Slab!

The slab was layed last week.  It was very exciting to see the concrete trucks roll into the street and an army of workers get it all laid.

We took the kids over on the weekend and they both got to stand in their rooms and see their bathroom, which means they are now starting to understand what the heck is going on at 'the house'.  Although they are still wondering where the roof is and they think they will be cold sleeping on concrete!

As I knew, I took one look at the slab and thought how small it all looked.  Had to get a tape measure out to make sure it was correct per the plan.  And of course it was!

In addition, the new sub-floor and joists were laid in the front two rooms.

Annoying news was that the elusive 20cm on the N/S orientation is officially lost for good.  Don't ask...no one has been able to provide a satisfactory explanation so I have given up.  It means the piano is homeless so we will need to work out another spot for it.

We're really looking forward to getting some of the frame up which should be next on the work list.

Concrete

We have now graduated to concrete.  The builder has spent quite some time laying out the new section of the house and getting ready for plumbing and the slab.  We had a bit of a hiccup for a while where it looked like both the initial site survey and the architect's plans were wrong and that we needed to lose 20cm from BOTH the North/South and East/West orientations of the house.  This was a bit distressing as we had to shorten a few walls that made either the bathroom smaller or had us lose the internal wall where the piano is supposed to go.

Flash forward a week from that and miraculously the 20cm was found again!  It must have been hiding under a rock.  Yeah right.

Anyway, the plumbing has been laid, footings poured and we're now expecting the slab to be poured any day.  We are praying that the rain holds off this week.

A Weekend Visitor

You may recall we had a brief visit from the street squatter a while back.  That didn't amount to anything in the end and with the fence firmly in place we didn't think we needed to worry about it again.

Wrong!  The house where she has been living was taken over by the new owners this week and so she was moved out.  What we didn't realise was that she moved across the road onto our verandah, behind the fence!  The fence is reasonably easy to get around so she just moved it aside and settled in.

Simon got quite a shock when he went over to see what progress had been made to find our new houseguest.  She said that she just needed to stay the weekend as she had lined up somewhere for Monday.  We were in a bit of a quandry as to what to do, but thought we would give her the benefit of the doubt.

On Monday, she was gone, so we have breathed a sigh of relief and hope that she has found somewhere else to stay and be safe.

Demolition is over

Demolition is finished.  There's really very little of the house left but now you can start to see the lines of where new things will emerge and the old floorplan has all but disappeared.

We've had a fair bit of trouble with water on the site.  Turns out it is quite boggy around the back and despite pumping the water out it hasn't improved much.  Flash flooding last week and more rain since is certainly not helping our cause so we are praying that February weather gets back to normal and we can get some sunshine.  All of this has meant some delay in getting the big piece of steel delivered (that supports most of the house) and installed.

In other news we have our formal completion date.  The 18th November is when we get the keys.  Yeah right!!!  Fingers crossed we are close but we ain't organising no Xmas bash just yet.  There is a loooong way to go.  We just pray that things start to ramp up soon and we can get back to seeing changes.  We're impatient!

All that's left now

 The swimming pool that will one day be our WIR, ensuite and laundry

 A puddle in what once was the dining room

Demolition continues

Demolition continues at the house.  There were a couple of weeks before Christmas where it seemed everytime they pulled something out they found further complications.

The floor joists have dry rot and termite issues so we will now be getting a new sub floor.  Then there was a big pool of water found under one of the bedroom floors.  It was thought at the time that the whole site was going to need to be dried out with a couple of pumps and some time.  In the end, it turned out that along with a lot of rain and a burst pipe in the backyard the puddles were not symptomatic of a major problem.  Just a minor issue that will be quite easy to resolve.

In good news, the roof tiles have been removed and replaced with tarpaulins.  The tiles are all in good condition and will be reused to rebuild the roof.  Heaps and heaps of bricks have been salvaged and will used in building some of the new portions of the structure.  We're really pleased that we can recycle some of the materials.  Makes us feel a little better about how much we have demolished!

So demolition is on track to finish toward the end of this month after which the real fun begins...building it back up again!

View from back fence toward back of house

End of Week Two

It's been a productive week for the demolition team. 

 This was the hallway, with entry to bathroom and 2nd bedroom down LHS

 Ceilings gone throughout

 Looking from old hallway through 2nd bedroom, bathroom and third bedroom

A new concept in open air Toilet, Laundry and pantry

 Checkout the old boiler!

Demolition - Week 1

A full skip was taken away on the weekend so there has been quite a bit of progress this week.  Builders were only on site for one day but it's amazing how much they got through.  Check out the photos below.  They're back at it again today so will be interested to see what the next step is.  We're thinking they must be getting close to propping to allow some walls to come down.  I do love this bit of the project.

Standing in the entry near the front doors

The old lounge (will be the guest room)

Not much of the kitchen left

Green X denotes a wall to be removed

Looking down the existing hallway

Bathroom

Looking into one of the bedrooms.  This will become our WIR.

The master bedroom.  Big cupboards have been ripped out from this corner.

Looking into existing dining room, soon to be sitting room