We have signed the building contract ... so now there is up to a 3 week wait while estimators do their thing creating work orders etc, and then up to another 2 week lag ... but the point is, within 5 weeks someone with a big digger should be doing some digging on our site.
The H-class soil "surprise" ended up costing us about an extra $8.5k, but in spite of this we've managed to stretch the budget to include the deck in the initial build, as you can see from this photo of the plan.
The (roofless, merbau) deck was about $5k more to add after, than to include in the build. We umm'ed and arrr'ed, but given the drop off the alfresco and the fact that we have a particularly adventurous toddler, in the end its just better all round to put it on from the outset.
I am getting my solar tube in the kitchen ! And we had a flip-flop (again) about the family room floor covering. We compromised and have tiled along the stacker doors, but left the bulk of the floor carpeted. Considering we were thinking we'd put a big rug down anyway, and tiles were going to be another $2k just to cover with a rug, it just made sense.
And a few elevations (back of house and west side)
and front and east side (note, the deck isn't on these elevations, but you get an idea of the drop from the bottom one)
There has been much debate about the placement of our solar panels. The issue is, the roof space that points to north is not suitable for the panels. So we could extend the roof over part of the deck, but that was going to be an expensive exercise (plus it would block some of the northern light to the rumpus room), and the solar people suggested a westerly aspect was the next best option.
So...it will probably be another month before I am back for another update (the wheels of this industry sure do turn slowly, feels like we've been getting ready to build forever!). But hopefully my next blog post will be accompanied by a photo of a block that no longer looks like a rainforest and has some machinery on or near it ! Definitely getting closer now.
