We've been away again for a bit over a week this time, and when we got back yesterday we went straight to the site to see what had been done. 

The brick work is pretty much complete. The facade needs to be rendered and the tiles etc need to go on. To say that we need to do a lot of landscaping is somewhat of an understatement! 

The en-suite basins have been fitted. 

The bi-fold doors are in. The black colour is protective plastic. They will be silver. 

They have also spent a lot of time finishing off the plastering, skirting boards etc. The internal doors are nearly all in place as are some of the wardrobe doors. 

This is how it looks from a few doors up the street. 

And So It Goes...My

This is completely nuts! We now have most of our cabinets installed. I drove past this morning and again this afternoon for a peak and couldn't really see a lot of progress. However, on closer inspection after dinner, we noticed that they had been extremely busy!

I have an appointment with our supervisor tomorrow morning. I can't wait to hear what he has to say about the progress. We are very impressed.

The vanity in the en-suite:

Vanity in the powder room:

My beautiful kitchen: 

Liquid copper cupboards:

Getting Our Hopes Up Again!

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!! When we went past this evening, we couldn't believe how much had been done (on a 35 degree day too, I might add!). The brick work is probably at least half done, probably more, and some of our cabinets have arrived! The french-doors have also been fitted to the en-suite, and they have had an all-round tidy up too.

So now, we start wondering..... will the house be finished before we have to move out of here Mid-Feb? 

Here are some cabinets, mostly for the kitchen I think. I can see the wine rack sitting there on top. I hope they are going to fill it up for us! 

Part of the kitchen bench I presume: 

French-doors in the en-suite (and the spot for the spa, which looks a bit small to me, but anyway):

Brickwork almost complete along the back of the house. You can see yesterday's dry mortar down the bottom. Blonde me was worried that we had two different coloured bricks. Oh dear! 

Standing in the back corner looking towards the al-fresco and the street: I am pleased with the way the guttering blends in with the bricks and still manages to suit the tile colour. The mortar is a bit lighter than I would have liked though. In the photo you can see where its light at the bottom where it is dried and darker (and looking better) at the top where it is still wet. 

They're Here!

Our bricks arrived yesterday and already the brickies have done a great job putting them all together in the shape of a house! We were very nervous about the colour, but we love them. However we had a close look at one after everyone had gone home from work and they look like a basic red brick with a nice coating painted on. I guess the take home message from this is that one should be a little more thorough when selecting bricks. We saw a wall of them that looked good and went with that alone. A smarter purchaser would have asked to look at some individual bricks to make sure they were suitable. Anyway, as long as the coating doesn't peel off, or chip, we will be very happy. The plasterers have also been exceptionally busy over the last week or so smoothing out the walls and roof... it looks great! 

The bedroom:

Looking at al-fresco and meals/ kitchen:

Standing in the kitchen looking over meals/ family and into rumpus:

Austral Chocolate:

The view from out the back:

Wondering

I'm not much chop with the horses,

but I am willing to have a bet.

Today I sit here wondering

have our bricks arrived there yet?

Wow!

Well, following on from my observations this morning, we returned this evening to see that the plastering had been almost entirely done in one day. It really was quite astounding. The last time we looked, there was a frame, some tiles, windows and a bit of plastic. Now we have rooms, wardrobes and even the feature bedhead in our bedroom. The only things missing are the back of the wardrobe in our room and a bit of plastering in the bathroom. Adding to the excitement, when I got back in the car after taking the photos, what should be on the radio, but "Our House, in the Middle of Our Street"..... Perfect!

The view from the front, plaster in the garage:

Standing at the end of the kitchen bench, View of family, meals and rumpus areas:

Standing in the lounge, looking into the theatre and through the door to the laundry:

The view from inside the front door:

The view from the back of the living area, looking towards the front door. The wall is the back of the kitchen. You can see the al fresco to the left and the big gap where the bifolds will go. You can also see the front doors: 

In our bedroom:

The Bi-Polar Blog Entry. I'm Happy, I'm Annoyed, I'm Happy, I'm Annoyed!

Everyone said we would lose sleep over building a house, and they weren't wrong! I can only begin to imagine how hard it would be doing it all ourselves. Carlisle really have been very efficient at organising things and sorting out our problems. I received a phone call on Monday from our site supervisor introducing himself and saying that he'd been out to look at our watery mess. He concurred that it was unlikely vandalism and reassured me that the water damage was minimal. What a relief! He also said that he was available anytime should anything like that happen again, and gave me his mobile number. He also said we could ring and arrange an inspection with him whenever we wanted. That's what I call customer service. Very impressive!

On Tuesday I noticed that our 3rd brick selection hadn't been delivered. I was told last Thursday that there would be a 48 hour period before the bricks were released... therefore they should have been there. After all the pressure to reselect in a hurry to avoid any more delays (our second choice wasn't available until mid Nov), this is really frustrating. I rang Carlisle and was told that they are due to be released on the 4th Nov (which is a public holiday I pointed out) and therefore we should have them there by the end of next week. GRRRR, that's nearly mid Nov anyway! So now we will have a brick that probably won't look as good, for the saving of perhaps 1 week? 

I know it is just a week, but I'm stressing about becoming homeless when our lease expires. I asked for an estimate of completion time, and was told sometime in April.... what the....???? Only a few weeks ago we discussed the very slight possibility that it would be finished before the end of the year... talk about one extreme to the other!! 

I know the rental house selling and the completion of our new house are totally out of our control.....and being a self-confessed control freak, I am finding it all a tad stressful!

And finally to end, some more good news. I drove past today as we were a bit early for school, and to my surprise there were about half a dozen workmen there busily doing something with the plaster!