Day 28 - Progress Payment for Slab

Today, as expected we received the Invoice for our progress payment for the slab.  Not too exciting though because it means that our construction loan will start once our lender pays MJH meaning our mortgage repayment will increase a bit.

Haven't heard from my SS so I guess there are no major developments on our site.

That's all for now.

Day 25 - Checking out the Curing Process

Today, I dropped by our site to check the curing process of our slab.

Everything seems to be going okay and no major changes since the slab was poured.  As for the external plumbing, I didn't know how to check if this is done.

Anyway, the fence was open so I was able to go around the slab to have a general idea of how big... or i guess how small our house is. and also to inspect if there are big cracks on the slab.

Our driveway seem to be flat from the road going to the garage.

Enjoy the pics.

Day 22: Surprise Surprise... We have a SLAB....

We all know that the weather in Sydney has been absolutely wet for the past few weeks.  We were lucky that out piering went through last week even of the weather.  

Anyway, this week I wasn't expecting our slab will go through because I was regularly checking the weather online and all I can see was rain, rain, rain and even thunderstorm... so I wasn't really expecting our slab.  Also, I never got a phone call from my site supervisor the last few days.

So today, I dropped my SS a message to get some updates on when our slab will be poured. His reply was "It was rebooked for today".  What?  So, we were not informed about the schedule of our slab which they will normally do.  Anyway, I didn't even argue about not being informed of the schedule but was kinda excited because there is a slight chance of getting our slab poured today.  

So I waited.. waited.. and waited... then at around 4PM today, my site supervisor called and happily informed me that our slab went through.. what a SUPRISE for us...  so I rushed to our land after office to check out our freshly laid slab..  and WOW.. WE HAVE A SLAB!!! 

I guess this is the first major milestone in our build.. This also means that we will see an invoice for our first progress payment in the mail in a few days. 

The only thing that we need to do is to remove the excess soil around the house ($$$$ kaching!! kaching!!!) before they put up the frames which is approximately in 2 weeks time.  

Now we can tell, that our build is slowly getting there.

Day 16: Drainage Plumbing Done; Waffle Pods & Steel Mesh Delivered!

It's been kinda stressful week for us. MDJ discontinued our flooring of choice which means we'd have to go back again for reselection. Hmmm could it be that the profit margin with our brand of choice is not high enough for MDJ? They didn't elaborate on the reason, just said it's for our own interest. Not really buying that lols! Ooopsss i might get in touble here so I'll leave it at that:). We saw this opportunity to explore our options again and  much to our delight MDJ is open to cancellation of flooring without charges. We then set off last weekend to visit suppliers for laminates, floating timber, bamboo flooring, etc. and we found some really sweet deals. There is no doubt we would have saved around 4K or more if we source the flooring elsewhere, but after much thought and discussion we jumped the gun and just went ahead with MDJ. We didn't really liked any other laminates, so without batting an eyelid we went with the new craze that is bamboo flooring. It's said to have a very high janka rating for hardness (way harder than timber) and will definitely be hard on our pockets too (what with another 3.4k variation)! Right at the bottom is the picture of our new flooring - coffee color! It's the most popular bamboo color, we would have gone for something a little bit non-conventional but the other color we liked (brushed antique) might be too rustic for the theme that we have in mind (which is quite frankly as clear as muddy water right now hehe).

And since we are in the vicinity of our property, we decided to drop by and have a look at the drainage plumbing etc that was supposed to be done yesterday. And surprise surprise, waffle pods and the steel mesh have also been delivered! This is taking faster than expected. We should be getting the slab done next week depending on the weather. Woooooooot!!!

Day 14: Piering And Slab Framing

After 6 days and 3 cancellations between, piering was finally carried out today yeyyy!!! It's been raining almost everyday, what a crazy summer. We couldn't take time off work and so we had to rely on our Site Supervisor (SS) to look after our interest on piering measurement. And unfortunately, the inevitable has happened - we exceeded our allowance by 24.4 lineal meter which will cost us another 2K :(

Day 9: Fence and Portaloo Installed!