Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I'd probably get murdered by the local farmers if I said this in public, but all this rain we're getting is really hampering our building progress. Things have stalled once again as we wait for enough sunny days to dry out the soggy earth and allow us to pour the slab for the house.

We're near certain to have missed the end of June deadline to lock in the current first home owners grants and boosters. I'm a little uneasy relying on the liberal party to not get in the way of the governments plans to increase the bonuses from $25k to $36k as proposed in the 2009 - 2010 budget.

I'm glad that Utegate blew up in the lib's faces. Hopefully they won't be too eager to cause a double dissolution election.

We're also waiting on pouring the slab for the center aisle of the stables, after which we can put up the roller doors, build the internal stables and I can finally declare it done.

Then there's fencing.....

I just want to be making progress!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Stable Nears Completion

I'm quite proud to say that the stable block is essentially errected. All that remains is installing the roller doors and doing the internal fit out to make it habitable for the animals.

Alas I don't have photos of the completed masterpiece yet, because the weather has been terrible (well, good in a way... we needed the rain). I'll grab some shots when I can, but can assure you that the 'sandbank' cream colour of the walls which I'd shown before are wonderfully offset by the dark blue-gray 'iron stone' guttering and flashing.

On to the house!

Hopefully if there's a break in the rain the slab will get poured this week. It's amazing to think that we're only just now getting this done, a year after the kit was delivered to the block. Suddenly we're racing against time to ensure we get the most in our 1st home builders grants and such. Its required that the foundations are laid before the deadline at the end of June.

Over the recent week I've had two of possibly the most physically draining days of building. The 1st was laying 250m of power cable (in conduit) from the building sites to the front of the property. In the rain. Trudging through sticky red clay mud. The 2nd was using a petrol engine powered 250mm hydrolic auger to dig fence posts in the same conditions and soil.