A Flushing Toilet and the Rest of the Roof

Dale is very happy to have a flushing toilet up and working! Up until this point we have had a camping toilet in the shed. Yep one of those toilets you have to empty yourself!! YUCK!!! I did tell him it was worth the money for the portaloo but for under $100 including chemicals we could have the camping toilet and save heaps of $$$$$$ so he decided to have the disgusting job of cleaning out a camping toilet instead!! So everyone is now very happy that our ensuite is currently housing the NEW temporary builders loo. It just needs a door now!! Think I'll wait until I get home.
The second half of the roof goes on......

Better hurry, those clouds don't look too promising.

Half a Roof and a Visit from Dar

January saw the first half of the roof go on.


We've got a real perspective now on what things are going to look like. I've already picked out the spot where the Christmas tree is going to go!

We are loving Eric, one of Dale's oldest friends (not in age in years known :P). He brings so much knowledge to the table. What would we do without him??? Thanks Eric.

Evie loves going to the block - how much more fun to go with Dar!!

Nearly ready for the rest of the roof.

We had a meeting with the slab guys to discuss some of the problems like the slab was too high which affected the back stairs and ramp including extra platforms etc - seems as though they are prepared to fix everything up which is good. They are talking about bringing some dirt in to raise the level of the yard.

What ever happened to that nice man I married???

Oh, that's right he's owner building our house!!!

December was the start of the "real" work for Dale. He left home between 6am and 7am and was getting home around 9pm 6 days a week. I did insist that he take Sundays off as a church and family day, which he did most of the time.

We built the shed in our bedroom - I didn't want to have bolt holes on the garage floor and seeing as we are having carpet in the bedroom no one (except you) will know there are filled in bolt holes under the carpet.

The Home Theatre (really it's just our lounge room) was the first room to get frames.

Then everything seemed to happen fairly quickly after that after all he was there from 7 til 9.

This is the view from the dining room.

Dale took quite a few photos like this one to show me how much he'd done ;P

The home theatre with the ceiling on.

The Dining room , kitchen and sitting room (or the other lounge room).

With Christmas coming and everything shutting down for the holidays we had to order bricks, roofing etc so we had everything ready to go. (This is the best photo I could find all the other pallets are pretty badly chipped!)

We went camping the first week of January so this is how we left everything....

Plumbing, Slab and Two Very Dirty Girls!

November 08 was a busy month. The plumbing was laid (is that the right terminology????).

The preparations for the slab were done and the concrete was poured, FINALLY. Sometime back around August we were told it would be about 2 weeks. There were so many problems and mistakes along the way. Perhaps they meant to say 3 months. Every week it was the same - about another 2 weeks. At last the longest 2 weeks of our lives were over and we only had to wait TWO more weeks before we could start building. Note to self...don't recomend Owner Building to anyone - unless of course you think the buzz of having built your own house outweighs the stresses, dramas and hassles. OK, OK, I still can't believe he talked me into it but it is pretty cool that my husband is going to build us a house!!

We wrote our names on the concrete in the garage but I can't seem to find any pictures :( Dale & I wrote all our names and Evie drew a picture!! The girls had a blast and got incredibly dirty!! I had taken the girls to Sarah's baby shower and on the way home stopped past to write in the concrete (it was quite late about 6pm). This stuff is soooooooooo BLACK. They had good clothes on, oh well isn't that what washing machines are for?????

Concreting, Evie & Leilani!!!

It's October 08 and at last we have some concrete down!! After much discussion and debate about whether we should be having a dropped edge beam or a block wall it was decided that a block wall was the go and up she went.

And we can never have too many pictures of my beautiful girls, even if they like playing (Evie) and eating (Leilani) rocks!!

Tanks, Tyres and Finally the Foundations!

September 08 saw the arrival of our tanks. We had to get them delivered so early because it would be extremely difficult to get them into the backyard once the slab gets poured. Aren't they great, my brand new, dirty tanks.

We got a nice surprise when they were digging the foundations:

Some pictures of that really important stuff that you'll never see again - the foundation metal stuff:


Finally, Evie and Dale - Evie loves coming to the Block SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!

The Bibles & the Kids

We decided we wanted to symbolize building our house on the rock (Luke 6:48) by burying Bibles under each of the rooms. We had 12 Bibles, one for each room. The Bibles were ones we already had at home, some very special ie. our very first Bibles from when we first became Christians. Each Bible had special meaning and were carefully chosen for each room.

Nearly done!!

And we couldn't resist getting some pictures of the girls on the machinery!! We all had so much fun that day!!