No concrete today...

...and probably no concrete this week!!!!!!!!!!!

I HATE being told by tradies "we'll be there on xxx" and then they don't turn up.

I was told over a week ago, that we'd get boxed on Friday and poured on Monday. I've just called this afternoon to find out what's happening only to be told (as though I was stupid!) that "it's too hot to pour now!".... Well I figured that!!!!!!!!! but what was wrong with this morning!!!!!!

So now I'm told "maybe Friday" with a "we'll call a few days before" - which I've been told before and haven't received a call yet! I highly doubt that they will be here Friday and I'm on the verge of telling them to shove their concrete, to take their boxing and I'll get someone else to do the job. As it is I've told them that I'm not impressed hanging around for 9 weeks waiting when we were told 3-4 weeks - to which I get told "but we've had rain" but only about a week of rain all up - not 4 WEEKS RAIN!!!!!

**FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!**

The front yard is planted!!

We planted the last of the plants in the front yard and have finished moving rocks (at last!!).



The before and after shot...


It's so great to have most of the plants that we have in the ground now. There are only couple left over which we will transplant into larger pots before their home in the backyard is found - means that we did a pretty good job planning how many plants we needed.



It's hard to photograph at the moment, as there's not a lot of contrast, but when the gravel is put in it should come up really nice.



We've also planted with growth in mind - we have been mindful of how high and how wide each plant gets and positioned accordingly. There is only one plant that I'm not sure of (as in not sure how high/wide) as it's one we've had in a decorative pot for 2-3 years - but we've put it in a place that it can be removed if it does get too big without affecting the rest of the garden too much.

We now have the paving (stepping stone style) and a couple more plants to put in along the south side fence (to the right) and maybe a couple of extra rivercascades along the two front windows.

This is where the paving will go...


We may get to these next weekend but there's no promises....

Next priority will be the back section outside the lounge-room window... This gap in the concrete under the piles of bricks and pavers

Boxed!

The concretors came on Friday and boxed up the areas for concreting. They're due to come back today to pour it and so we've been up early clearning out the garage so that they can get through - maybe we might be able to get two cars in soon....

Back step - from the laundry...


Looking from the rear of the garage...


From inside the garage down along the north side fence...


From the back fence...

A garden... (or part of one at least)

After a full on weekend of digging and shifiting rocks we now the proud owners of our very own rock garden....



It started out looking like this...


...and has become this...


It still needs pebble mulch but that will need to wait until the rest of the area is complete.





As you can see from the pictures, this is only a small part of our (very small) front yard and there is still quite a bit to go. However we did also get the rest of the yard prepped and ready to go as well. It's been weeded and de-grassed, cleared of builders rubble (lots of plaster, conrete, mortar, and brocken bricks), dug and shaped. So when our energy returns we'll dig more holes, shift more rocks and plant the remaining plants and hopefully have a finished front yard in the very near future.

As for the pergola, we have some progress there too... the concrete area is to be boxed on Friday this week and should be poured on the following Monday.

But the BEST NEWS... the council have now issued our building permit for the pergola!!!!


(it would be nice if we could get the car into the garage too... MUCH more sorting to do in there first though....)

Progress!!

Our plumbing problem is now FIXED and we didn't have to do it ourselves!!

After countless calls to the SS he finally gave us the number of the plumber - I think because he was genuinely surprised that they hadn't called us after 3 days and decided that he'd rather I pestered them instead of him. Several more calls to the plumber (well his secretary) eventually resulted in a plumber turning up at 6.45am as promised (very punctual) where he fixed the broken pipe and also added a T intersection (and a riser for ease of access - pipe sticking out of the ground that shows the location) for the plumbing of the pergola/verandah at no extra cost. He was done and gone in less than 20 minutes!

And we also seem to be getting somewhere with the building permit for the pergola (I know - technically a verandah). The guy from the council has just called to ask a few questions regarding out permit (we had to resubmit) and gave me the impression that every was OK so fingers crossed we get the official go ahead soon.

