Well they started the brick work on the 3rd of Decmber and I got to meet the brickies, really nice guys just the two of them. But what a great job they are doing so far. It might of helped that I rocked up with some Krispy Kremes to keep there mind on the job.<smile>

Straight as a Die

I am really happy with quality and actually the brick colour now

I also managed to take a sneak peak upstairs.

Lounge Room Upstairs

Main Bedroom

Daughter's Room

Son's Room

View from where the balcony will be

Anyway all coming along nicely, I am hoping the brickwork will be halfway complete before they break up for Christmas, either way very happy with the progress so far.

The bricks have arrived, which is great. However they look so black and not very bronzish. Perhaps with the offwhite mortar it will lighten it up some.

This is what we choose from austral bricks

However what we have gotten looks a little black, so I am not sure, how it will go, I did not see much blue or gray in the colour like above. Also the above picture shows a mix variety of brown and blue, the brick we received seem very similar.

My wife has caught sight of the plumbers the other day running pipes into the wall, this needs to be done before bricking I am told, so I am hoping they will atleast start the bricklaying 2 weeks from now.

Update: Choosing another website I noticed a concerned that infact this is correct we did look at a couple of assigned austral brick houses and one my wife loved might of had two styles of bricks in it.

Here is Austral display, so it much the same is what you see above. it been so long I forgotten much of the colour choices I hope I got it right at the time.

The second storey frame was completed last week, now time for internal electrical and plumbing. So far everything has gone well, however not seen much work completed this week.  The windows have been delivered, they are powder coated with that great deep blue. Cannot wait to see them installed.

Frame Completed

Interesting to see all the offcuts and roofing looks like someone has not read the complete IKEA set of instructions and have parts left over.

Friday the lower frame when up, it was great to see. I really wanted to get onsite to have a look through but the fence stopped me <sad look>.

That one thing I found out is there is only one scheduled site visit, I was going to use Houspect, but thought I be able to tee up regular meetings with the SS to check the progress out and express an concerns. I may end up biting the bullet and get them to do it after all need to talk to my wife.

No that not the way Clarendon do it, I understand and all but it does not allay my fears of shoddy workmanship that is too late to resolve.

Front Lounge area.

 The top frames were delivered yesterday and I believe they are working on the second storey today.

I did drive past on Friday in the morning building have changed so much its like a lego set now, I remember my uncle building my parents home and he did all the cutting and measuring onsite. No factory presses there.

Nice shot of the slope we need to work with

Water Tank Side, I swear they could of moved the slab across another 100mm <Gggrr>

What is it with daughters and photo bombing

The journey so far for this house been a long time in the making. I seen some other blogs and thought it be cool to put down in writing and pictures our journey.


With all the details signed off with Clarendon, we got the house knocked down and the land cared, during the last week of September.

Clarendon then started to peg and draw out with chalk the land around the 10th of October, with the machines digging on the 15th and 16th of October getting the land ready for the slab. I was concerned how the small drop with the neighbour garage hold up, however the Site Supervisor for the ground clearing said it should be fine. I guess we will see. It doesn't look it but the drop at the front is around 80cm.

Land Clearing

Front Corner Drop

Once this was completed it was not long till the foam and formwork for the slab start. My wife at this stage having a panic attack of what a H1 Slab meant, and after he quick googling and lack of any building experience the panic attack turned into we must stop the build, because some people had major issues in Melbourne with Pod Slabs. 

After a more thorough research, that I had already done 6 month prior and giving her more convincing arguments of why a Pod Slab on our land is required. She seemed to settle down, as it turned out the Melbourne issue, apart building on prior wetlands, was more an issue that council provide inadequate drainage to the area.

Seeing this caused a major panic attack for my wife

Finally the slab was poured after a few days of raining on the 27th of October. However i did note one minor mistake after the formwork was removed a piece of concrete broke away however the Site Supervisor assures me this will be fixed at a later date. I guess when the brick gets laid.

Slab

Back part of the Slab

I want all the concrete I paid for <smile>