Week 5, day twenty-two

Wednesday, 23 February 2011

Ahh, covered services

It's been a week or so between posts - the weather last week wasn't fab, but things kept happening nonetheless. Like Mr Bobcat turned up to cover over all the plumbing and electrical pipes etc, also doing a bit of groundwork and tidying up around the place until the rain set in once more and again turned The Block into what Warwick has christened 'Pig's Digger' (apparently it's a children's book about a pig, his digger, and a whole lot of mud).


The brickies came most days too from late last week, and now we have something very much resembling a footprint of what's to come (which is why they call the bottom-edge outline of a house that in the biz, I imagine). Today the brickies finished up on the main retaining walls, and another bobcat driver with a less sore back - who we shall name Mr Digger - shifted truckload after truckload of clean fill into the house area that has been created by the retaining walls. End result is that the floor level has now been brought up to about where the slab will be poured (in a couple of weeks' time).

Footprint - by jingoes, that's a lot of mud to 'landscape', ain't it?

Hopping up on top, the view is quite a bit higher than at ground level - maybe we can post a view from the (currently imaginary) bathroom next time, because it's a vast improvement on what I thought it would be like (chainlink and weeds have almost become treetops and roofs).

Trent's babies (yet to be bathed)

I do like these baby walls - Trent the brickie has done a lovely job, even making artistic calls on some feral purplish bricks that had made it into the pallet, tapping the nasties out after he'd laid them a few rows below because they just looked 'ugly'.

Rats in the ranks

On a completely side matter needing some blog-community input, I'm having issues with the neighbour's bird habits - she feeds the cockies and PIGEONS (urrgh! where do they come from up here?!) every afternoon when she's around. Apart from the idea that she is encouraging rats with wings to live, and that one of the favourite ripping posts for cockies is western red ceder (which our gorgeous, locally made and utterly expernsive double-glazed windowframes will be fashioned from) and there are now huge posses of them hanging out next door, is this even legal?? I'm looking for any grounds here, people - I'm no animal hater (apart from pigeons, of course, but they don't count), but I just can't manage to relax about this little-old-lady fancy. Am I officially in the ranks of uptight (almost) homeowners?

Week 4, day sixteen

Tuesday, 15 February 2011

Exhibit A

It's been drizzling lightly but pretty constantly for two days now, but the plumber - bless 'im - has managed two solid days of work. Why? I dare not ask - I thought tradies didn't do that sort of thing, but maybe you've gotta be tougher in the Mountains. And it was his brithday too (I brought cake - what a suck).

So Mr Bobcat made his long-awaited appearance on Monday (an abbreviated version due to still-tender spine regions, so the backyard landscaping will have to wait in line) and dug out a trench for the plumbing and electrics to be laid along - see Exhibit A. James the Lovely Plumber spent a couple of days digging, laying, filling and generally getting sodden, but I guess that's life as a plumber. The result, as you can clearly see, is a long trench with pipes. And some gravel. And another big pile of dirt (soggier). Possibly approved by council.

 

 
Checked out the forecast for the rest of the week today (I suspect BOM will be a mucho visited site by the end of all this) - we seem to have a lovely patch of showers hovering directly over Blackheath and Katoomba, and nowhere much else. Mat often comments on this as he makes his way up the hill from Penrith: hot, hot, warm, warm, pleasant...raining and mist by Katoomba. But Friday is 'a shower or two' - that sounds almost hopeful!

Week 3, day thirteen

Thursday, 10 February 2011

First retaining walls

Exciting day today, all the more so because we didn't really see the final result until all was said and done and the brickies had left the site. We have bricks on footings! Just two retaining walls for the slab to be poured into, really, but I can't tell you how weirdly thrilling it was to see real bricks mortared together where the house one day will stand. They looked so nice and straight and strong too, just like bricks ought to. How DO they do it?

Little bit of a hiccup in the builder-client working relationship yesterday when I overstepped my mark - bound to happen sometime soon, I guess. Warwick had told us that the brickies would be there Wednesday; Jem and I were carless that day so were basically hanging out at home in between walking up to school and back again, so I couldn't help but notice that by midday those long-awaited brickies still hadn't made an appearance. I restrained myself for several hours, then thought I'd drop Warwick a quick, helpful text to check in that their no-show was expected (I knew he was busy working on a house down the road, trying to get the roof watertight). Within about four seconds he'd called me back with the basic message (relayed as politely as he could mange through gritted teeth): pull your head in and let your builder get on with it! Clearly,NOT helpful. I think annoying might have been the correct adjective. Okeydokes, I knew there was a line there somewhere and now I've found it...


