Eight weeks from slab to windows

I told you guys we were motivated to get this thing built, and I wasn't kidding.  As of last Friday the house is wrapped and windows are in. They're not boxed out or whatever you call it, but they're all where they're supposed to be.

We went with a kind of wrap which means that once the windows are boxed in/out/whatever, the house is technically watertight.  The brickie can be bricking outside and the work can carry on inside at the same time.  Building at this time of year it seemed like the sensible choice.  As I type it's raining pretty steadily, and although the sun is shining in these photos, that was a brief interlude between some pretty persistent wet weather.

Since we're at a sort of juncture in the build, I thought now is an opportune time to give a wee shout out to some of our trades so far who have been pretty stellar, helpful and easy to deal with.  Quite a few of them don't even have a website, which I think is usually a pretty good indication of their skills.  If you're able to run your business on word-of-mouth alone, you must be pretty good at what you do.

Architect: Toolbox Architecture

Builder: Brad Raven

Earthworks: JJT Contracting

Slab: A+ Driveways

Frames and trusses: Timberco

Windows: NuLook

Roof: Central Roofing

Plumber: WC Plumbing

A roof and the beginnings of a shed

We have a roof!

And not a moment too soon.  They finished up on Friday and yesterday the rains came pouring down, with more predicted for... well, basically the foreseeable future.  Now we just need the windows installed and the wrap wrapped and we're watertight!

Isn't it beautiful?? Here's a few more angles!

The very observant or deeply invested among you might also have noticed a "few" pallets of bricks around the place there. Yup! Bricks are here ready to go, and you can't see them but the windows have also been delivered (stored in the garage for now), so (so far...) we're tracking really well time-wise.

We also have the beginnings of a shed, which is desperately needed. The original build plan was to have the shed built first so we could order materials etc and store in them in the shed at the ready, but it just hasn't panned out that way. 

It'll be great to get this thing complete and then I can start ordering stuff like kitchens and toilets and have somewhere to put them! Not to mention emptying cupboards in our seriously overfull current house and bringing them down here. I have already started pulling out and boxing up things that we're not going to need or use between now and moving in. Some may say I'm going a little early, but if my past many MANY moves have taught me anything at all, there's no such thing as starting too early.

The number one most popular question from literally everyone has been, "So when do you move in?"

The short and simple answer is, there's no date. Living onsite, it's not like we have the worry of two mortgages or paying rent. We won't be putting our current house on the market either, so we don't have to worry about a settlement date that we need to be moved out by. That being said, we're very motivated to get the build finished asap. If we move in in August, that would be amazing! If it's September, that's a good result! If it's before Christmas, I'll still be happy!

So, I'm shooting for July.