We have a slab.

But before I get to my main point...so much has happened and I've neglected to post progress notes... here's the update so far:

December 2013. 

Since the end of December last year there has been foundation works going on up at the block.  It was a little surreal for us to finally see some groundwork being done... by December 29 we could at last see the place where our house would actually sit.

    
That little solo grasstree is being spared (great work Scott!) so it will be what we see when we look out our kitchen window!

--ooOoo--

About a month later...

More ground prep work has been done.  There are issues with the fact that the surface layer of soil is very shallow and basically we are trying to build on solid rock.  This is great for stability but not so great for the budget, because it means they have to get a rock-breaker in to prepare for laying the plumbing etc.  This unfortunately also means the grey water system we wanted to install will be too cost prohibitive. It also means that Kristen has been singing that Goanna classic to us "standing on solid rock, standing on sacred ground, living on borrowed tiiime..."

--ooOoo--

February 1...

They have pegged out the position of the house.

--ooOoo--

February 23...

And they've put in foundations for the retaining wall.  Trenches have also been dug out for the footings of the slab.

 

--ooOoo--

 

March 2...

Besser blocks laid down over the foundations... so we have a retaining wall now!  Also some reobar has been chemset into the rock - further preparations for slab.

 

--ooOoo--

March 8...

Crusher dust laid out - final prep for the slab.  The in-slab plumbing is in position - you can see the PVC pipes sticking out of the ground where they will enter the slab. Timber form-work is in position.  More rock breaking has been done to allow positioning plumbing of waste-water removal down to the waste water treatment system.  More reobar is in position too. We can see the house's footprint now!

 

 

 

--ooOoo--

 

March 13...

We get that text from Leon: The slab is down!!! It will take two weeks to cure and then the rammed earth guy will start work on our first few walls!

 

--ooOoo--

Happy Christamas... our little town celebrates... and so do we!!!

 

We were absolutely delighted with the local Christmas parade. It is so inspiring to see how strong the community spirit is here in our little town. Apparently record numbers entered the street parade, so it shows no signs of slowing down. 

Grammy, S and I walked into town from Grammy's house and Benji met us there - having driven straight from work in Brissy.  After watching all the local businesses and clubs parade their floats down the main street, and getting handfuls of lollies as they were passed into the crowds, we got street eats and settled in to watch the local musical talent.

 One of the bands 'Noisy Minors', was really impressive!  I feel excited that there are interesting people doing interesting things in our community. S had his first ever lollie and went a little crazy with the sugar hit... Benji and I spent a lot of the night chasing after him through the busy main street. 

 

And the other great excitement we had last week was visiting the block and seeing some REAL progress!  We knew from Kate's email that work had begun on the house pad... but to see it in reality was really something else!  Benji and I let out little cries of joy and gave each other high fives (like the dorks we are). So it's really happening!  It really is!!!

 

 

Hooooorayyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Benj got an email from Kate Bennie today... they've begun!!!!  Earthmoving started today! Yay!

Brushcutting

Benji went like a machine and brushcut the bejesus out of the block yesterday.  I hacked a few trees down, sussed out the pram walk situation, took in the views from the lookout at the top of the National Park, discovered a rogue rooster at the NP campground, got Budi to sleep, met the next door neighbours (Mary and her granddaughter Trinity), took Budi for a special treat - an icecream in town, where we went for a walk and patted a couple of horses, drove back and Benji was STILL brushcutting.  He's a machine that man. 

I am excited about moving out to the block but do admit that I feel nervous too... are we limitting Budi's opportunities by moving away from Brissy?  What I hope is that we can give him experiences and opportunities that we couldn't in a city. 

And then....on the way home we stopped into The Story Tree Cafe and chanced upon a book launch they were hosting - Thornwood House by Anna Romer.  (I am going to have to get a copy!)

I stole this image of Anna from The Story Tree's FB page because we were too filthy and looking like members of a chain gang to actually go in... but yay!  Stuff happens in Boonah!

Wildflowers

The wild flowers are stunning at the moment. I'm still trying to work out what the pink flowers are... [Edit 09/09/2013: I've discovered they are Stylidium laricifolium.]

... these little white flowers are Ozothamnus diosmifolius. (Sago flower)

This one is a Swainsona of some type I think.  (Poor photo - the camera batteries died so I only got a few shots.)

EDIT: Definitely not a Swainsona!  Actually a Bossiaea rupicola.

We've signed the contract!

Hooray!  On friday (two days ago) my two lovely boys and I drove to our home-town-to-be and met with Scott and Kate to sign the building contract!  So that's it...  According to the contract, we will be living in our new house in 12 months or less!!!  Scott even gave us cycling jerseys to mark the occasion. After the contract was signed we went up to the block just to wallow in the excitement a little more.  There has been a wildflower explosion so it looks amazing up there, albeit a little overgrown.  Benj is keen on investing in a brushcutter and maybe even a bobcat (S will be in his element!!!) so we can do a bit of grooming before building begins.... which should be really, really soon!  Yipee. 

Scott Bennie is Back!

So much has happened since that last post of mine... I really should blog more often... it's only for us anyway and it's interesting thinking back on our (very slow) progress...I should have kept this up to date... but hey... I am blogging again now, and it's because...there is momentum building in our little project and it sort of feels like something might, dare I even think it?, happen soon!!! I'm really excited because Kate and Scott Bennie are back on the project.

I was so nervous back then, when we got the quotes back and we decided not to use Scott as our builder.  He just seems so professional and switched on. He seems smart and passionate about building interesting buildings.  But when the quotes came in so vastly different we thought it would be foolish on our part not to go with the cheaper guy.  So we had to ditch Scott.  When we met with him (the cheaper guy) I was still nervous.  Nice guy. Nice family.  But he just didn't seem to have his head around everything. Our place is not a normal build and I was just worried he'd underestimated the complexity and under quoted... and would discover that halfway through and end up cutting corners and skimping on professionalism and quality as needed to keep his costs down. I just don't think he really got us or what we are trying to achieve (unlike Scott and Kate with whom we just seemed to click right from the start). 

Anyway, Benji (the champion) was so so thorough in going through all the details of the quotes and found a number of holes in the cheap quote and other various issues... finally we decided to go back to Scott and Kate and go through everything again with them both and asked them to have us back!  They agreed and we've just been working through a few details and we'll soon have some sort of concrete evidence that yes, we are indeed building our home!!!!!  I am just so relieved to have Scott and Kate back on board.  I'm so excited to start.  Buuuuuut, I need to calm down.  I feel like we've been saying things like this for so long now.  AUUUGHghghghhhh surely soon?!!!!  It feels close!

 

We've actually even started collecting light shades.  We bought this awesome vintage candle lantern  from a second hand store in Wooloongabba and are going to convert it to a pendant light shade. (I am actually quite proud of the lighting plan which became my baby - poor Benji has done almost everything else...). And last night we took a look at the final kitchen cabinetry drawings... so things are becoming more real.