Almost packed for the next move...Not into the NEW house though... :-(

Today we packed 10 trailer loads of stuff (mostly crap) and shuttled it up to the house-sit house.

The owner will be taking all of his stuff out tomorrow and putting it into storage, so we should be able to put most of our stuff in and finalise the clean in the rental house by COB 1Jan09 (Happy New [OLD] House).

We have another couple of trailer loads of boxes and bags of clothes and stuff and a couple of loads of the BIG stuff (fridge, washer, plasma, TV unit, Lounges and the beds. Tomorrow will be a big day, dunno if I will see the new year in...really stuffed after today! Very sore too.

The house we are in now is a small 2 bedroom house with a small garden shed. The house-sit isn't much bigger, but is a different layout - it is amazing how much stuff we have accumulated since we arrived here in Yass in April (this year 2008). A lot of it really is crap, stuff that we are moving from house-to-house just to keep us busy. We also have a tonne of stuff at my parents house in Canberra, half of their garage has our stuff in it.

Will blog once we are in the house-sit - HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone, wishing you all good health and happiness.

John, Tarin, Kalinda, Kevan, Josh & Tommy.

Packing to Move (into another temporary house)...

We originally thought that the next time we packed and moved would be the move into our great new Masterton Mansion.

We are in the process of packing up and moving to another old house here in Yass. This one we will be house-sitting in and just have to pay for our own expenses.

The house isn't any bigger, but we are doing it as a favour for a friend who doesn't want their house empty, plus we can have our caravan and box trailer with us (instead of storing at friends houses) and the kids can play around and ride their bikes on the 1/2 acre block. At the rental house we are in now the kids can't play much outside due to the main and very steep road out front.

We will lose internet access for a short while whilst Telstra does the relocation across to the new [Very OLD] place thus you may be relieved of blog updates for a while.

Hurry up Mark, build our house so we can get out of the old dumps we have occupied for so long already! ;-)

This is the house we will be house sitting at:

Front View:

Back View:

Happy New Year...

John & Tarin.

Plenty of Rain, and still no Excavator !

I am convinced, the excavator dude must have buried himself under the big pile of dirt at our block.

He was due back today, but has not shown up. Just as well, really, it has been bucketing down this morning. So today, he has a genuine reason for not doing his job.

I doubt we will see anyone at the site now until probably at least 5Jan09.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all - if you are travelling, make sure you travel safely...

John, Tarin, Kalinda, Kevan, Josh & Tommy.

The Excavator Has Disappeared !...

...but when will he return.

Mark states he was due each day last week, then it was put off all weekend, with a continuation of site works planned for today. Still nothing. Mark said he would call, but he hasn't. I called him, left 3 messages.

Mark did say the excavator would be on-site "Monday or Tuesday", I doubt very much he will turn up tomorrow - can't get him to the site on normal days, let alone just prior to the Christmas break. Also, the excavator has gone...to who knows where?

This is the same excavator operator that said the ground was too wet to work, but worked the driveway earthworks on the block next door - may have only been raining on my block? It has been dry for a week now.

This will no doubt affect the schedule...

Will update later...

Meeting With The Project Manager (Mark)

Yesterday morning we met with Mark to go through the plan and the design and to discuss particulars around the construction.

Mark said that the pouring of the slab has been delayed a bit. Here is the revised schedule:

- Mon 22 Dec 08: Continue/Complete site preparation. Level building platform.
- Tue 23 Dec 08: As above.
- Wed 24 Dec 08: START Christmas Closedown.
- Sun 4 Dec: END Christmas Closedown.
- Mon 5 Jan 08: Pouring of the Slab.
- Tue 6 Jan 08: As above.
- Wed 7 Jan 08: START - No Activity Planned.
- Tue 13 Jan 08: END - No Activity Planned.
- Wed 14 Jan 08: Delivery of Timber Frames and Windows & Doors.

Yesterday, we also went to the block to whipper-snipper the grass around the fence line (I like to keep the site tidy ;-)

We noticed that the site fencing has been fixed too, it has been extended and goes around the entire perimiter of our block.

The boys decided to play in a nearby huge dirt pile and decided to start throwing dirt at each other while I was whipper-snippering - look what happened to Tommy: NOT HAPPY with these boys!










That's it for now...

It's Never Rained So Much!

We got a call from Mark our project manager yesterday and he said that the Excavator guy will be back on Monday to finish the job. As well that we should have the slab down on 5 Jan 09. The frames arrive on 14 Jan 09.

We are also in the middle of packing at the rental as we are moving to another rental house, we were really hoping we wouldn't be packing 'til we were moving into the new house.

So here's 'til Monday!

No Action Today :-(

The Excavator was supposed to continue today...no show.

The site is dry so the crew must be off somewhere else.

Maybe tomorrow...

JB

Then The Rains Came...('cause we are building)

Murphy's Law, the day after we commence the site excavation, the rains came.

Have never seen sooo much bloody rain.

Rain, rain go away, come back....in 7 months or so (or rain over the dams ONLY).

Even thought it rained heaps, the site looks OK and isn't the mud pit I expected. Here is a pic:











Oh, and here is the new peg I mentioned earlier...1.02m means that the slab is this distance from the boundary, the boundary peg is on the fenceline, which is the short one (below).

Surveyor Has Been Back (in the rain)...

Still some progress, the surveyor had to return to replace a peg that was removed by the neighbours construction clean-up.

Now we have a fresh, clean, white new peg to look at ;-)

Will take some pics of the estate later today...

Site Preparation Has Commenced ! ! !

We got a phone call this morning from our Project Manager, Mark.

Mark said that the excavator had started and that the earthworks will take a few days.

Tomorrow the surveyors will be back to replace a peg that was accidently removed during next door's site clean-up. They also need to do some extra makings for the 3 x Garages as this part of the house is 800mm lower than the main house slab.

Mark also said that we should have the slab by Christmas (that doesn't leave much time) and our frames have been ordered and should arrive either 7 or12 January 2009.

Here are some site earthworks pictures taken this afternoon...



Left: This is of the rear section of the cut. Cut is approx. 1 metre deep.

Left: This is the cut looking towards the front of the block, now that is one huge pile of dirt !

More updates as things progress...

Where's the Excavator?...

Unfortunately the excavator couldn't turn up today due to delays beyond Masterton's control thus no movement on the block :-(

The excavator is scheduled for Thursday...

Site Establishment

Last week we finally had some movement on our land Yipppeee.

We now have a port-a-loo, a fence around our block and the sediment control barrier (siltation). We can't believe we are about to start. We have been waiting for this day for sooooo long :-).

Mark (our Project Manager) said that the excavator is scheduled to start tomorrow (Tuesday) - we are so excited!!!

More pics tomorrow of the level building platform (if the excavator turns up...)