I Was Framed Your Honour! (with pics)

Framing commenced yesterday and they have completed the first floor in one day.  Some of the rooms feel a little bit small, but I am sure that I've read they feel bigger with a roof and when the walls are lined.  The ceiling height at the front is massive - you can see the second layer of noggins where a normal ceiling would be and then ours at 3450 mm.  The entry hall and big front door will look great. Can't wait now for the second storey.  Still have to say that we are happy with the rate of progress, particularly given the rain.

View from the street

Front section showing extra high ceilings

Rear alfresco showing sliding door openings and big window

Palatial entry and front door

Fowler Homes This Week - A+

While the slab was curing we needed to get rid of the excess soil to make space for the external plumbing.  The contractor we used did a fantastic job moving the soil around to level the site up and in the end only took away 2 loads when they could have taken 8-9, saving us heaps of money :).

We really are going to have a good sized side yard, which is why we built two storey.  There was some money in the tender for some steps off the front porch that it is clear now won't be needed.  We will need a few steps off the laundry though.

This week Fowler Homes delivered on the promise of completing the external plumbing on Thursday and Friday.  They also cleaned up the site a bit more.  We have been quite happy with the constancy of progress in the past two weeks.  If this can be sustained we will be happy, happy, happy.  Now we are ready for the frame.  There is no Fowler Homes Monaco display home, so we are super keen to see the frame up and get a feel for the spaces.

There was a dispute over the piering variation.  When I inspected the depths with the excavator driver he calculated 89 m, which I signed off on.  The CSO rang to advised that we would be charged for 93.9 m, so I queried the variance.  Turns out the excavator driver had miscalculated.  If pressed I would have offered to split the difference 50:50 but Fowler Homes extended some good will and will only charge for 89 m. Nice.

Fowler Homes this week - A+.

Building Process Timeline Page Created

I have just created a new page on this site to track the building process timeline.  The link is near the top of the home page.

Busy Bunny Left Us a Slab (with pics)

The concretors delivered the goods on Thursday and finished the slab, just in time for Easter.  Now we really get a true picture of how much yard space is left and it looks pretty good for a nice flat space at the back and quite a large side yard because of our 20+ m frontage.  Now we are up for our first big progress payment :(.

Fowler Homes got in touch with us this week about removing the excess dirt.  They offered to do it at $550/12 tonne load.  I found another contractor to do it for $300/load, starting first thing Tuesday morning.  They will also move some up the back to use later in levelling the yard.

Fowler Homes Site Supervisor told me that the external plumbing should be completed next Thursday (1 week for slab curing) and then the frame should be delivered within the week following that.  We also confirmed the mortar and joint type for our internal recycled press brick wall in the Meals Room - off white with a raked joint. Nice, nice, nice...

Although I'd love it to be quicker, progress has been reasonable so far.  Fingers crossed it stays that way.