What a difference a day makes.

On Monday we only had a slab,
On Tuesday we had half a house (refer photo)
Its Wednesday today and I'm stuck in ward 75, so haven't seen progress, but I'm assuming we must be close to being finished.

FYI: That tall bit in the middle is the dining room, with the sitting room to the right (bay window boxed out in the foreground), double story/ mezzanine on the left (second story yet to be constructed)

today's last word go to Dinah (who just happens to have sung a song about a day making a difference):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmBxVfQTuvI

This blog was proudly brought to you by the Auckland hospital wifi hotspot.

looks like rain

This is the forecast for the next week.

We may be having a small building holiday.

A garage?

We had our first council inspection the other day.

The inspector looked at our foundations a little perplexed then asked, “So, is this a garage?”

No, just a very small house.

Though the to-have-a-garage/to-not-have-a-garage was a fraught conversation for a while. Not really for us as we both knew we didn’t want to compromise the site and our budget by plonking one in the only available spot which also happened to be the best part of the site, but more for everyone else who couldn’t comprehend building a new house that doesn’t include snug lodgings for the car.

Anyway, in case we had forgotten: our little house is, indeed, little.

From gore to pour

Our attention was diverted from the initial cut of the building platform to a much more terrifying sort of cut. Henri's scooter and a car had an unintended altercation, and as these things often work out, the scooter didn't come out of it so well.

Luckily, Henri wasn't injured as badly as he could have been, but his handlebar did manage to gore his thigh as he flipped over the scooter. The 50cm gash impressed even the hardened orderlies and nurses, but it's amazing what 36 sutures and some healthy white blood cells can fuse back together. A couple of weeks later, Henri is back shuffling around the building site, albeit now with an impressive scar.

And lots is happening on the site. Our lovely builder Seti and his guys have been digging out the foundations. Unsurprisingly, we did hit rock, but not as much as we feared, and today the foundations will be poured, followed shortly by blocks and then, next week, the slab.

It's all go.

(Also, check out those cabbages in the foreground! (Ignore the towering lettuces that have gone to seed) We are getting to the end of our tolerance for coleslaw, so hands up if you'd like some produce.)