Under-slab plumbing and drainage...

I know... as if that title isn't captivating enough...

But yes, the under-slab plumbing and drainage was put in on Friday... so we will be able to drink water, wash clothes, shower and, ahem, 'flush' :)


































More bricks delivered for tomorrow's 'bricking in'... ie creating a perimeter of bricks for the slab to be poured... how good is my building terminology coming along ;)
















And... an impressive pile of dirt now gracing the front yard...

Making up for the rain delay...

Hola!

Quick post before I head to Sydney...

Now that we FINALLY had council approval and our builder got stuck in... what should happen but South-East Queensland experience unprecedented flooding for this time of year... hurrah!

So just when the slab prep, etc was to happen, down it came...

All week...

Pauly was waking up every morning cursing the weather...

So we lost another week and then had to wait for the site to dry out... Fortunately we live in sunny Queensland and it's never usually too long before the sun comes out again...

Yesterday the boys were on site again and worked double time it seems... I'm not sure what this stuff is called, but Paul tells me the pole things sticking out of the ground are called 'rio' as in reinforcement, I think... and the cement poured around the perimeter is for the 'footings'... or something like that...

At the back you can see the bricks and the rainwater tank that was delivered during the week. The house takes up so much of the block, it had to be delivered now, as it wouldn't fit down the side once building starts...

So, there it is... you can see the perimeter of the house/garage/front door now... doesn't leave a whole lot of room for the puppydogs... oops!

Kitchen splashback and laundry feature tile...

As per the previous kitchen post, we'd picked the cupboards/benchtop, etc, but not the splashback... so we trotted back to our friendly tile man and had a quick squiz...

Paul was keen on the clean, plain glass look, but it was a bit more expensive, and I was keen on a bit of mosaic action... nothing crazy, but a bit old-school and a bit funky... and a little bit of colour...

We had a look at different colours and wanted to go with something that would match our fairly neutral taupe/bone/caesarstone stuff... However, our tile man said 'what about this?', showing us a multi-coloured glass mosaic tile, that had bits of taupe/bone/neutrals with some slightly green and slightly purple ones... quite similar to our 'main bathroom' tiles...

I said, 'yeeeeeeeeeahs, that'd be perfect'...

Pauly said, 'erm, it's a lot of colour'...

I said, 'Not really, the colours that are there are kind of what we've chosen throughout the house, it's still a pretty neutral tile, it's only a small area, and hey, we want a bit of colour in there...'

Paul said, 'Erm, yeah, I guess so'... though he didn't sound thoroughly convinced...

Tile man says, 'I can give you that really cheaply, because it's return stock, I wanna get rid of it'...

Swwwwwwwwweet...

Okay, I know we shouldn't just go with something cos it's cheap, but a) it was pretty honest of the guy to say that and b) it will work really well...

Paul was pretty convinced I think, but just to make sure we looked at some 'alternatives'... There were some crazy glass with 'brocade' type patterns behind it that Paul was sort of into... Again, I think it's like funky wallpaper, dining room chandeliers - all a bit 'in vogue' right now, but will easily date... Plus, brocade is fine for dining/lounge, but kitchen?

So, we went back to this one:
















Not too crazy I don't think? Besides, we are having some funky green pendant lights over the breakfast bar, so it'll work with that too...

In looking at other tiles, I found these gorgeous rustic feature tiles and before I knew it, I was almost getting a whole new quote for the ensuite ;) But alas, I calmed down and said, 'maybe we could just have a little bit of it in the laundry or somewhere... just nice to have it somewhere you know?'

So, just as a single feature tile above the wall tiles, we'll have this... Frankly, I LOVE IT!

Block cleared and cut

With no time to waste, our aweseome builder got cracking on Friday...

At 7am, trucks and a drot? were in action - stopping/slowing traffic... and we didn't give a damn!

The block looks great - cleared, cut and it already feels a little 'higher' up than in the flooding valley/lowest point in the street it was...

I popped in this morning on the way to work to take these snaps, and some of our bricks were being delivered:

Bring on the build...

Council approval... at last!

After 20 weeks! (to the day!) since we submitted our plans to council, they finally gave 'verbal' approval... so our builder is rarin' to go...