So today I stayed well away until all tradies were long gone, hence the surprise walls. I still really like our bricks too, thank goodness - they're cheaper than the fancy ones, but they're dry press (so don't have those 'extruded' brick holes in the middle), with nice smooth sides and sharp edges. They're also a 'commons' brick (so no colour guarantees, hence the comparative cheapness), but for some reason we liked them almost as much as anything twice the price. Maybe it's our basic fondness for anything used and unloved over something new and fancy! Being thrifty (I was going to say 'cheap') comes in handy on a budget.


Still waiting for that de-stumper, and Mr Bobcat, but I won't be saying a word...

Week 3, day ten

Monday, 7 February 2011

Speaking of winter, it seems to have arrived... From a week of 30+ days, to about a maximum of 14 degrees today - you've got to love a cool change (and living in the Mountains). Hopefully life will be a little more pleasant for the tradies, though someone did tell me yesterday that it's meant to rain for a month. Surely not every day?

Raspberries: yummy weed

Thank goodness it was cooler though, because yesterday was our last chance to save any plants from the back of The Block before Mr Bobcat arrived today. I finally got around to IDing one of the berry-looking canes that have been popping up around the place as raspberries, so got to work digging as many of these out as I could and squashing them into the hideously undersized pots we had to hand. Saved a couple of big, strapping grassy things too (maybe some sort of lomandra?), so that when the back area is levelled we might actually have a few plants to put back into it - poor Block.

Say goodbye to the last patch of green...

Mat and the kids did their own scavenging by collecting rocks that have been unearthed around the place - we're thinking we should probably attempt at least a small stone wall somewhere around the place, otherwise it's not really a proper Mountains house, is it? That should be an interesting exercise...anyone out there always wanted to try one? We'll give you food and board!

Life in a postmodern photographers' (tree)house

As it turned out, Mr Bobcat Driver had done his back in on Friday and won't be making an appearance until tomorrow at the earliest. That put a bit of a spanner in the works for James, the lovely plumber, who had grand plans of the service trenches being dug, approved by council and filled all today. Instead he and his young assistant, Ryan, got stuck into a few holes, tap connections, big pipes and the like, while James and I bonded over names (his wife is Simona) and hydronic concrete floor heating options (we're welcome to pop over and scope out his home set-up any time).


Meanwhile, the tree man and his amazing de-stumper are still nowhere to be seen - the story goes that his assistant drove his grinder over onto its side today, but I'm starting to have my doubts about his level of commitment to our stumps.


Tomorrow will tell.

Week 2, day nine

Saturday, 5 February 2011

Waiting... For:

New to The Block: bricks, sand, cement, and the all-important bogger

• The tree man to come back and grind out the last stumps (promises, proimises)
• Then the services (plumber, electrician) to get going on their digging and installing (where the tree stumps were)
• Then the brickies to finish up on another job so they can get cracking on the retaining walls that the slab will be poured into.

Dry-press face bricks - be impressed!

At the end of Week 1 we were a week ahead of schedule, but after a week of waiting, we're probably right back on schedule again. There were some small victories this week, however: bobcats took away some of our large piles of unusable soil and levelled things out a bit; the first delivery of our face bricks arrived (ie the ones being used in various spots on the outside of the house that will be visible, unlike the internal ones which are cheap and will be painted over); a large pile of sand and bags of cement now also await the busy brickies; and an enormous skip bin arrived out the front this morning, to be loaded up with any other rubbishly bits around The Block (hopefully not our neighbours' too) and our unwanted extra mulch etc as we try to work out the lay of the land for the back garden, before it gets harder to access.

S for shed, C for chooks...

I also took to the back corner with a spraycan - quite satisfying - to mark out an approximate position for the chooks (yes, there WILL be chooks, Mat! Small phobia...) and the shed. So far these both seem to hold prime position in the yard, sheltering under the only remaining trees. When it's been 30+ degrees for over a week this seems important, but maybe I won't be so jealous come the middle of winter.

Can't wait to see some mini walls around the edge of this mini house! Of course, they are forecasting rain...