busy bees....

Since I last blogged we have been very busy, to busy to blog infact.
I had the weekend off at Megan's Scrapbooking retreat which was awesome!! It was so lovely to have some time out with friends. I did about 5 LO's that all need journalling. Louise's class was great, I am thinking of giving it to mum & dad for Xmas as I did a LO of them. Lianne's class was cool too, learnt a new technique which shall be used over & over again :) I unpacked into the new study, sort of, it is all stacked in the corner so I can't show yet.

While I was away Scott wallpapered our bedroom & half of the wardrobe; & he tiled half the ensuite floor. He also finished painting all the skirtings & architraves. I don't think he slept at all!
We finished wallpapering downstairs last night & it looks good.

They FINALLY laid our drivway on Monday. Our lovely neighbour was home for the day & took photos for me.

Today the carpet arrived! He finished the bedroom, hall & wardrobe, but not the stairs. He is coming back tomorrow to do them. Scott & I are so excited we just finished moving our bed down there. we are going to sleep in our new room tonight!More drama, but I don't feel like talking about it right now. Night all xx

one room complete!

This is the study/laundry on Sunday. Builders finished, it's our turn now! The cost of vinyl for the floor was astronomical & the stupid guy was having a fit about the ramp, I would think it was easy in lino, but no. So we decided to do it ourselves with that laminate floating floor, it was heaps cheaper!
Here it is all finished on Tuesday with the laundry tub installed.

And what is that? Wallpaper???? Isn't it awesome!!!!

We stayed up until 1am Wednesday morning finishing it, but it looks fantastic! Even put my new desk up in it on Wed afternoon, woohoo!!! What's that through the window? The builders starting on the carport! The driveway was supposed to be laid today but the weather was to crappy :(

crisis number 3 & 4

......sigh......I hate building! I know what you are thinking, why are you in the building industry if you hate building? Because I love drawing houses, but actually making them real is a nightmare! So the latest is.....

Crisis Number 3: The inspector came to look at the retaining wall post (this is dude #3 on our job) & he decided he didn't like some of the stuff that has been signed off by dude #1. So he is making us redo it! Can they do that? they both work for the same place! Apparently they can :( Dude #3 explained & I agree with him, so why was it signed off by dude #1 a few weeks ago? And who is gonna pay for the drain layer to come back & replace the cesspit?

Crisis number 4: The builder promised he would have the interior finished by last Wednesday, that was moved to yesterday, but I looked at it & thought that there is not enough hours in the day to do everything, but they kept saying they would do it. So Scott has taken Monday & Tuesday off work to do the painting & flooring, but guess what? they haven't finished! Scott is really mad. We have the paint & flooring ready to go, but the builders are still down there.

...sigh...

We have plaster

The rain was a bit of a pain today, but they still managed to get the concrete into the retaining wall holes. The inside is coming along nicely, only 3 days behind schedule. The carpet is booked for next Tuesday & this weekend we have to paint the ceilings, skirting, architraves, ensuite walls, doors, lay the tiles in the ensuite, lay the timber floor in the laundry & foyer & wallpaper. So we wont be seeing much of the kids or our beds for the next few days...

My little white boy :)

Tonight Daniel's school Kapa Haka (Maori) group performed at the Howick Maori Spring Festival. This is the first stage of making him Maori, hehe.He really enjoys it as you can see, I think it is hilarious, but also think it is great. Kids these days are so much more confident than we ever were. No way I would have volunteered to do that at 10. (this is my fav pic) I dunno why they are so different, but think it is great. He also has a wonderful reading voice. He was reading all the information signs at Kelly Tarltons to us in the weekend. He put such expression into his voice, reads so confidently & doesn't loose his place like I used to.

I am so proud of him. He is already more than I ever was. I wonder what he shall achieve in life. I can't wait to see.

It was Daniel's last game of hockey last weekend & prize giving. His Team got the 8 a side Team of the year for our club :) Very cool :)

What do we have here......

Yes that is Gib Board & a WINDOW!!!! It is finally looking like rooms. & what's this???? an internal door????? So exciting! Nothing has happened outside of a few days because of the weather, but hopefully tomorrow it will be all go again.

We have a Ranchslider!

It is difficult to take a photo of a ranchslider, so here is one of the digger through the ranchslider. The rest of our driveway was ripped up today & lowered, now the base of the existing green retaining wall is showing so they are gonna have to fix that too. They passed the preline inspection this morning so we have some new gib board up! It is very exicting having a newdouble glazed ranchslider, it is definately quieter & warmer than the garage door.At school tonight Daniel did a performance in his Kapa Haka group. It was really good seeing him up on stage & he really enjoys it.

1 step forward, 2 steps back....

....well it's more like 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Failed our pre-lining inspection this morning. The inspector is making us cut out panels of building paper & fix between each existing nog & stud to keep the insulation out of the cavity. So why did they not ask for that when it was in for consent? I must say I was surprised at how easily we got consent, but it would have been easier to do changes then rather than now. So the builders have pulled all the insulation back out of the walls......

Did someone say insulation?

Sorry I can't hear you! hehe. It is quieter & warmer already & we don't even have windows yet. Isn't it pretty? Personally I would have preferred pink, but this was cheaper so yellow is fine with me. The front lawn a mud bath but we passed our drainage inspection today, yay! Our private drainage was not actually hooked up to the public line so they had to fix that too. In other news....Nicola has lost 2 bottom teeth (need another pic of the other one missing too). And my cousin Amye in Oz, got married over the weekend in a beautiful Burgundy dress.

Man with digger....

Yay our horrible driveway is being ripped up!!!!! It was really interesting watching him using the laws of physics to break the concrete, well I thought so. See where the old garage door is lying down, that is our new courtyard where the spa is being moved to. Man with digger now scraping earth off for new carport & driveway. we found a garden gnome in the dirt. Also my hateful mound of dirt is finally gone along with the last of the Camellia's.