Guest blogger Steve here tonight - yes I have been given the honour/ responsibility of completing tonight's blog - as incentive Anna is making me a cup of tea and bringing Chocolate.
It was another big today today with a whole lot of dirt going out, wall framing and a very large steel beam going up, and trusses coming in. Here's what our concrete pad has sprouted today:
As I had the day off work I got to see and have my input into most of the action. Maxie's day got off to a great start when the digger man reappeared as he was eating his porridge. Even better, this time the digger man was behind the controls of a Dingo Digger (stand up and drive bucket loader thing). The Dingo spent the entire morning shovelling bucket loads of concrete and dirt through the garage and offsite. A large pile of dirt has also been added to our top lawn so I can waste many future weekends leveling it and trying to make grass grow.
My first task for the day was breaking the somewhat unpleasant news to Ben that the large and quite complicated looking frame he had built as per the plans yesterday had the window in (erm) completely the wrong place. If he did want to strangle me he did a great job of hiding it. Doesn't v2 of the frame look great!
Anna agreed to let me go and have a look at the kitchen she has chosen this morning - this meant I got to second guess all the deisions she has made and generally ask annoying questions. I'm very happy to have made sure the bench is going to be a six foot plus friendly 930mm high, and although I didn't win the battle of the microwave placement there will be an option to put the microwave above the bench at a later dte if required. We're both much more comfortable there will a decent amount of space in the dining area so recconsidering going to 1300mm wide.
Here's the frame around our feature doors showing the view from the back of the house. The glass will slide back completely behind the nib walls on either side - how cool will that be?
I don't think the builders, digger guys and truck driver were thinking that when they lifted the beam into place.
So progress is far exceeding what we were expecting at this stage (nine days in). Progress means large bills have started coming in for reaching milestones like the laying of the concrete pad. This week I wasted a lot of time chasing the friendly but not very efficient folks at the BNZ for deposit money. $40,000 came through on Thursday but we have spent that already. Our overall budget is also ticking up as small bits a pieces are added - it now sits at $270,000 for everything.
Next week there's a few more frames and the trusses going up - then the roof gets connected - yeeha.
Finishing with Maxie again - he found his way to the dirt pile up the back while we weren't looking. Here's what his white shoes look like now...
More next week ... have a great weekend all.
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