We are SLABBED!!!!!

Yes, our slab went down on Saturday (Bel's been madly writing reports since then).  It's all really starting.  Hopefully things are going to zoom along now.  I couldn't understand why people would take so many photos of a slab.  Now I know.  It's the start of the dream.  It's really happening.  We (well Phil) can actually visualise the rooms.  I'm not so good at visual spatial stuff.  I'll just wait for the frame to go up - then I can 'see' the rooms.  :)

There is a lot of action happening in our section of The Ponds at the moment.  Action happening for Yopz (Skypie), Thigee and now Matt and Caza - our back fence neighbours.  Everyone is zooming along so quickly.  It was great to meet more people from our neighbourhood on Saturday.  That is of course in addition to 'our' rain garden that they are so kindly landscaping for us (across the road near the creek).  This is in addition to the work that they are doing on the 'pond / creek' up on the corner of Waterfall Boulevarde and Meander Crescent. Our other next door neighbours are now in council too.  Woo hoo.

So to the pictures: (Don't worry I won't upload the 100 + photos I took  - as I said... I understand it now :) )

 This was about 8.30 in the morning.  There were 'limited' dry bits to walk on due to all of the rain recently.  So all of the photos are either taken from the front of the block - such as this one or the back.  There was no way I was chancing walking into mud with my beautiful camera.  They were finishing off the porch at about 8.30 when I arrived.  All that was left to finish smoothing was the 'formal / kids (not really formal then is it) lounge room' (possible future media room perhaps) and do the concrete for the garage and the alfresco areas.  I thought that they were doing a great job (although I would have no idea what a bad job looked like either - after all I've never seen a slab poured before).  Luckily our SS turned up and he confirmed that they were doing a great job.  :)  I was right.  

This was when I went back at about 3.00 pm. They were just finishing smoothing it out.  It looks fantastic.  I'm still not convinced it looks as big as Phil tells me it is.  It's that whole lack of visual - spatial intelligence.  Yep still have trouble reverse parking the car too.  I work to my strengths.  

There was / is still so much mud around the site.  Hopefully more of that has dried up now.  Next step drainage.  Our SS indicated that the plan was to do it on Friday.  Hopefully the weather doesn't delay us anymore.  We (and Matt and Caza) just need about a month of good weather.  Overcast is fine - just no rain till the roof is on and the bricks are done.  I'm sure Skypie is hoping for that too.  Along with all the other builds that are happening in our little neighbourhood.

Here's hoping for lots of sunshine from now on.

We are piered....... :)

Today we got piered.  We now have the piers deep in the ground under our soon to be slab and then house.  It was an emotional day...... excited on the one hand that real things are happening....... sad on the other hand that so much money was getting buried under ground............ SOOOOOO much money..... but - then ... on the other hand...... if the foundations aren't good.... then the house isn't good.  Our foundations have cost us over $8 000 more than was allocated in the tender.  This is because of the "H" class slab and the extra 65 lineal metres of piering... or 59 piers at an average of 2.4m each.  At least we know that we really do have buried treasure under our house :)

 Drilling the holes........ ready for the concrete to be poured...... you can see the additional dirt we now have to get rid of as well....... another 15 odd tonne..... yep.... more dollars...... buried treasure :)

Concrete being poured into the holes...... our piers are done!  

On another non related note..... our tile nightmare has continued.  Due to unforeseen circumstances we had to rechoose our tiles at DiLorenzo as requested by our builder.  Talk about a kid in a candy shop.  So many choices....... We have pretty much stuck to our final choices at the previous tile place, however couldn't match the floor tile within budget.  We have also changed our mind about the feature tile in the ensuite along with the niche tile in the powder room.  We are anxiously awaiting the quote from them to decide what we can do.  

Now we get to wait and see the formwork go up for the slab and hope that the slab can get poured mid next week - fingers crossed.  We don't want any rain.... although now the neighbours downpipe is hooked up... we won't have all their run off through our site any more.  

We also heard from a little birdie... that our other neighbours on the south side should be starting to build shortly.  

Such an exciting time.