Day 29

We have a pool.  Well a hole, but it's a start.  Tomorrow it should be a concrete hole.

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Day 24

We now have a bottom slab, our backyard retaining wall, waterproofing, a filled in garage ready for the top slab,  and fence posts.  If the weather holds up in the week after easter, we will have a top slab and pool completed.  Once these things happen, we will start to see the house go up pretty quick.

Garage pit has now been filled and concrete piers have been poured

Black stuff is water proofing, concrete lumps are the piers

They built a dirt ramp to get machines into the garage pit

Bottom Slab, looking into laundry and store room.

Standing in the "garage pit" and looking down to where the pool will be dug next week. 

Looking down on the bottom slab from the garage pit.  You can see the recently completed backyard retaining wall.

A better shot of the new retaining wall

Bottom Slab, looking into the rumpus room.

Fence posts where done while we still had good access to the backyard.

Looking at the bottom slab from the back.  Above the block wall is the garage.  The study to the right of the garage is still yet to be finished.  It doesn't have a slab floor so I guess there is no rush to get this done.

Standing in the bathroom looking through the rumpus to the pool.

The bedroom wing.

Standing at the bottom of our block, looking over the backyard retaining wall to the garage block wall

This has nothing to do with the progress on the house.  It's just cute.

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Day 12

Most of the block work has now been completed.  Still a bit to do around the study and the two retaining walls in the yard, but the bottom level is now ready for the slab to be poured.  At this stage the plan is to pour the slab on the bottom level, dig the pool, then use the soil from the pool dig (and more) to back fill the garage slab and then pour that one.

Block work pit where garage is going - single garage on the right

And double garage on the left

The skinny part is the entry to the house with the foundations on the left marking out the study.   Unlike the garage, the entry and study will not be filled with concrete, rather a void underneath the timber floor.  Good place to stash something (or one) you never want anyone to ever find.

The site manager called a meeting.  She is unhappy with the sheer size of the builder himself and would feel more comfortable if he kept his distance for the rest of the project.

The floor height of the upper level is going to be a lot higher than I  initially imagined.  All the better to see over the future houses being build below us.

Looking back up towards the study.  The block work will eventually be roughly the height of the garage so still a bit to go here.

The northern wall of the lower level is complete, so the bottom slab is ready to be prepared and poured (hopefully this coming week)

Once the walls are waterproofed that left side will be back filled to roughly the original ground level, so most of the downstairs bathroom will actually be underground.

Charlotte having her first lie down in her bedroom.  Eyes open as usual.

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Day 8

Due to some confusion with the location of service connections during the construction of our neighbours house a couple of years ago, the power and fibre lead in trench didn't go exactly to plan. Aside from that however, the foundations were completed today.

Standing roughly in the pool.  The skinny part is the small covered area outside the rumpus room.  The kitchen is above.

Driveway will start just to the left.

Foundations for the front of the garage.  The actual floor of the garage will be raised up a fair bit from the current level.

Back of the garage.  The lower level will be the downstairs bathroom

The downstairs slab.  The squares give you a bit of an idea where the rooms will be.

The square closest is the study with the entry next to it.  The study will be out of the ground quite a bit, however the front will be filled up so the entry (and driveway) will be level.

Site manager and assistant site manager.  Caroline isn't taking orders very well though.

Looking up at the study.  Obviously there is a skill to stepping concrete like that without form work.

Entry to the store room which continues on under the internal staircase.  There will be about a 3m block wall build for the length of the house here that will be backfilled for the garage slab. 

From the right, laundry, rumpus and patio (under deck).  Pool will be to the left of  the photo.

Under deck patio

Looking back to the top of the block.

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