Check, check again and again and again.

When dollars are tight you can't afford to make any mistakes.  I learnt a valuable lesson today - even when you think something is right get your builder to check it and then check it again.

Just as James clicked the send button to the place the hardwood flooring and decking order I decided to compare the provisional cost indicated in our quotation with the final price received.  As soon as I saw the prices, $4500 vs $5900, I knew something was amiss.  We were getting an exceptionally good price and I had expected it to be way under the provisional cost than over.  In fact some of the other decisions I am making are based on that I am expecting to be under, rather than over budget on the timber used.

As soon as our builder arrived I mentioned this to him.  It was decided that it might be a good idea to re-measure now that the framework is up.  Thank goodness we did as the original measurements, taken off the plan, were incorrect as the laundry and powder room had been included.  They should not have as they will be tiled with nice penny rounds.  It also became apparent that the flooring for the kitchen/living area had not been factored into the original quote as the builder had assumed there would be original flooring that was usable - not too happy about this but need to look on the bright side that it could be a whole lot worse if we weren't getting such a discount.

This certainly gave me a wake-up call.  I've been coasting along assuming that the builder will get it all right.  The fact of the matter is that mistakes do happen and I need to get on top of things to ensure they don't. We've decided to get up early in the morning and do a bit of measuring and checking to make sure that since the frameworks up that all the doors and windows are in the right place!

Guess it pays to be living on site!

Progress report

Coming home from work each day at the moment is almost like Christmas morning.  There is something that's exciting and has cost a lot waiting for us every single day!!  We returned from holidays   without too much having been demolished, however a couple of days later John the Digger Man arrived.

And he dug.

And he dug.

And he kept digging until he removed four layers of concrete!  This was considerably more than the initial layer of concrete and a layer of bricks that was expected to be there.  There were layers of tiles, more layers of bricks and more layers of tiles.  And then they hit paydirt - rock! (on the other side of the hill we live on is the old Windsor Quarry so rock was expected - thank god we decided against a pool for the rock reason) Twelve truck loads of fill were removed - so that's the first cost variation!

Following all the excavation we had a few days delay as the timber order for the retaining walls and flooring joists was delayed.  However, it was very exciting when it arrived and a big thank you has to go to Bretts Hardware at Windsor for the great prices they are providing.  

Apparently he was a super duper delivery driver because it was a tricky delivery that he got spot on.  We're on a hill and trying to place large, heavy pallets of timber as far as possible up a steep driveway with a swinging crane is no easy task.  I watched this and then thought of the effort Ross and Shane will have to make carrying it all up the back and blessed my cotton socks for my air-conditioned office.

Plenty more has been done but it's taken me about 2 weeks to finish this post - so it's going up now like it or not!