Portico!!!

What a nice surprise!!!! Our portico was bricked yesterday!! It looks quite funny and 'detached' but it's a good size. Our garage was also finished off.

We've been told that the roof is scheduled to begin on the 7th December... looks like we are on track for that!

More brickie action

And they're still at it! The guys were working on Saturday and again yesterday so we've had a fair bit of progress again.

It was such a beautiful day on Saturday. I can't wait to enjoy days like these living here.

They've done the brickwork along the top of the recess, and next to the front door. Just waiting for the correct window in the dining room.

You'd better get home soon before the magpies claim our cinema Michael !!!!

The guys have finished off our ensuite - the mirror goes between these two windows. Natural, even light - bring it on!!

Brickwork in the ensuite... toilet to the left, shower to the right.

Our guest bedroom, complete with wardrobe.

The bathroom is to the left, storage cupboard in the middle and laundry to the right. The other toilet is directly behind the storage cupboard.


And now from yesterday.... behold!!! The cinema is complete!!!!!!!!!!


Just in case you were wondering why our building inspector hasn't been visiting the site... our poor River hurt his dewclaw playing on the weekend. He had surgery on Sunday and I'm thrilled to announce that he should be okay. He's on antibiotics and will be sporting a bright blue bandage until we go back to the vet on Wednesday - what a tuffy!!!

Another busy brickie day!!

I was pleasantly surprised again yesterday! Our brickies have completed our kitchen wall, so you can see the front living space in its entirety now.


It also means that my study which backs onto it is complete!

The hallway leading to the rest of the house...


Here is our bedroom, awaiting sliding door. The ensuite door frames are in.

And this, although it looks like a jumble is actually our ensuite with separate toilet. The storeroom is still to be completed (to the left)

Here is the view looking forward from the back. Michael your studio is all done except for the exterior wall :)


The bowling alley hasn't started yet though... maybe they were daunted by such a big room hahaha just playing!!!

Speaking of other things that haven't been done. That footing, and hence the two front pillars, still haven't been fixed, nor has the front window. I'm really looking forward to the front coming together and seeing the effect.... so much so that in my warped dream last night (yes I finally had a good night sleep!!!!) the portico posts were joined and sort of mashed into one. I wasn't happy... lets hope it's not a sign!

In other news, with a firm nudge from Michael I ordered our dining room feature light this week!!!! It should be in by the end of November. Soooo excited, the photo doesn't really do it justice... the crystals twinkle in the light and it's just so delicate and magical and oh so pretty. Its perfect and we love it!

Photos from this week

With all that is going on I have been insanely time poor this week. Below are the photos of all the action!!

Nothing was done yesterday... not surprising with the weather. Here's hoping more progress has happened today.

If you click on the pic it should open large so you can actually see all the images - it takes FOREVER to upload the pics individually. Let me know if you can't see it and I'll work something else out!

So much happening

Just a very quick post to say that even though we have had some terrible weather (including verrry scary storms!!) our brickies have been busy working on some of our interior walls! The spare bedrooms, bathroom, laundry and toilet bricks and door frames have gone up and the kitchen wall had been started.

I'm sorry this site has been neglected for a couple of days but it has been an incredibly hectic time to say the least. I'll try and put up photos tonight.

Watch this space!!!

-- Posted from my iPhone

busy brickies!

Monday 16th November.... day 1 of my lonely hearts club membership and another day where our brickies have been rather impressive!

I called Michael as I arrived so that he could hear exactly what had been done to our house as I discovered it - the next best thing to being there. The boys and I miss him so much already.

Anyway back to our house... The internal layer of bricks have been done on the entire kitchen side, as well as the cinema side up until the front living room. They've increased the height all around to above the window frames too (except for at the very front).

They have also started on our first INTERIOR WALL!!!! As you can see here it's the one for the front room - yay!!!!

Our bedroom!

View from the back... double bricks and interior wall

The cinema room and ensuite double brick view

View from the front - you can see our interior wall started here in the background. The incorrect window still needs to be replaced and the extra footing for the portico pillar needs to be done.

Kitchen side all done

close up of the double bricks

Our building inspector is pretty impressed! He's looking forward to seeing more progress this afternoon.

2 and a bit walls, 4 pillars and a bunch of frames!

Our brickies were hard at it again yesterday, we like these guys!!

The two long exterior walls have been completed now and its looking more and more like a house. Our front door frame is in too and it was awesome to see they'd started on the pillars for the portico and verandah.

Even better the portico width is just how we wanted it. On paper we'd started to worry that it would be a little narrow but it really is just right. YAY!!!!!!!

The two pillars to the left here are the portico, there will be two more in front of those once the footing is fixed.


Here is the inside out view, that's our front door frame up. There is some bricking in between that and the sliding door to be finished and a tiny bit on the other side. Not sure if you can see but it looks like someone's buggered up the window size on the dining room. It is supposed to be the length of the slab and falls short.

Here's a closer view...

Here you can see both walls up.

Our trusty building inspector hard at it!!! I think he's impressed

Just another brick in the wall !!!!!

