12 cans...

...The equivilant to ½ a slab!!

As you can see the builders, once again have suprised us with more additions. In the last 2 days the framework for the slab has gone down & ready for the concrete to be poured. Going by todays weather they might hold off until tomorrow. Will have to check again tonight to make sure.

Now this is going to be tricky... The fall from the slab base to the fence is roughly 3 - 4 ft over a 4 meter distance. Might have to call in the experts for landscaping options. As it is a "thatched fence", we can't put in a retaining wall under it (that I know of). Maybe we can level it out with the retaining wall below the level of the slab?? (if at all possible). Will worry about it when I have to.

Any suggestions will be appreciated...

More pics...

Must have rained over the w/end... Strange white tree stump like objects coming up from no where... Yes, I know. It's just the plumbing. Still looks pretty cool. Temp fences gone up too. So unfortunately for the house being built behind us there is no access through our block. Shame (hahaha).

& We have the POWER!!! + a bit of the view of "Suburbia!!!

No complaints yet... Every time we have visited the block the builders have been & there have been changes. Looks like there might be a bit of rain this week so that will be the test..

Colour!

After many requests (& a quiet day at work) I've put together a pic of some of our colour choices... Shows our benchtops, cupbourds, wall, floor... you get the idea!

We have been very conservative in our choices, with warm cream tones. Will be doing a couple of feature walls after handover.. haven't decided on colours though.

Didn't have any pics of the carpet, guttering etc, but I'm sure in a few months time we will see them in a better perspective... actually on the house.

mmmm, Scrapings!!!

It' s always the way... When you expect something to happen, nothing happens & when you don't expect it, this happens...

...looking from the lowest part of the block at the rear to the highest at the front.. The little fella found a lid. Thought it made a great frisby!

...reverse angle. As you can see unfortunately we have lost part of our view due to the HUGE NSD double storey behind us :( ... not too much. Can still see the city.. just)

Was told by Carlisle on Friday that "Everything going well, we should have a start by Monday", which I was happy with. Went past yesterday (Sunday) as I was in the area & low & behold... the excavators have already done the srcapings for the slab to go down. Must have done it on Friday, unbeknown to myself... & Carlisle customer relations. Not that I'm complaining :D

The fence between us & the neighbours is going up today as well. The good thing about this is we won't need a temporary fence down that side, which is an extra $500, which will come in handy when it comes time for extras (landscape, curtains, other unforseen items) once finished.

First Setback

We have encountered our first setback, well 2 really.

The first, which is no real problem is a covernant in our estate that states all pitched roofs must have a slope of greater than 25 degrees. For starters, the house we have chosen (Bordeaux) as standard has a rear piched roof of 20 degrees, which doesn't comply. Seeing we have extended our Alfresco area, that actual roof pitch has decreased to 16 degrees, which definately doesn't comply.

When the covernants were drawn up initially it was intended that the roof pitch was only referring to "the front of the house" & not the entire house. But it doesn't say "front" anywhere, so they said it can't be done. Initial thoughts were "That's it! Who do I need to come & see to sought it out before I go troppo". After calming me down, Carlisle said it will not be a problem as at least 20 other houses in the estate are not abiding by this covernant & it's something so petty that if anyone complains they won't have just our house but the 20 + other houses to deal with. So in all, the house stays. No need to go back to stage 1.

The second problem, a little more intricate & harder to overcome than the first, is the setback of the house on the property. I'm not going into lengthy detail about the whole thing but once again, "badly worded" covernant with not classifying a 3 + metre balcony as a wall (which it should be) our balcony should now be inline with our neighbours external wall & not their balcony. If this is the case, if all houses in the street have a 3 metre + balcony each ajoining house would have to be pushed back to the front external wall, so by the time you get to the last house (& ther are 10 houses in the street) it would be 20 + metres back from the original.... which doesn't work!!... You think you don't understand it all. I had to have it explained at least 3 times & I still can't work it out

This is the first time our builder has come across this problem, hence the delay we are facing. They have taken it up with the council, who has verbally approved it (after extracting $90 from our back pockets for reasons I still can't understand seeing it is their problem in the first place), providing we get approval from our neighbours....

Hence we met the new neighbours last night, & luckily they are lovely people... I couldn't think of anything worse than having "BAD" neighbours. So variations have now been approved & sent to council so as we can get full approval & start construction.

I hope I have bored who ever is reading this as much as it bored me with their explanations. A lot of crap to be honest from the council. At least we moving forward again.

2 Words... "Unconditional Approval"

Dictionary Meaning...

"Unconditional": complete and absolute, and not dependent on certain terms or conditions

"Approval": to consent or agree to

... in other words, the bank has approved our home loan, WOOHOO!!

Tender Appointment

We had our Tender Appointment on Tuesday With Adam at Carlisle & Like Emma, a really great help. Very dunting seeing a "Final Figure" in black & white. A little bit over budget (which was always going to happen), just have to put in extra hrs to pay for it!!!

If you're interested, we have gone for a timber laminate flooring throughout downstairs. Would have loved the real McCoy but cost / maintainence / scratches / wife constantly wanting me to mop them... Laminate was the clear winner!. We went for "Flame Jarrah" colour. Never thought we would pick something that dark but Adam at Carlisle had done his Bordeaux 40 in the same laminate, showed us pics & they looked fantastic, so happy in the end.

Changed our minds on a few other things from the colour appointment, like carpet colour, door colours etc... in the end we're very happy with what we have gone for. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Contracts will be drawn up & finished within 4 weeks & comencement should start another 4 weeks after that so as we were initially told August still looks to be the starting time, & still finishing in Feb 2008.