Photos from week starting 20th December

In the space of a week there has been another transformation in the house.  The timber framed walls for most of the rooms have now been installed and we can now understand how each room will feel.  This house is going to magnificent!

The timber frames were erected in a couple of days

These are the central corridor walls to the study and bedroom 2

View of the south facade

The external wall of the bathroom and WC

The garage internal brick skin is nearly complete

The timber frame for one of the reverse brick veneer walls on the east facade

The back filling and top soil grading has been completed on the east side of the site

The slope is much shallower than it was before.  All the excavated material from the house is buried here

The  only slightly unfortunate thing is that the builder is now on holiday until the end of January so there won't be any further progress to report until then.

Photos from week starting 13th December

Progress is really starting to speed up now that we are out of the ground.  There is activity going on all over the site.

The walls of the garage are at about half full height

The swimming pool walls have been cast and the retaining walls along the east and north sides have been built

They are working on the water proofing behind the west retaining wall

And at last the east side of the site is being regraded and the top soil replaced

Photos from 11th December

Wow!  If you compare the photos from today with those of last weekend you will see an amazing leap forward.  The floor slab has been cast, a significant amount of the west retaining wall has been completed and the steelwork has been erected.

The guys are making the most of the good weather and are trying to get as much done as possible before the summer break.

The retaining wall around the garage

The steel frame for the lounge roof

Formwork for casting the swimming pool walls

We can now get a real sense of the scale of the house against the bush - it feels right

The north end is the tallest part of the house but it doesn't stand out from the scale of the surrounding trees 

Photos from 7th December

So at last, 4 months after we started, the ground slab of the house has been poured. This is a really big milestone - it feels like the house is now permanently integrated with the land.  We have finished the roots of the house.  The rest of the house is something that is lighter and less powerful.

It was a  perfect day for pouring concrete - no rain and not too hot

The pour started at about 6:30am

The concrete pump and one of about 15 concrete trucks

The  pump arm needed to reach 30m

This is the slab at 5pm

It is great to finally see the reality of the floor plan of the house

The finish of the concrete is really smooth; maybe we don't need tiles!

Photos from week starting 29th November

I think that the weather gods are conspiring against us because it pretty much rained very day this week.  This means that progress towards pouring the ground slab has been slower than we had hoped for.

The swimming pool is filling up - again!

The reinforcement for the slab has now been fixed

Hopefully the slab will be poured next week

Photos from week starting 22nd November

Compare these photos with last week and you can see what can be achieved if it doesn't rain for a week.  Now that summer is really here we are hoping that progress will really accelerate.

The ground slab is being prepared for the concrete pour

The black plastic sheet acts as a damp proof membrane.  The reinforcement is under the line of the load bearing walls

Now that the east retaining wall has been backfilled we can see the full footprint of the house

The walls of the swimming pool are also being prepared by fixing the geotextile material and drainage sheets

All the underground drainage pipes have been installed

We got our car back from the garage as well.  Although it was covered by insurance it still cost us $970!

Photos from week starting 15th November

The photos this week show what can happen if we only have showers rather than torrential downpours.  The ground is still wet but the progress has been impressive.

The drainage membrane and pipe along the east retaining wall.

The east and south retaining walls are now ready for backfilling

Slab edge formwork has been fixed along the top of the east retaining wall

The swimming pool has been pumped out but there is still quite a bit of work to clean all the wall starter bars

The top of the west excavation has now been battered back to prevent any further collapses

The site is still very wet, all the pile tops are full of water

The locations of the slab thickenings have been marked out

A kookaburra watching everything that is going on

Photos from week starting 8th November

Another big storm on Monday with over 20mm of rain meant that progress was again disrupted this week.  We are really hoping for a consistent stretch of dry weather so that they can finish the retaining walls and ground slab in the next couple of weeks.

The concrete infill has been poured in the east retaining wall hollow concrete blocks

Looking along the east retaining wall where the rainwater tanks will be located

The walls for the entrance steps and the south side of the house are also finished

Photos from week starting 1st November

If disasters come in threes then we are currently waiting for our third disaster.

We have had 150mm of rain this week and, apart from this meaning that very little progress was made, it was probably the cause of the excavation along the west side of the building collapsing.  In addition a dead tree fell onto our car whilst it was parked on the driveway and pretty much smashed up the back of the car.

So what will happen next?

Earth from the west retaining wall has fallen on the slab excavation

The excavation has collapsed behind the garage

You can see how wet the site is

The swimming pool has 0.5m of water in it.  Fancy a swim?

The gully is normally virtually dry

At least the east retaining wall is now at full height

Blockwork for main entrance steps and south retaining wall

The dead tree vs. our car

Ouch!  I think this is going to be expensive