BlandDesignsNZ

Not much of an update today, mainly Cos it's been hammering down with rain and the builder has smartly decided to not have the framing delivered when it'll just sit getting rained on.  Smart boy. Gold star, and so on.  T'anyrate, today's photos were taken by my wife Cos I'd left in the car and the car was *flaps hand* all the way over there.  The biggest news (apart from the neighbour putting some of their roofing iron on our slab - cheeky bastards, you're lucky it wasn't put on TradeMe to make me a few bucks), is that the recess for the shower has been ground out.  Hence "recess time". That'd be funnier in the States where they have recess. What do we call it? It was "playtime" when I was at school, but that was a long time ago. It was called "interval" too, come  to think of it. This is probably going to bother me now.  We also decided the house was miles too small. This is, apparently, a pretty common occurrence when the ...

Friday afternoon, at 3:30pm, the building company sent us an invoice.  It's not one of the bigger invoices we're gonna get, but it's still over twice the value of both our cars.  The ended the email with "have a nice weekend". A lovely sentiment, but almost out of place in the "gimmie" email. 

That right, the concrete is in! (See, that's funny Cos concrete is the "hardest" part. Ahh, priceless.) L to R, lounge, front door recess, garage.  One of my local spies sent me photos today of the slab. Given it's dry, they must have snuck in and done it Tuesday. Awesome.  Reverse angle. Pictured, concrete and local spy's car. I'm pretty sure the drain there is the laundry. Pretty sure. I'm not a builder. Shut up.  Anyway, once the slab was complete, a painfully large payment (fun fact; they're *all* painfully large at this point) is due. Pretty sure they're meant to send an invoice though. Maybe if we don't mention it they'll forget and I can spend the money on myself.  Maybe. Probably not though, eh? With any luck, we'll have wall frames on site when we go have a look on Saturday. 

So regular readers (I assume you spend most of your days eagerly refreshing and hoping, nay, praying for more nuggets of my hilarity to grace your eyeballs) will recall that they hammered in a metric shitload of piles. Far, far more than we were expecting.  (The irony isn't lost on me that we're paying enormous sums of money to pound piles into the ground that will never be seen again - chucking money into a literal hole in the ground.) Anyway, I probably covered that piling was the only item we couldn't lock down the price for, and anything outside what they expected was payable by us when they sent us a letter saying "gimmie". We were expecting a gimmie letter any day, following the shitload of piles. Kinda like expecting a dentist appointment. We were dreading the potential addition cost.  Today we had to visit the building office (for some simply *riveting* paperwork thing), and our guy mentioned that our piling was still under the PC sum allowed.  Which, as y...

We're now almost ready for the concrete pour. The polystyrene "rafts" and steel "ribs" (hence the "ribraft" name) are in place.  Ribs, rafts, and mesh. Note the Oxford comma. Because "yes, there bloody well is", that's why.  I say "almost ready" Cos I have no idea what needs to be done before they actually pour, but I know it's due next week.  The recess that you can see is the walk-in shower in the ensuite. The gap beyond is where the wall between the main house and the minor unit will be.  It's an exciting time waiting for the slab to be done. Tempered slightly by the knowledge that once it's "finished" (which I assume is signed off by the council elves), another eye-wateringly large amount of money is payable. 

Paid a visit to site on Sunday (mainly Cos I'd forgotten to take the Sprogs' hi-viz for a photo up).  Here's one of them where I think their rooms are; ("Go to your rooms. And don't slam those doors") And got Sprog1 to pose with a *hilarious* caption for SocMed about the construction manager not being happy (You see, that's funny Cos she's 4, so not the construction supervisor at all. But she's standing like she is and she's not happy. Gold) Anyway, today, one of our local spies paid a visit to site and sent me this one; (Plumbing wastes, I think. Plausible anyway. I think the one dead ahead is the laundry one).  Not a great photo, Cos the perspective is a bit wonky. Still, we're marching on. With any luck, we'll have concrete poured this week.  Seems to me we're still on track for weathertight for Xmas, which is what the PM thought. 10 weeks to go I think.  Stay tuned for the exciting next chapter. 

So, the official tally of piles driven into the ground is "shitloads" (Pictured; shitloads)  We're not 100% sure how many were budgeted or planned for, so hopefully it was close to "shitloads" or it's gonna cost us a butt-tonne of cash.  Also on today's flying visit (they've always been flying visits so far Cos there hasn't really been much to see) there was a couple of young guys installing the boxing for the slab  (Pictured, boxing, young guy, laser level (fancy pants)) So the process is honking along now. Hopefully we should have concrete poured. Choice. 

Today, we took delivery of the sinks. One for each kitchen, one for the scullery, and one for the laundry.  (Boxes. From Italy. Fancy) The laundry sink is just a common or garden stainless steel job. Nothing special.  The balance of the sinks we managed to get a great deal on some Elleci composite granite resin sinks. (Aside; sinks are stupid expensive. So are taps for that matter. How is that possible, they're just valves ffs. Do you remember what I was saying before these brackets? Ah right, sinks).  They were stunning in the brochure and website and I'm stoked that they're even more stunning in real life.  (Stunning and whatnot) That's the scullery sink. The kitchens have double sinks.  Can't wait to have them in. They're going to look amazing against white granite benchtops 

Breaking exclusive story!  My local spy sent me these pics of the site today. They reveal, excitingly, more earthworks have been done and the wooden piles have been driven.  (Fucking"boom", as they say) Not the greatest of photos (beggars, choosers, etc) but certainly enough to have me squealing like a little girl in a Smiggle shop.  The piles are needed for some geotechnical type reasons ("yeah, you got the wrong kind of dirt mate") The piles were the only part of the contract that we couldn't lock down a price on (eek) so we're hoping they haven't needed to put in more than they anticipated (which we think was 13). It does appear they've put in more though. Hopefully it doesn't cost too much.  Also, the pile of timber to the left of that pic, I'm pretty sure is the boxing for the slab. I'll be sure to make a trip up there this weekend to have a look, but we could only be a couple of days from concrete! Squeeeeee!

Took a trip to the site today, stopping for a coffee at what will also be our local cafe.  I'm afraid it's become on of those places infested (is that the word? Yeah) with activewear and MAMILs, which is a shame as it's walking distance to the new house.  Today a special type of dick was there. This sums them up in a photo.  ( Just park however you want, dickhead) It will not be a surprise that the driver had an annoying little dog with them and spent most of their time vaping. Talk about a stereotype.  Anyway, the exclusive paparazzi photos of the site are here; ( Ohhhhh, dirt, right?) And here; ( Dirt *and* gravel. Drink it in. The gravel is where the driveway will be)  They scraped half the neighbour's site too, but it looks like the rest of theirs was waterlogged so they couldn't.  It's very cool watching our place actually start, but also to watch the other houses progress. 

So the valuation came back this afternoon. Not as much as we'd hoped ($7m was the aim) but pretty good as to where we want to be.  So the bank will be happy about that at least.  Also, we finally, after what feels like a million years, have actual physical action on site. The scraping of the topsoil has been done. This is, finally, the first manifestation of actual building work being done.  I don't have any pics of the scraped dirt yet (I know, I can't believe how slack I am either) but we're planning a family trip up there on Saturday morning. (Rock N Roll lifestyle kids, me and James Dean).  I can't believe how exciting I'm finding scraped dirt. I swear I used to be cool.