The big dig!

We're been in our rental for over 2 months now, so it was nice to actually see a start on the block last week.
The excavator moved in and started digging and digging and digging.  We had to go down approx 45cm to comply with the Council's "whim" - I mean "request".  For background on the Council's request to drop the level of entire house, you'll need to refer back to my first post... Ok, OK, I'll let it go now and get on with the build.

Recent wet weather had held us back so we were happy that the hole didn't cave into itself in a catastrophic mudslide.  But instead of lots of nice muddy soil, we hit rock - lots and lots of rocks.  Which is not such a bad thing...sorta!  As the rocks were not joined - ie not a solid rock shelf - we didn't need to drill as that would have meant a hydraulic report (which I believe would have set us back approx $5k) and some (I'd imagine) very expensive special drilling machine.

So the big yellow excavator spent Day 1 moving rock and Day2 and Day3 loading onto more and more trucks to take away.  Twenty trucks in fact.  The builder estimated 30 to start with, so a good result all in all - even if a little on the expensive side.
Site Supervisor (SS) has already met our neighbour - who gave his team an earful of colourful language nice and early on Day 1.  I'm glad we're a few suburbs away so we don't have to hear it :)  Hubby went around to placate her but I don't think that will be the last time he'll need to smooth her ruffled feathers.  Thank God we don't need to drill !

We're meeting with the SS tomorrow to discuss a retaining wall that we now need.  And we have problems with our beautiful stone column that was to be a feature of the facade.  Looks like in all our tos/fros with the Council and squeezing the house plans to comply with floorspace ratios, my column has shrunk.  We're going to talk to SS tomorrow to see what he can salvage - or we may ditch it altogether.  I hope not as my whole dream revolved around that column.

Nothing much going on....

Our house has been gone for almost 4 weeks and still no movement on the site.  Apparently it's too wet to exacavate.  The major rainfall the day after the demolition turned the block into a bog so the builders are waiting for it to dry out before they move the excavators in.

The 10 days of summer-like weather recently wasn't enough to dry it up - and it's raining again today.
Soooo.... I don't think it'll be dry enough for the next few months (Summer?).  However, builders may see if they can start this week - go figure ?

In the meantime, we visited the Colour Lady who was fantastic!  Spend a very fruitful 3.5 hrs with her and selected lots of stuff - I'm waiting on colour samples then I'll pop up on the blog.  Although I did lose sleep over indecision over taps vs mixers...then slapped myself around a bit and reminded myself "Don't sweat the small stuff" - and went with the first-selected-mixers!  It's so easy to lose perspective over some things - I mean who is going to care whether I turn a tap or lift it?

The big old termite-ridden, concrete filled gum came down shortly after the house so we have a clear block (except for the tumbleweeds blowing through now and again).



Our little bog





Looks pretty dry from here



Down she comes