22 Nov 2009

House Photos

Here are the photos of our house being built, at long last.

This is quite early in the process after the site was 'scraped' and leveled off. If you can see the steel rods sticking up out of the ground, they are for the placement of the pipes for the plumbing.







This one is of the concrete slab after it was poured. You may remember that I wrote about having some trees removed before we could begin building. Well, they caused us some problems during the site preparation for the slab. As the builders were excavating for the footings (deeper parts of the slab for stabilisation) they kept on pulling out large root systems. Our builder was concerned and waited a few days to get another opinion on the design of the slab. The original design was drafted by the company that our builder is affiliated with and they had classified and designed the slab incorrectly, ignoring a recommendation from the company who performed the soil test to determine the type of slab that had to be built. Due to the delays that all of this caused, including some pretty wet weather, our builder got the tradesmen to complete the slab on a Saturday, unheard of in the Australian building industry. This was a big surprise for us, and
we had no idea that this was happening, so no photos of the actual process. There was also a significant increase in the cost of the slab, our builder apologised to us for this, but we totally understood that if the base wasn't right, how could we expect the rest of the house to be right.









Next up is the frame. This is taken from the front. The big beam across the front is a roof support and the entry to our garage.







And this frame shot is from the back of the house. The mound on the right hand side of the photo is what is left of the trees that were taken down. We asked the 'tree men' to mulch some of the trees so that we could use it for our garden.









The house is being 'wrapped' in a type of insulation and the windows are in.










And here is the roof and the completion of the brick work. The brick layers were amazing. Only two of them, always on site early, 6:30 am, and would work until around 3:00. We would go there during their lunch break to see how everything was going and they would always be laughing and joking with one another, great to see. An acquaintance of ours said that they were the best 'brickies' around.









This is of the gyprock (walls) after it had been hung. The black pipe curling over is the water pipe to our kitchen taps (faucets). There will be an island bench here with the rest of the kitchen to the right and rear of this photo.










Looking into our rumpus room from the alfresco area. The area in the photo above is to right in this photo. These two rooms are accessed by two large sliding doors. We would have liked to have had the pillar in the middle taken out, but that would have involved changing the whole structure of the roof and would have escalated the cost considerably. Seeing what happened with the slab it was a good thing that we didn't.











I am sorry that these have taken so long. There has been much more work done on the house since these photos have been taken, so I will have to take some more at some stage and put some on here.

Next in store are some photos from the stitching retreat, and a stitchy update, and a (drum roll please) finish.

12 comments:

BronnyB said...

Congratulations! I remember the excitement nearly 4 years ago while our house was built. What a good idea to save the mulch...

Gina E. said...

Your new house is looking good! I'm looking forward to hearing about the retreat and seeing your photos; Bernadette hasn't put anything on her blog at all, and I was starting to wonder if it had been cancelled after all.
Thanks for dropping in at Patra's Place!

Kim B said...

Wow it's really coming along! It's looking fantastic! I love seeing houses come together. They seem to start feeling bigger once the walls are up. And then you can really get a feel for the space. I can't wait to see this finished up for you!

Lynn said...

You must be so excited as things are nearing completion. It's looking great! We are nearing the end of home renovations here and I can't wait. It's been less than a month since they started but it seems like it's been going on for months.I could use a stitching retreat about now!

Ranae said...

woohoo! looking great.
You must be so excited?!!

Pumpkin said...

Wow! You've really come a long way with the house! When will you get to move in? You must be so excited :o) I'm excited for you! LOL!

Chars said...

The house is looking great :) I hope you get the opportunity to move in soon. When you are all settled we will have to make a date in the new year to catch up :) Looking forward to seeing some pics of your stitching :)

Bee Jay said...

Great progress - no doubt it seems so long to you and you'll be longing for the final touches so you can move in. Look forward to seeing it all finished.
Blessings!

Chris said...

Hi

Your house building seems to be coming along nicely, how wonderful to have a house build, my dream of this went out of the window long long ago and I settled for a dream kitchen that is as big as a country kitchen!
Can't wait to see your home finished.
Happy stitching and Blessings
Chris x

Dani - tkdchick said...

Wow, how cool to watch your home being built!

pv said...

Future happiness in your new home!
patty
http://whichhobby.blogspot.com/

Marita said...

I'm really excited for you. Getting a home built is such a huge adventure.

Can't wait to see more pictures as you blog them :)

An Aussie girl who loves to cross stitch