Bricks with raked mortar

Just wanted to post a picture of our garage wall so everyone could see what our brickwork looks like. We are quite pleased with the look of the raked mortar and it has really brought out the patterns on the bricks.
The 2nd and third pictures are from the wall of the office.
Though the 2nd picture shows some bricks with a discolouration which we aren't so happy about. It hasn't shown up super well in the photo but Hubby spotted it straight away. It looked like one small batch of about 25 bricks have a slightly different and less contrasting tinge to them. Unfortunately they have been laid in a 4 course high band along the wall of the office. Not a lot we can do about them. Hopefully once the roof is on and the eaves overshadow the wall area above them it won't look so odd. We hope one day to put a spa in this area and by then it will be completely covered over so hopefully it will be less obvious.

They've started

Met our Site Superviser on site on Monday and got to meet the brickies as well. Hello to D our S.S. and to M and G the brickies who I hope will continue to do a fantastic job. It certainly looks great so far. A bit more bad news though is that the person doing the digging for the leech drains has struck clay so we'll have some more $ and decisions to make before they can be put in. blahhh

Well the brickies started on Monday. A little bit of a drama since our windows had not arrived but they were working around it. Windows arrived late Tuesday and a portaloo finally yesterday while the guys had the building companies annual Xmas day off party thingy. So today they should be getting stuck into it.

We also found out who our roofer is likely to be and possibly our plasterer. More on that as it comes up to that time.

Anyone want a bath? Yes we've had a little rain lately.



They've been able to start on a couple of the walls and leave where the windows are to go.
( end of Monday)

Bricks!

Hubby standing at the front door.



These were taken with the camera in my phone.


External face and longreach bricks have arrived on site.
This is what our main bricks look like.
All the solider bricks for under the front window sills are tucked into one pallet's worth.
I'm a bit worried about how pale they all are but Hubby was very keen for this look.




Doors stacked neatly at the front of the block. No sign of the window frames yet.
They label all the steel beams. You can see the ones for the games room etc.


Supposedly our brickie is starting on Monday. We have a meeting with the SS and the brickie at 9am. If no major weather dramas we should be at plate height when they stop for Xmas.

Hubby was told the delays in them starting site works put us behind 3 weeks and that only some trades have 2 weeks off, over xmas. Some have longer.
End date is 29th of May + delays. So at this stage that means mid June.

On a different note we paid our deposit on the cork flooring for the main living areas of the house last Saturday. Yippee. The rest of the house might have to be concrete flooring for a while depending on finances but at least the cork flooring areas will be in before we move in.

Slab almost complete

As the title says.

Garage slab is still to be done but we think the rest is now complete.

Our title arrived May 1st. we'd been in negotiation with the builder for several months previous to that. and finally jsut over 6 months later we have a slab. Yippeee.



Anyway. The slab looks nice and smooth. Weather here is warm but not too warm so hopefully the slab will cure without too many cracks and they will complete the garage section tomorrow( fingers crossed) I guess that means the brickies can start in a couple of weeks. Hopefully they'll have made a start by December. It would be even better if the brick work was completed before the xmas break but we'll see.

I have a sneaking suspicion we might get the same brickies from a house I know someone else is building in a nearby town. Same builder and I would have thought his brickies would have started this week. I drive past his block every day to go to work and the bricks haven't been delivered there yet. I feel quite frustrated for him and his wife. I'm beginning to think the builders want to have them go straight to our job from his. I've just heard that his brickies are due to start next week and I would expect they'd be finished there around about the time our slab is ready for bricks.
Still no portaloo and waste bin for the rubbish which is mounting daily.

Another blogger and HO member suggested that they might do the garage at the end of the build.

part 2

I've tried to take several photos to compare with yesterday.







This one shows the formwork.
It's very rusty looking but I guess it's only surface rust.
They also came today and sprayed with the termite protection chemicals. You could still smell it when I got there after work.


They should lay the main part of the slab on Monday.

Pipes!

Finally today the pipes have been laid. It's been very wet here so I am not too hopeful that the slab will be laid tomorrow. It could well be next week.
We can now get a real sense of the slab size though from the layout of sinks, toilets etc and can also see just how much higher the slab is going to end up being than the current ground level.


Looking across from in front of our main bedroom towards the southern side and our alfresco.


Looking from the corner of the office across to the back, western corner of the house.

Looking down the side of the house. This is outside a corner of the main bedroom. You can see pipes for ensuite, main bathroom and laundry.

I'm assuming the trenches are for more concrete to reinforce sections of the slab.

You can see it was raining when I took the video below as a rain spot appears on the lens.