As for the concrete... we are still waiting on that... I think that they were waiting to hear that we'd sorted the plumbing out - which they've now been advised of - and so now we're expecting them to come around and box it up ready for the pour. We've been told this will happen "sometime soon" but I don't know how to convert this from 'tradie-speak' into 'layperson-speak' and so am expecting it could be anything between now and the middle of next week.

In the meantime we have a long weekend coming up - in 'artstitches-speak' this means that Bryan has an RDO and so we actually get 2 days off together in a row - and so we're planning to get that front yard moving along. The plants are crying out to get into the ground SOON!

And just so I don't have another post devoid of pictures... this gives you an idea of the pergola we are getting put on. It won't look exactly like this - ours will have the pitched section to the right and the flat section to the left and will have a mixture of tinted sky-lights and solid panels in the roof.

Waiting...

We are waiting on the builder to sent over a plumber to look at the broken pipes. We're hoping that it's non-compliant and therefore the builders responsibility to fix, if not... then we will do it ourselves (it certainly isn't 4" below the existing ground level and not 4" from the top of where the concrete will be). We have made things easier for them by digging out all around the pipe so fingers crossed they'll do it.

By doing this however, we are back in the hands of the SS and this means waiting... I spent much of Friday calling the SS to find out - each time he resonded with "haven't they called you yet?..." so I'm not sure if it's because he hasn't arranged it or if he's getting stuffed around by the plumber (and the other tradies who are also supposed to be turning up).

In the meantime we did some more digging to get the termguard pipes underground so that the concrete won't be poured directly on top.

The front yard is still a work in progress... The right side (as you look at it) is almost ready for the rocks to put in place and so we're planning to get working on it this weekend... Might have to look at getting some dirt delivered.

We might even have concrete by the end of the week and I could get enough dirt (sorry... soil) to do the garden outside of the lounge room as well. ...oh but that would mean moving the bricks and pavers again.... it's like a puzzle.

Ooops!!!...

This was not part of the plan....

This morning, bright and early as promised, our concreting team arrived
Eeeek! we were still in bed as I hadn't set the alarm and had just yelled at the dog to shut up when I realised that there seemed to be quite a few voices coming from out the front (in addition to the usual yelling of the brickies in an unknown language) and realised that perhaps the dog was actually trying to tell me something *embarrased*

Armed with trucks, digger, tools and gravel they set to work.

At one stage we popped our heads out the door to discover that the downpipe near the kitchen didn't go straight down and the digger had broken the pipe... "no problem... we'll fix it" we were told and we went back inside to our breakfast as one of the guys set about measuring, cutting and gluing poly-pipe.

All fixed (note the number of bends...)

We then had a thought that the plans showed that the stormwater from the garage links diagnally across to this one, under the area where they were to dig next and so we dug up the plans to show them so we could avoid further damage... "no problem... it'll be deeper than we're digging" and so we went back to our breakfast a second time.

Then there was a tap at the door and we were beckoned outside to 'have a look' and were shown this.... "This is a problem... I can't fix this..." we were told...




Apparently our builder doesn't put pipes in a logical place, nor did they bother to bury the pipes below ground level (have I mentioned that I will NOT EVER EVER recommend them to anyone - not even my worst enemy!!). And so with breakfast officially off, a barrage of phone calls commenced...

...to the plumbing commission to determine whether this pipe should have been lower (hard to say - it should be 4" below ground level but what is ground level?... there are so many different levels you could call ground level...)

...to our SS to see what he had to say - not much it seems but apparently he's sending a plumber over to have a look

...to a couple of plumbers to see what this could cost us - I really am in the wrong business... $85 just to come out, $22.50 per 15minutes and that's the same cost whether it's a quote or actually doing the work *ARGHHHH*

After all of this and whilst watching one of the workers fixing the first 'oops' we decided "no problem... WE will fix it!" and so guess what we will be doing this weekend... (I should be out there digging now!)

Anyway.... the road-base has been layed and so now we can get a feel for the finished area - I think it looks big and will be a great size! and it'll look even better when the verandah/roof is put up.

Looking from the rear of the garage...




Here's hoping that we CAN fix this and that things go smoother when they come back to do the concrete.... *fingers crossed!*