Day 1 – 1st July 2013: And we’re off!

The big project’s begun and if we’re to get to the end of six months with our sanity intact and our house built everyone’s going to have to stay on task.

A few of the personnel and roles:

• Architect: Ben Mitchell-Anyon (get in before fame spoils him: call him on 027 715 8127)
• Builder: Tam Matthews
• Chief photographer: Pearl
• Website manager and interiors: Tanea
• Cat security officer and quality control: Betty
• Tidying up after everyone: James

There will no doubt be delays and frustrations along the way but surely nothing like the draggy inertia of working through the consents process (10 weeks for a Building Consent!) and lining up the finances? Then again, I’ve possibly made a bit of rod for my own back by choosing to project manage the build rather than handing it all off to a builder. But if it goes well we stand to save a bit of money to pay for nice-to-haves (like flooring and a kitchen). If not you’ll be able to bid on a half-finished stack of framing timber for Christmas. Or you’ll be invited to click on a link that points to our crowd-sourcing site.

We’ll try to update this reasonably regularly so you can follow progress (assuming there’s progress to update). Any reasonable questions answered. All reasonable suggestions welcomed (I said “reasonable“, Heather).

As you can see, today started with the digger clearing away the vegetation and topsoil. I bought a cheap Chinese chainsaw to cut down the trees (after someone pinched the Husky). It was awesome on the first few trees but seemed to come down with a strain of H1N1 after that. I’ve put it to bed for the night with lots of fluids so hopefully it’ll be up and about tomorrow. Rob’s bringing a backup chainsaw round tonight just in case though.

I reckon we’re looking at 6-8 weeks to get the foundations and retaining walls in place. Let’s see how that works out shall we?

The view from the lawn, as was.

Jim just over the edge.

View from below looking up at Rich and Rona’s.

Hello…

Now we’re talking.

There’s going to be a little negotiation between the trucks and the garage, no doubt about it.