We have a Pool

Well, a hole in the ground at least.

Things have really started to move now.

The site has been scraped


and we have a hole in the ground which will become our pool


Apparently they will be concreting the pool tomorrow and then next week they are planning on pouring the slab.

It's great to see some action at last. Let's just hope it keeps moving at the same pace.

Good News at Last

Well we finally had the news that we have been waiting 10 weeks for. We have got Coucil approval. This came through last Tuesday and then on Wednesday the builders were out there scraping the block. We now have a block of dirt rather than grass :)

We had a site meeting with the builder on Sunday morning to go through a few decisions and have a look at the house layout. The builder had staked out the approximate outline of the house so we could get an idea of it's placement and size on the block. It's really hard to get a true perspective of the size without anything there to guide you and it all looks so small. I'm sure it will all be OK though.

Anyway, the plan at this stage is that the surveyor will be out this week to survey exactly where the slab is going to sit and then next week on Tuesday they start to dig out the pool.

It's great to see that something is starting to happen, even if it is only a scraping of the block!

Frustration!!!!!!

Well the frustration is building more and more. It's just a shame that it's not the house that is building!

Our plans have been in council now for about 10 weeks. As far as I'm concerned this is a ridiculous amount of time. Especially considering we used a building certifier. Our builders have spoken to the council a few times about this but never get a very satisfactory response. It almost sounds like they haven't even looked at it yet!

Is it any wonder there are housing shortages when things like this take so long.

Anyway, vent over now. I guess I just go back to waiting.

At least in the mean time we have been able to get out and about to look at bathroom fittings and tiles for the pool. Hopefully this should keep us relatively sane.

Home entertainment setup

Well I am getting myself really confused with how we are going to set up our home entertainment systems. The pic above shows the floorplan of where things are going to go. Hopefully those smart people over at Homeone can lend a helping hand.

The plan at this stage is to have a drop down screen, projector and in wall/ceiling speakers in the media room. In the Lounge room we will have a 50” plasma and all the AV equipment in our entertainment unit. We will need to run cabling between the 2 rooms.

Now I just need to get my head around how it will all fit together.

Not much too report

Well, it seems to have been an age since I actually updated this blog and the reason behind this is that not too much has happened. In the last couple of weeks we have submitted our plans to council and are now just playing the waiting game. The plans were submitted by our builders through a private certifier. Apparently this is supposed to speed up the whole process, but we will just have to wait and see.

As part of this process we had to get a relaxation statement signed by one of aour neighbours. This is because we will be building the garage right on the boundary. Fortunately our neighbour had already been warned that this was likely to happen and had no issues in signing the application. At least that's one hurdle we have got through.

I am now just wanting to get started on the whole process. With all the rain we have been having up here in Brisbane I seem to have to keep going to the block to make sure the grass isn't overgrown! The sooner they start building the sooner I don't have to worry about the maintenance.

Anyway, in the meantime it gives me opportunity to investigate our options for air conditioning and home theatre set ups. The problem here is that the more time you spend researching, the more expensive it seems to get.

Mitchell Alexander has arrived

Well as I mentioned earlier in the blog we were expecting our first child. Well he finally arrived at 4:10pm on the 14 January 2008.

Nicole and I are both ecstatic at his arrival and understandably our focus on the house project has shifted somewhat. Fortunately we are at a point where we are just waiting for things to happen!

About the house

I thought I would just give you all a bit of an idea about the house that we are planning on building.

Here are a couple of 3D images of what the house might look like from the front:

and the back

Downstairs we have the double garage, study/guest room, kitchen, laundry, dining, family room, media room/lounge, large deck (corner stacker doors from indoor to outdoor), and pool.

Upstairs we have 3 medium sized bedrooms, 1 large master bedroom with balcony, large WIR, and ensuite, second bathroom, sitting area.