The big cat has been

The Bobcat has visited the site, and what a difference moving some dirt and rubbish makes!

Yesterday our heater was installed, and the new shed was finished. All in all - a very productive couple of days. Loads of photos. Sorry.

Mr. Robert Feline in action

What a huge difference!

Dunny and bin are next to go.

This is how we knew the heater had been installed.

Photo taken through the (now clean) window.

A lot of dirt has been moved - down the side....

... around the back ....
The big pile of dirt has gone!

... up the other side. We need to build a retaining wall here.

Expansion joints have been sealed.

This shifty looking character is the site security (and Minister of Finance, and Building Inspector, and Colour Coordinator, and....)
Boy, and I going to be in trouble for this one.

Our shed has also been completed. These photos especially for the blokes. For the girls - the colour is "Paperbark". :-)

Dimensions are 7 metres x 9 metres.

Yep - gotta build a retaining wall along here so we can get into the shed.

.. as a whistle?

Not sure if the place is as clean as a whistle, but someone certainly certainly committed a neatness at our Cremorne 41!

Yesterday (Sunday) we met the lady who had the pleasure (!) of cleaning up after the tradies. Best of luck with your project.....

From what we can see today, she seemed to do a pretty good job - although I'm sure Bernadette will be going over it again after handover! Below, you can see that all the stickers and protective plastic has been removed from the windows.

The photos below show the back doors - which you could even see through before they were given the treatment!


Eagle eyed readers would have noticed that there are some infills missing above the doors. Fixed soon....

Now all we need is the bobcat to come on site and remove the rest of the rubbish.

Oh yeah, our shed is progressing too:

Garage Door

A few changes since the last entry - the most significant is that our new garage door has been installed. The house has had it's floor swept, and the correct door locks have now been installed.
This means we are getting close to completion!

Yes - site needs a clean!

After a forced change of plans today, we decided to go back to where it started - the Cremorne Display home in Caroline Springs. It's amazing to see a completed house (with carpets and window coverings) after seeing our own empty place for so long. We took a few photos of the display home, and some have been included here, just for interest!

Similar to the one we are getting.

Display home bathroom (this pic especially for M)

Standard bath is quite small - we opted for a bigger bath

In total, 8 wall lights used in the stairs.

Decking is nice, and gave us some ideas....

Finally, our shed is progressing:

Sheets, slab, shed and scumbags.

I like to try and make the title of the blog entries interesting, but sometimes they do require an explanation!

Sheets - Cement sheets went up today on the garage and under the balcony. Looking good! Photos below.

Slab - I swept the concrete slab out the back today, as the shed is going up over the next few days. Photo below.

Shed - As above!

Scumbags - the local scumbag kids have been at it again. I've mentioned them before, and we've had a constant battle with these morons to try and stay on top of the mess they make. Over the past month they have broken some roofing tiles, thrown bricks around, pulled silt pits out, and checked as much crap on the slab as they can find. One of our soon the be new neighbours (who works with Bernadette) happened to be out the front of his home last Saturday and caught the little shits red handed. One of them was tring to force his way in, and two others were generally making as much mess as they could. He went to town on them, and tells us that they seemed to be scared as hell. Hopefully they stay away.

Anyhow, onto more interesting things! The balcony floor and ceiling has been done - the tiler should be back soon to put the tiles on the balcony. The painter is due to come back soon to finish painting. The garage door is in a warehouse in Geelong waiting for the garage ceiling to be painted. The gas flame heater will be going in soon, and there will be a site clean which will improve the place no end.

Met with the Site Supervisor on Saturday, and the render colour that we are seeing is an undercoat - top coat should go on this week. Enough talk - time for pics!

Freshly swept slab. Expect to see a shed on it soon!

Balcony floor

Not vandalism - this is where the heater is going.

Neat job in the garage

Plastering done in the garage - now waiting for paint.

Same goes for the front of the garage - waiting for paint.

Under the balcony - We were amazed that a solid ceiling wasn't standard!

Last Saturday we also went shopping for a few lights to replace the junction boxes which are installed in various place around the house.

Stair lights are 240V LED units which give off a pale blue colour, and should look pretty good:

The pendant light which will go over the dining table:

We also bought a fan for the bedroom - and we know which lights we want for the front of the balcony, but haven't bought them as yet. Cheers!

Tapped out.

Visited the house today, and the most noticeable thing is that the plumbers have been back to do the fit off. Toilets, taps and showers have been installed.

Mixer tap with veggie sprayer was part of the promotion we received

Simple spout in the laundry

Bathroom is coming together.
Need to check whether the spout comes out of the wall far enough!

Shower in the main bathroom

Dunny. (As if you didn't know)

We left a note for plumber to put the rail up a bit higher,
due to the height of one of the owners....

Looks much better than the last time we saw this!

A couple of people have asked about the shed we are building in the back yard. The slab is down, however We've asked the shed people to hold of the construction as we needed to check the fence situation. The concreters put the slab too damn close to the fence line, so we want to check whether the fence needs to go up first.

It turns out that the fencers can put up the fence anyway with some mucking around, so the shed will go up soon.

Need to get started on the retaining wall soon....

Floored

Floor the shed went in on Friday, and is curing nicely. We need to put some support across the back fence before the shed is erected. Probably a job for this weekend.

Shed slab

Laundry floor has been grouted

And the Power Room floor

Main bathroom - oops!

Ensuite shower showing feature

Cabinet should be lifted soon! Floor in and grouted.

Had a chat with the Site Supervisor onsite yesterday and worked through some of the issues. Nothing major, and should be sorted soon!

Lights are on, but no-one is home!

Quite a few photos for you all today, as we haven't had a chance to do an update for a few days.

The new shed out the back is progressing - slab should be down soon. Not sure what we will do with all the extra dirt which has been excavated, but some of it will be used to level the yard.

Tiler has been busy, power is on at the house (the lights and power points work), and the sewer and storm water have been connected.

We have some small problems, but should be able to get them sorted out in conjunction with the Site Supervisor. Hope you like the photos!

Crushed rock in preparation for the shed slab

Footings for the shed

Storm water pit - in the background you can see the storm water connection against the column

Love the tiles in the downstairs power room!

Lights are on, but no one is home. There's a small problem with these lights...

Laundry tiles

Door furniture has been delivered

Ensuite - with the waterproof membrane applied in the shower space.
M&M have yellow, we have grey. Fair enough - no such thing as a grey M&M.

The main bathroom

Toilet floor. Yes, taking photos of a dunny floor. Seeking help very soon.

This is the back of the garage, through the stair windows. See the damaged tiles? They will be replaced.

A quick tour of our land

Hello again! As we still haven't made our mind up on what house we want to build, I thought it was time to provide an update on the land.

Here it is - via video! Hope you enjoy it (sorry - I don't exactly have a "radio voice").

Unfortunately the subdivision is taking longer than we would like, apparently due to delays from the relevant authorities (water, gas, electricity etc.).

We are still looking at display homes, and we will provide an update soon!

First look at our land

January 2007 - we decided to walk up and take a look at the block. The agent told us that the block already had a large garage on site, which would be sold with the block. Expecting that the garage may be run down shack that needed to be demolished, we were pleasantly surprised. The 1110 sq m block was almost exactly what we were looking for. Woo hoo!

The land is one of two block, yet to be subdivided. The photo at left is take from where the road will be, looking back up the block. You can see a peg on the left of the photo. Nice shed huh? 11 metres by 8 metres.