It doesn't seem like that big a deal, but the communication from council since we submitted the house DA and the drawings for the services has been shocking. I shouldn't have to be chasing them to remind them to do their jobs!!

So, anyway, the plan from here....

• we need to start to organise finance
• keep clearing the blocks so we can sell them
• speak to the conveyancer about selling the blocks
• And I'm too tired to think anymore..........