Our House - Substantial Completion of Brick Work

It has been 3 weeks since the frame was erected. The brick layers have completed most of the Brick Work.




Bricks Delivered








Concrete Mixing




Brick Laying




Ground Floor Completed











Facade





Starting Work on First Floor after Scaffolding







Substantial Completion of Brick Work


Next week, they will start Roofing, finish Brick work and also the internal Electrical wiring works.

Things are moving as planned... Fingers Crossed!

If you would like to read Part 1,2 & 3 please click Part 3 , Part 2 Part 1

Our House - Progress so far

The framework of our house has been completed. For the past 3 weeks, I have been going on-site every day! It was really exciting to see the shape of the house evolving.




Timber framing the ground floor





Fixing up the front





Starting work on level one





Getting the roof done





Half way through the roofing





Final Touch up on the sides





Windows fitted





Frame work almost done




Being there, I just felt like all the hard work is starting to pay-off finally.

Next stage is brick-laying. Once they complete laying the bottom half of the house, the Scaffolding will go up. Waiting for that to happen!



If you would like to read Part 2 please click here

If you would like to read Part 1 please click here

Light at the end of the Tunnel

Nykaj and I have been working on the Project, to build our Home, for just over a year now. Around this time last year, we were positive that our home would be ready by early 2009. We had no idea what was in store for us to just get this project off the ground, leave alone completed.


We were too optimistic about the timelines and thought that we would find a builder in 2 weeks, get the draft ready in one month and obtain all the council approvals and the planning part completed in 2 months.


It took us 6 months just to find a builder! We changed 3 builders during this time. The fact of the matter was, we were pretty much given the run around. Things like returning our phone calls only after a week, taking 4 weeks just to draw the initial draft, taking another 6 weeks to come up with the second draft, etc... were some of the "small" issues we had to face during the journey.


As soon as we faced a few bad experiences with one builder, we would move on to the next one. We wanted to make sure that we picked the right builder, even if it meant the project getting delayed by a few more months. It was a frustrating exercise but we had to go through it!


Some time in October last year, one of our close friends from Melbourne came over and helped us pick the builder. Since they were from the same Industry, they told us what to look out for. Their advice really helped us to find the Right Fit for us and since then, everything has started moving in the right direction.


We got our council approvals early this year and completed our selections within the last couple of months.


The actual construction started this week! As soon as we got the news that the ground was dug up, we hopped into our car and sped off to the site eventhough it was already 9PM! I was in seventh heaven when I saw the block.




The next day, after breakfast I drove down to the site just to have a peek again :)









Today the foundation of the house has been laid.
















Guess we should be ready to move into our house in another 7 to 8 months! Hurray!


If you would like to read Part 1 please click here

Building a house? Not as easy as I thought!

We have decided to call Adelaide Home for the next 5 years. Once this decision was made, the first step was to buy a house. During weekends, we would check real estate web sites and visit open houses. So far, we have been to 30-odd open houses during the last few months, but nothing really caught our attention.

It was really difficult to find the right house we needed in the right location at the right price! Finally we decided to go the other way round and build a house. It is easier to find a location and the rest is in your hands. Building a house is a bit of hard work and time consuming but we thought "What the heck! Let's give it a go! ". At least you won’t be blaming someone else for something that is wrong in your house:)

Next, we identified an ideal block of land in a picturesque location. The process was really long winded since demand was high. As prices are rocketing, people are scurrying around to buy houses and land as quickly as they could. Since the area that we were eyeing was being landscaped by a developer with plans to have man made lakes, reservoirs and a playground around that area, it was even more difficult. We first had to register our interest with the developer. They then invited us to one of their land release events where we were given tokens with numbers.

Then they picked out random numbers from a box and people whose numbers were called could choose from the remaining available blocks. Luckily we got the block we wanted. It was a triumphant moment but a heart wrenching experience. Talk about a bizarre system... What demand and supply does to things around you!

The next step is to find a builder and we have been running around the last 2-3 weeks to find one. There are too many around and that makes it hard to pick.

Anyhow the ideal time frame is to get the house completed by Feb next year (2009). It is a bit too far fetched. There is a lot of work involved with long and hard weekends as well as weekdays in front of us. But it should be fun and I hope the end product comes out well.