Never A Dull Moment

The house is looking fantastic. We are so excited! Yesterday the front door went in. The guttering is done and they have almost finished wrapping the house up like Laura Palmer. 

We got a phone call last Friday afternoon saying that our brick was unavailable. Apparently they have been having problems with it cracking.... So we spent last weekend trying to look at bricks. I emphasise the 'trying' bit. It's almost impossible. One would think that most people building houses would need to look at bricks and tiles etc on the weekends, and that would be a sensible time to be open. They obviously don't concur. Boral were completely closed for renovations (as was another brick place when we first looked). They are either closed, renovating or in the process of moving. It's extremely difficult to look at bricks without driving all over Melbourne. We did manage to inspect Austral Bricks on Saturday and found a brick there that was satisfactory. My eyes kept going back to the original choice though. It would have looked great, but it was no longer an option. Anyway, we've finally settled on Austral Maize with Natural (grey) mortar. I really hope it looks OK, but it won't be seen from the street due to the facade, or from the al fresco as it will be rendered. All in all, its going to cost us ANOTHER $1000. What's another $1000 really, apart from the fact that it's happening a little too often for my liking, and they're adding up into something monstrous!

Another concern is that the house that we are renting while the building occurs has been put on the market. I am terrified that our place won't be finished and we will have to  move somewhere for a few weeks in the interim. Not only will that be a lot more work, it will be extremely disruptive for the children, who have already had a couple of moves in their short lives. At least once we have our own home, we will be able to stay put indefinitely and offer them some stability. 

As I said in the last post, the rate of progress has been exceptional to date, and if it continues in this way, we may have a house by the end of the year!!