18 months into the project finally the slab goes down and you feel the dream might actually become a reality then you wake up and realise that you are up against some unprofessional individuals and that the project will be a real test of patience and nerves.
The demo crew who removed my old home but neglected to take out 2 trees that were clearly in the contract came back and took them out. Only one problem, they drove a bobcat across the garage, bedroom2, laundry, ensuite and master bedroom with the final insult taking off a chunk of the 36 hour old slab when they drove off.
It seems that my garage floor comes with prelaid rubber
and apparently this is following my instructions to not go near the slab, which we have in multiple emails from us and their replies assuring us they would fall them away from the foundations.
Saturday morning and heading up to the shack but had to stop by and see the lads pouring the slab. We got there at about 10:30am and pouring was well under way and happy to report that the concreting team seemed well organised and efficient. Happy that all was under control we headed for the shack.
A beautiful cloudless, starry but bone-chillingly cold night up on the Murray River and we returned via the Rostrevor to check on the progress. The slab looked great with all boards removed drying under another sunny Autumn afternoon.
Today saw the
installation of my plastic wrap and mesh sheets. The oversight which saw me
missing a stormwater pipe under the proposed garage was remedied and the
termimesh prepping started.
As long as we aren’t
hit by a sudden rainstorm, which doesn’t seem likely, the slab should be poured
Saturday.
There were a few sagas in getting out of the old abode and disposing of it but I dont want to bore you so will start at Stellar Home's involvement once the block was cleared and pegged.
The first of Stellar's crew embarked upon the task of levelling the block. This was executed quickly with the removal of about 70 tonnes of dirt and round creek boulders. The only gotcha was that about a dozen years ago a massive gum tree was removed by others from the centre of the back yard and unfortunately the several tonnes of stump had been hiding under the back lawn all these years. Started earthworks on 18 April finished the next day. Cost was $25 a tonne + a couple of hundred to extract and remove the redgum stump.
I received a brief call on Friday from Stellar Homes informing me that work would be starting on the foundations on Saturday 20th April. I headed over on Sunday which was a bit showery as was Saturday but they had completed 2/3 of the footings. By the Anzac Day Wednesday the trenches for footings were in.
I called the contractors that would be responsible for the slab and they said despite the inclement weather they were on target for a Saturday pour assuming the weather stayed away. I zipped over Thursday night with my torch and the reo was sitting on the verge and my PVC plumbing was already in place so all is looking good so far.
The house we used as a baseline was the Stellar Homes Mirage as seen amongst the display homes at Blackwood Park. After trying to
change it on a sketch pad and having little success given my limited drawing
ability I decided to give it a go on a medium with which I am a little more
familiar. At the time I was playing around with a Macbook Pro and after
cruising the App Store I found a application that looked the goods in Live
Interior 3d Standard.
Firstly I transposed the Mirage floor-plan into the program, there was no easy way for me to do this just spent some hours
with a ruler and a mouse. Once
transposed I moved a few of the elements around, added a room and managed to size the structure to fit on
our odd shaped block. The beauty of this software is that it can instantly
switch between 2D and 3D without which I don’t think Louise and I could have
envisaged the final product which is now under construction.
I was able to print off the 2D version and
give to the draftsman at Stellar Homes to formalise the design and produce the final
building plan that we were able to submit and have passed through council.
The images on this blog show the floor-plan that we settled on and the 3D representation, Note that the front of the house will be constructed of Tamala Limestone blocks and the back liquorice bricks by PGH.
The last graphic links to a movie made within the application and posted on youtube, this took 15 hours to compile on the macbook.
Louise and I decided back in 2010 that it would be nice to live in a new home. After much deliberating and visiting houses for sale and display homes we chose to build our dream home on our existing block. Despite some concerns for overcapitalising and the whole inconvenience and complexity of demolishing and building we opted to go the whole 9 yards in the hope that we would end up with a house we could grow old in.
We visited more display homes than I care to remember but after a lot of to and froing we chose to build with Stellar Homes. This decision was not taken lightly but it was based on finding a house layout that was promising with the finishes that we loved. Also in Stellar's favour was the fact that a close friend of Louise had built with them recently and enjoyed the experience and also loved the finished product which she happily shares with her partner and their "baby" Mastiff.
