Wednesday 27 November 2013

We have been SLABBED!

6 months & 5 days from the deposit to slab! So exciting  and now that we see it, its been worth the wait. Friends comment "its only cement" but until you build i guess you dont understand the full extent of how exciting a huge piece of concrete is. From this we can see how our house will sit on the block, the size of yard (not much lol) the retaining walls (eeekkk) lots of work to be done, but we will get there.

I was hoping id be able to see the slab get poured, and was going to sneek up at 6:30am this mroning to see if trucks were starting to line up, but didn't think it would be happening yet!

Then a spy tells me by 9am is finished, then SS rings to say its all done! Wow so quick! 

I think it will take a week to cure before the frames will arrive. Im meeting with SS tomorrow to discuss the timeline of the build and answer any queries i have! cant wait. SS is sounding like a true champion so far. And lately with some of the "stories" ive heard im hoping my SS stays a true champion and looks after us.

1 week exactly from site scape to slab! with some massive down pours in between id say thats awesome timing! So stoked there were no delays and they moved forward so quickly!

Big bits of foamy stuff  called pods that sit under slab - lol
Pods Ready and waiting to be covered with cement


Our very own special piece of cement we will soon call our home



Saturday 23 November 2013

Peiring Placement 7 Pods have arrived

The water from the weekend rain has drained away and we can now see where all the piers have been placed


Pods arrived on Saturday morning. Would be great if they put them into place tomorrow. The end of the week its going to be well over the 30's so pretty hot for pouring a slab. Lets see what the week brings.

Friday 22 November 2013

Piering, Plumbing & Formwork completed

We have had so much rain over the past couple of days, and constant thunder rolling around the suburbs.  I took a drive out to the block this evening and the place looks like a swimming pool. I had to slip and slide through the mud to get the photos of the back of the block. 

Was surprised to see all the peiring, plumbing and formwork were also done, i had only expected the fences to be there with all the rain we have had at our place.

The other day the block was so dry and neat and now its a mud pit! i hope the rain holds off over the weekend, looking forward to seeing the pods arrive next



Plumbing Placement

Left Hand Side Boundary. Drops off to the rear approx 600mm.
No drop edge beam, soil comes out 900mm from slab line approx

Backyard with Main Bathroom in View
  
Kitchen & Laundry
Main Bathroom

Back Yard - Will be fun removing that soil


Backyard - Will end up approx 6m from rear of the house

Wednesday 20 November 2013

Cut & Fill - Check!

There is movement at the block. Thankfully the rain held off and they were able to complete the cut & Fill as planned. Now we can get a better idea of the retaining wall sizes and also the slope of the block down to the backyard! we have a lot of dirt to move to make the backyard more user-friendly.

Tomorrow we should get our lovely "Keep out fence" and hopefully they start setting up to pour the slab by the end of next week,

Rain Rain stay away don't come back another day!


Friday 15 November 2013

Our Big Door 2340 x 1200mm Dream was not meant to be

I thought i would tell you all about our Front door dramas to alert others if they are in a similar situation to us.  From Day 1 we wanted to have the "display options" 2340x1200mm Eden 4 Door as viewed at the kellyville display home. We were told to have this size we needed to go 9ft ceilings. So we also increased the height of the ceiling in the entry way to accomadate this. We couldn't afford to have 9ft ceilings throughout.

This door at this size got through the whole process - Tender, Contract, DA Check, Final Plans Check. And on the eve of signing when i was checking off the plans it suddenly dawned on me that we had chosen a larger bed 1 door that went with the display options pricing package, But how can a 2340 door open up into a room that could only accomadate the standard 2040 door. When i questioned this to EBH they said that i was right, that we couldn't have this large door, but we also couldn't have our entry door either.

In order to get the larger entry door that we wanted the frames for our whole house needed be to 9ft. Not just the ceilings, So increasing the ceilings still leaves the standard 8ft frames, and therefore the 2340 door will not fit. So only hours before we were due to sign off we were hit with this information. Not only had we paid the extra $950 now for 9ft ceilings for no reason, but we couldn't have the larger door that we wanted.

We now have a 2040x1200 door in a 9ft ceiling space. Hopefully it looks ok and doesn't seem out of place. Ill have to hang a nice pendant light in the entry to try and fill the space now. And i guess the higher ceilings as you enter the house still might look ok - cross fingers! trying to find positives to this stuff up! 

We were eager to push forward, and even though EB said we could remove the ceilings if we wanted to without the admin fee, it would mean further delays and more PCV's to sign off and to us it wasn't worth it. EB had promised to get us into construction as quickly as possible as a result and in the end this happened within 8 working days instead of the 20 Working days they allow.

Released Into Construction

Very happy day yesterday! EBH have stuck to their promise of getting us through to construction earlier than the average due to the delays and muck abouts with signing off our final plans. We should find out our SS on Monday and also receive some sort of plan to the week ahead and when things will start moving on the block!

So glad to have admin behind us! Cant second guess my choices now. Just have to hope that the past 6 months of researching has meant something and that everything pulls together nicely.

Happy Days!

Sunday 3 November 2013

Final Plans and Documents are checked

I have now finished checking over the final plans. Nothing to  major to change, just a few things missing on one document that was on another document and thankfully nothing wrong with the pans so there will be no delays or extra costs involved there. We were supposed to have this all done a week a go but KC had the kitchen plans wrong so we spent 2 days wasting time there while they got the plans updated and sent off to KC. If i only i could charge them a $150 admin fee for wasting my time! grrrr - still so annoyed they charged us that fee.

So this is it the point of no return. The final plans will be what the construction team use. So i hope they are right. Too late now if i have missed anything. But i can honestly say i have checked the plans now about 6 times and if they weren't right for the CDC approval then we would of ran into some issues and extra costs and more time wasting to be had.

So here i am still stuck in this admin hole! thought id be out of it by now, but something always pops up and delays things for a few days! But i can feel the count down is on! the day i see "released into construction  of the EBH portal will be a VERY VERY happy day!

Red Pegs are in!

We had a nice little surprise on Friday afternoon while visiting the block and taking some photos i noticed a little red peg sticking up out of the grass. Was so exciting to see progress. It made my day! so far its all been paperwork and more paperwork, knowing something will be happening on the block in a matter of weeks is super excititng!