Released to Construction

Well I got a phone call this morning from Richard at Statesman, they where missing a signed variation form, and he needed it as soon as possible because they want to release us to construction this Friday !!!

I knew exactly which form it was; the $38,000 footings one!

So as I had to go in to the city today anyways I thought I would drop them off myself. This gave me the chance to talk to Richard and express my concerns about the placement of the sewer line. It goes diagonally across the front of the block, if they do this we won't be able to put in a retaining wall where I want to. So he drew line and said "sewer here" and I signed it. Will wait and see if I get charged a $250 variance for that!

He said they are currently at about 3 weeks til they start once it is released. So if I am really lucky we will get something started by the 7th of September. I go back to work on 14th, so I will be very excited if they start before I go back to work. Thats all I want. He did say they are building them alot faster at the moment also. I wonder what that means :) dare I dream that we might be in by Christmas????

Bathroom tiles

While we where at Hickinbotham freaking out about the footings I took some photos of the selections we made.


Door handles in the bathroom and kitchen.


Floor tiles in the bathroom, laundry and ensuite.


'Feature' wall tile in the ensuite and bathroom. One wall will be this tile the other three walls the white tile. The weird sploches on the tile are the reflections from the overhead lights.


Bathroom wall tile in a display home.




I said to my hubby on the weekend that I wanted to go to the display home again, just to remind myself what all this heartache was about. We went out to Seaford to see a display home that was built using the bricks we have chosen. Sorbetto



We then drove a bit around the Seaford estate area looking for a house that was being built that was the "Adelaide". As luck would have it there was a house for sale that was open, that was the Adelaide !!

We went in for a look. Hubby and I got in to the ensuite shower together. Yep plenty of room in there for the two of use!! That was a big concern to him.....

The kitchen had the pantry that we are having which was good to see. So I felt a little better.

Just have to hope they get building soon!

The MASSIVE footings cost.

So several things I suppose since the last update.

Where to start.....

The first footings report came in at $16,000 with an added $11,500 for soil removal. We where like WTF! So we went in to Hickinbotham/Statesman and talked to the Engineer guy who does all the pricing for them and what not.

He said if we lower the garage by 600mm this will raise the level of the house and the soil removal should drop down to about $2000. So we said "Ok lets do it"

We got a variation cost of $5000 to drop the garage down 600mm, but we figured since we would get $9000 back from the soil removal we would be $4000 in front.

We got the second Engineers report $28000 for footings, and $2800 for soil removal !!!!! !!!!

I can't put in enough !!!! I was depressed, angry, upset, despondant, frustrated you name it I felt it. I almost felt like laughing manically. It couldn't be true could it!!

So we went in to see Tom the engineer at Statesman. He outlined that they had to put mesh in here, had to pour extra cement for the steps in the garage, had to do two concrete pours, one for the top layer and then one for the garage. They had to put in extra mesh around the garage and that because the front of the house is now slightly higher then before there is more fill so they have to put in these 900 deep piers that cost about $1000 each and we need 9 of them!!!

And we still need massive retaining walls around the side and back!

So what retaining walls do the neighbours need? are they up against our block? says she who knows the neighbours are also building with Hickinbotham. Oh they don't need any retaining and there footings are $16,000 total. They have a perfect cut and fill, there house sits pefecting on the block, couldn't have picked a better house design if they tried!!! ARRGGHHH they have a two storey house, seems that we would have been better of building a 'squat' two storey house. So we toyed with this idea for a moment........

Since two storey houses start at around $200k and we would have to sign a new contract and start all over again with council approval etc that wasn't really an option.

So we *sighed* and signed.

I bet you anything they hit rock :(