Kookaburra sits on the new guttering

Merry merry king of the bush is he-ee..... 

posts r coming.... lots of pics r coming... stay tuned....

Thanks for visiting :)

Dare Your Dream...

This is a little aside post - on the topic of

having COURAGE & daring DREAMS...

Building a house was a desire / dream for James and I for many many many years... The fact that we are now in the process of achieving this is due to many factors (many little and big "pushes"). A huge part of our journey was the action of stepping out or "opening the door" to this path... it was a very scary step to move forward and actually DARE our DREAM (complete with a sea-change).

Dream (noun)

a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal  

he realized his childhood dream 

[as adj. ] they built their dream home

ambition, aspiration, hope; goal, aim, objective, grail, 

intention, intent, target; desire, wish, yearning

Courage (noun)

bravery, courageousness, pluck, pluckiness, valour,
fearlessness, intrepidity, nerve, daring, audacity, boldness, 

grit, true grit, hardihood, heroism, gallantry; informal guts, 

spunk, moxie, cojones, balls 

So I have been thinking about this a fair bit lately... There are many other dreams I have swirling around in my head. Artistic dreams, personal hopes and family desires... Dreams/Hopes/Desires that I have not even fully acknowledged or written down, let alone shared with others... So many things hold me back from expressing or pursuing them. Its too much to go into much more here yet, but thought to simply share these thoughts briefly and see what response I get...

To explain a tiny bit further - I am currently doing an online course by artist Kelly Rae Roberts that it is very challenging to me personally. Its creating a whirlwind of sorts in my mind about my other dreams that I haven't dared to step out or explore further...  I am thinking about my fears and their effect on my stepping out... hmmm what if?

Below is a quick video of author kelly corrigan (who wrote The Middle Place) that Kelly Rae shared in her post today. It's called I dare you.  




Have you ever chosen to step out and pursue a particular dream inside of you???  have u ever dared to???  What if you did?

So, what I want to ask you / put out there in cyberspace is:  

What is your dream?

This is simply an invitation.... If you like...
Why not voice your "dream" by sharing it below...   
I wonder....

Day 42 - WALL FRAMES provide the 3D experience

Driving down our street today I was actually quite nervous about what I was about to see.

For soooo long we have poured over our plans on paper...  concerned with the feeling of space, the size of the rooms vs having enough of the different living areas in the overall house....  

We tried to be/ had to be clever - we couldn't afford to have a separate hallway wall that hid the bedroom doors from view, extra large bedrooms or a guest wing... especially if I really hoped for a 'study nook', the TV out of the main living area (media room), somewhere for guests at least and and very importantly - an inviting living space (to hang out in together). 

 

 So... the final floorplans had a media room but not too big so that we still had enough room elsewhere for a study nook (media room will double as the guest room) ...  The bedrooms were minimum sized (just big enough)... The laundry went into a space near the garage... The long hallway (which I would have normally maybe avoided) will simply lead out to the 'inviting' living area/kitchen/dining that all face the large stacker doors that open up wide to the Alfresco...

Again, for sooo long I have tried to imagine what these 2D decisions / plans would look like in 3D... what will our 'spaces' be like in reality???

With the wall frames being finally erected, I was about to get a glimpse of this...  the first tangible 3D taste of our new home... hmmm... excited nerves...

Walking around the block, my first impression was that the rooms appeared smaller than I expected. 

I let the kids run up and down the back yard's dirt piles (they were so happy lol!) as I tentatively stepped onto the green framed maze...

Once 'inside' I was impressed with the height of the walls. Thats good for a feeling of space... After walking through (only the rooms not occupied by the carpenters), I began to relax more...

 Just breathe

 

The house is definitely not huge... its not a double story mansion... 

Yet it deliberately planned, thought out and strived for... 

It is a achievement of a dream to build...  

This 'space' is gonna be OUR new home and
the location of our family's sanctuary. 

After work, James joined me on site and we got to explore the rooms together.  How surreal it felt to be standing within the frames of our future bedroom and ensuite... Can't wait :)

As we talked through each space... "here is where the kitchen island bench will be... oh and is the TV on this side or that wall?   Look at the study nook!  I can't wait to see the stacker doors in place...." 

This is the view from the back yard. 

The alfresco is being done towards the end of the build (we outsourced the external concrete as a cost-saving step).  

The area without a frame is for a sliding door from the dining room. 
Next to this is the Media Room wall.

As we looked around, our 6 yr old daughter came in and was calling out into the exposed pipes sticking out of the slab (as one does)... 

Then we realised something...

- in the middle of the Media Room was a pipe... 

...hmmm that's supposed to be in the laundry...  

Turns out the laundry plumbing is slightly out of place... After a stress, and a chat with our site supervisor we are told they will fix it... Whew!  Later, James of course made funny jokes about it not being pleasant if "builders have to fiddle with his plumbing"... Gotta Laugh :)))

So, here is a few more photos to finish up for tonight...  

