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.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
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!
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
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
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!
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
Friday, December 10, 2010
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!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
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
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
And they're off!
Lots has happened in the last week. The structural engineer came on site to take a look at our wonky roof and declared that it could be fixed/supported with wood rather than steel, which was a massive relief. It will still mean some additional cost but nothing like it would have been if further steel was required.
We received the demolition quote which was all in order and so yesterday we signed the commencement of the demolition contract. The builder is going to do all of the demolition plus some of the structural elements while we await final pricing and signing of the full contract.
On the way to school this morning, we noticed that the fence around our house was open and there were banging noise and workman ripping stuff out. As quick as that we've started! We didn't realise it would happen quite so quickly. This afternoon I happened to drive past (yeah right!) and saw that there is a skip in the driveway that is quickly filling up with old bits of kitchen. You know when the skip arrives that it's really happening.
We received the demolition quote which was all in order and so yesterday we signed the commencement of the demolition contract. The builder is going to do all of the demolition plus some of the structural elements while we await final pricing and signing of the full contract.
On the way to school this morning, we noticed that the fence around our house was open and there were banging noise and workman ripping stuff out. As quick as that we've started! We didn't realise it would happen quite so quickly. This afternoon I happened to drive past (yeah right!) and saw that there is a skip in the driveway that is quickly filling up with old bits of kitchen. You know when the skip arrives that it's really happening.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The last mile
It's been a little while since I posted, largely because not a lot has happened the last few weeks. It has taken a considerable amount of time for the redesign of our roof and some other bits and pieces to be completed. A lot of the delay has been because of the inordinately slow turn around from the structural engineer. Apparently the large, expensive commercial project take priority. Go figure!
We happy now with the new flat roof that has replaced our previous pitched one. It has driven a lot of complexity out of the build and with that hopefully lots of dollars too. We've also got to a final point on the cellar/ensuite/pantry/laundry which we're quite content with now. The cellar at one stage was going to be too small and end up just being a large cupboard so we fixed that by shaving a bit of the ensuite. If you're going to have a cellar may as well do it right!
The builder is still gung ho about starting this week...well that was until last Friday. He went to have a look in the roof space in preparation for the demolition and he said and I quote "I'm surprised the roof hasn't collapsed by now". There is a meeting onsite today at 2pm with the builder, architect and structural engineer to discuss how the roof can be propped during demolition. And, I suspect to decide whether the entire roof structure needs to be replaced. Not looking forward to the phone call about that one. I can't believe we haven't even started and we're contemplating having to move into our contingency money already.
Still, we're not letting it get to us. We're still really excited about getting the demolition started. Then we'll have a few more weeks of iterating the overall contract so that new build can start in earnest after the Christmas break.
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