Our brickies got through a fair bit yesterday... The first wall has been done - lets call that one the cinema wall - the window for the cinema is that long one to the right there.

They made a good start on the kitchen side too, all the windows are in place bar the kitchen one which is going to be fantastic - I'm glad we increased the size of that one.

This view shows the whole lot going up. I was pretty impressed with how much they managed to get through considering the weather here - there were some fairly heavy showers!

This one shows the kitchen side. The first window is in our dining room, the space after it still has the large kitchen window to go in (hopefully today!?) then the windows after that are the bedrooms, laundry etc.

And here is the front of our pretty HOUSE. We think now that it's starting to resemble a house we can call it a house. No more going to visit "our block"...... it's let's go see "OUR HOUSE" !!!!


Such a great feeling !!!!

Go brickies!!!!!!

Yesterday was the most exciting day so far!!

Our brickies have begun and we couldn't be happier! They've put up the framework for our front windows and sliding doors as well as all about 6ft of bricks and frames right down to the theatre.

This post is being written a day late because trying to write after a few champagnes isn't wise I've heard!! Haha did I mention we're excited?

So we drove past this morning and they're actually at it again woooohooo really looking forward to finishing work so we can race down there again.

Anyway enough of my ramblings... Here are the pics!

chock a block !!!

Our block was hidden amongst a bunch of treasures, better known as deliveries today!

We are now the official owners of sand, a front door frame, brickies cement, scaffolds and steel beams. You can hardly see our slab!

For the brickies to do their thing...

Here are the steel frames which will be at the front of our house, you can see the shape of the dining room here :) oh and in the background is our front door frame. Awesome.


Our power still hasn't been connected though... we're thinking it will probably be like the tap - a bit stressy thinking its going to hold us up and then it turns up at the last minute. Here's hoping!

The brickies at the goodlife house being built near us were working late yesterday, it looks like they're just about finished there. Here's hoping they're getting ready to come a few streets over and start making us a house!!

We have BRICKS!!!!!!

Yes that's right, our bricks were delivered today!!

I can't explain how happy we are that they arrived before Michael has to leave next week. It really sucks that he's going to miss out on the exciting part of our build, where things really start to take shape. But at least it's finally happening!

I'm going to be doing some dodgy videos so that he can see exactly what's happening while he's away. I am therefore apologising in advance for any distress that this may cause the viewers at home!!!! My video skills leave a lot to be desired so we'll see how it goes haha.

Anyway... here are our bricks, sitting on our slab in all their glory.

yayyyyyyyyy for bricks!!!!

burnouts

Friday evening we went to see our block and nothing at all had happened since 'the incident' with the portico. No deliveries whatsoever (boo!!)

In our travels on Saturday we ended up swinging past and it looked as though some bugger had been doing burnouts on our block. WHAT!!?? Turns out our brickies had been there and marked out where the bricks are actually going to go. We can actually see where the walls are going to go!

The lines in this pic show our front living area. To the right is the lounge room and the left is the kitchen and dining. Part of our bedroom is shown at the bottom right.


They've also fixed up all the sand and it's looking like something is going to happen verrrry soon.

Seeing the lines drawn has thrown me into a little spin... oh no have we done this right.. is this area too small... is it going to flow... argh!

I think it comes from us having designed our place ourselves - changing that entire front area to make the most of the park and not having a display home to walk through and say 'yep that's how we want it' and get that reassurance. There is nothing similar anywhere we've looked.

So we (I) have to trust our judgement and be confident that our house is going to be different - which is what we wanted in the first place!!

Anyway I really hope that the bricks arrive this week and things get moving. Michael is off to Karratha next week and I want him to see something happening before he goes. I'm so upset that he's going at this point in the build but 'you gotta do what you gotta do'. It will be a great boost to our savings etc etc... I miss him already :( we've never been apart this long and its really hitting home that he's going. It's only 3 or 4 weeks and I'll toughen up I promise!!!!! I won't turn this blog into a sook fest!

So yes, please brickies find some bricks and get cracking!! And please do a good job!!!!

Hurry up bricks!

So we're still waiting for our bricks and other bits to be delivered. Talking with our CLO yesterday it will be sometime before the end of next week.

We're hoping that the power of sheer will may just help them arrive earlier. Wishful thinking!? Probably!

She wasn't too sure what had happened with our footing either, but aparently it can be fixed by the brickies...

Hopefully we'll have more to write about soon.

Waiting for the building bits!!

That's right, we're still waiting.... judging by others who are building with goodlife we should have our bricks, shed, power and loo by the weekend. We'll see.

Yesterday we pulled up to our block and there was a sign something had happened - the plumbing 0utside of the slab had been done....

Unlucky for us though someone pulled out the footings for our front portico in the process. Why? We have no idea.

We put a call into our builder with no response. Wonderful.

Here's some pics showing the damage.


1 pillar, 2 pillars, 3 pillars.... hrm that's all


that large boulder to the right is our portico footing removed for some unknown reason


and here is the other plumbing work that had been done