Photos of the kids of course :) 

Delivery of Timber Wall Frames - Day 41

So, I expected maybe a day or two of concrete drying before the next step... but no there was not a day's rest - with the timber wall frames being delivered to our site this morning.

I took these photos earlier today... 
Our Site Supervisor said the carpenters would have been on-site working this afternoon. The walls are beginning to go up as I write... The roof trusses are being delivered on Friday... And we can apparently expect that the roof will begin to be put up by the end of next week...

Here are some pics :) 

DAY 41 ~ timber delivery  

- these will be the walls of our home very soon :)

the wonderful Slab... 

 the colourful reflection...

...greys, greens, blue and fluffy white...

What a glorious sky today :)

We have also been busy talking light fittings and fans and electrical stuff.  

The electrician officially doesn't come on board until after the roof is up. That said, we instigated an early meeting with him yesterday.  I find it an interesting challenge to decide on elements of our house (that we will have to live with for a very long time) but not actually have a full concept of what it will all look like...  He was a great guy and took all my questions really well... 

Have to leave this post there... I feel like there are heaps of details that I will have to either just leave out or come back at a later stage to fill in... There is just not enough time to blog it all (and still get sleep :)

Thanks for reading :) Let me know if you've stopped by... Cheers :)))

Mountains of Fun!

Just because I have too many photos to choose from and want to post something... Here is few fun photos of the kids playing on the MOUNTAIN of SOIL that was delivered to site yesterday.

To our builders, we promise that they didn't do too much damage :P  - to the soil mountain that is... The kids however - well their clothes were absolutely filthy! But it was worth it to see them playing and having soooo much fun... And it was OUTSIDE, not cooped up in our little rental unit.

Just for a little while... they enjoyed the location that will soon be our new home...

 

Play play play play play PLAY

I simply cannot wait to see them playing in our own backyard...

This past weekend has had some very severe stir-crazy moments.  

Too much noise, way too little unit, normal energetic kids, poor neighbours (sorry again)...  

"How are we going to cope like this for much longer????" moments...

But I have breathed deep breaths and reminded myself to take one day at a time. 

Bit by bit - we ARE getting closer to moving into our new home...  Whew!

Peace :)

Get Out!: Outdoor Activities Kids Can Enjoy Anywhere (Except Indoors)

Drilling, Digging, Concreting - footage!

Thanks to our wonderful iphones (guess who is dreaming of the iphone 4 already) I have some footage of the digging / concreting work on site...

The Slab Work

Drilling and digging the trenches...



Concreting the trenches...


So awesome to watch this work happening... I don't expect everyone to find it riveting viewing - but for us it is such a relief that tangible progress is being made on this dream of building our home!  No longer is it "yet more delays" that had us watching our block of land sitting untouched while we waited and waited for action...

Looking ahead, the actual build may have more delays yet. (hmmm do I be realistic or optimistic!?) However, at least WE CAN FINALLY SEE PROGRESS!!!! Horray!!!!  Its hard to believe that its actually happening - the ground floor of the house is nearly in place and we can walk around the slab perimeter and start to get a perspective of the space... 

Lets hope for things to keep on moving ahead... 

Full steam! Woo Woot

A Firm Foundation...

Hello to all the wonderful friends, family and visitors who are stopping by to read this blog... I want to start by saying how much it means to me to have your presence beside me (in the virtual world :) on this journey.
Building Sanctuary


The past week has seen the Building Sanctuary facebook page reach over 100 'fans'.  This is so encouraging.  Now I don't expect everyone to understand my facination with Social Media lol - but it goes hand-in-hand with gratitude for those who support me.   That said - a big THANK YOU to HG for officially being the momentus '100th fan' on facebook.

I've had quite a busy week.  Work and family commitments has meant that I am only just now uploading and sharing the exciting construction photos of the past several days.
So posts from here will be a 'feast of photos' to catch up... YAY!

To catch up -  
1st June 2010 was DAY 33 on the construction timeline. 

Up to then, our site had been continually rained on... The extremely wet soil and pooling of water around the plumbing meant that the construction work completely stalled. There were ditches of water everywhere...

By Day 33, our wonderful builders stepped in and dug trenches to help drain out the crazy pooling of water...  I think a pump was even involved to get rid of the water...

The result was the soil drying out enough for the next stage of the slab to happen...  What a relief!

DAY 36 (4th June 2010)
This Friday was one of the most exciting for a while.  I turned up early to visit the site and what do I see but trucks and men on site working away... Soooo good to see.  I walked around taking photo after photo - who knows what they thought? But I was not going to miss capturing this wonderful wonderful step :) Here is a few of the many I took...

They were digging the 2m deep holes for the piering and also trenches all across the house site.  The drilling machines were awesome to watch...



The other part they were digging out was the trenches. These trenches ran around the edge of the house plot and also across the site.  The long mesh pieces (that had been delivered to site way back on DAY 11) were placed in these trenches.



I will continue this story soon... can only do this post in bits and pieces ahhh...

Forgive this brief interlude :)))

Ok just one more photo :)))