Quiet moment

We've gone away for a couple of weeks so there will be no update. Here are some pictures taken before we left. We wonder what will be waiting for us when we get back...

Cement is running

The cement has started to run... Here is the ground floor going down viewed from the old stoep. The pillar on the right is where the kitchen stove will be (behind it).

Quotes have come in for the different windows. We had originally decided on top-opening windows but decided to change that to side-opening. It's going to be more expensive but we think it will look better.

Foundations in

View from the North-east corner. The first pillar is going up today. The foundations have been built:
And they have started rebuilding the walls they demolished last week. Much better...

A major hiccup!

Just as we got things up and running again after the plan approval delay and the fierce winter rain storms, I am informed on Thursday that Council have "lost" two vital pieces of paper to do with our flat plan submission: the signed departure form of all three neighbours being one of them. Getting those signatures was nearly more painful than childbirth! And now we have to do it all AGAIN! So I duly contacted all three, and managed to get two signatures by 7pm last night, but guess what, Mr No.4 now refuses to sign! Short of pulling out all my golden locks, I really don't know what to do. Mr No. 4 says he needs to wait until the house is built to see the impact on his view. He is depressed, he says, watching the scaffolding going up and realising what they will be faced with. Argh.......

Not half as shocked as we are to see half the house disappearing before our very eyes. Having to remove the old style concrete beams over the windows has resulted in the builder having to break down more walls than originally anticipated. The builder says it is easier to break it all down and start again. See Stef's latest pictures. We will keep you posted on developments with the neighbours.

The other alternative is to keep the flat where it is, spruce it up a bit, demolish the prefab garage, knock down the Jakanranda tree with tree house and build carport and forget the idea of wanting to reclaim some garden for the boys to run around in. Oh bother I think I feel like crying....

New Site Office

Seeing that the current site-office is in the flat, at some stage they will run out of space. So we now have a temporary "shack" above Walter's room. There is even a jungle gym to play on on top of the garage should the builder want to.
Great view from there!

Going, going, gone!

They started taking the roof off on wednesday and by friday there was nothing left. We now have a huge pile of tiles "Made in Holland"

In before Christmas? What a laugh!

A fellow colleague from UCT walked past our house one Saturday morning while we were conducting the weekly family inspection meeting (us of the house and the boys of the sand heap)and commented that she did not know why clients insisted on being in their new houses before Christmas. I think I see her point.

We have been delayed for three weeks now waiting for our plans to be passed by the Council. Admittedly they have delivered as promised : 10 working days later we were notified via SMS that they were approved (see Stef's post). Unbelievably there is only one man in the whole of Cape Town who can sign off the plans and our plans were sidelined as he apparently attended meetings on the 2010 Stadium. The building inspector was not interested in visiting the site without the approved plans being physically on site.

The lesson learnt from the last depressing three weeks of little to no progress on the house, has been that if you want something done, no matter if you don't know the process, find out what it is and DO IT YOURSELF. Then you can't blame anyone else. Perhaps I am remembering my days as a professional QS working in industry "through a rosetinted fog", where performing one's professional duty, meant attending to the client's needs and meeting deadlines no matter what. Somehow I missed communicating the urgency of wanting the plans ready for approval before the builder started on site. That steadily changed to before the end of May, and by the end it was mid-June.

Not only have we been feeling down and despondent about our lack of progress during the last three weeks, but the builder and his team have also suffered. Hopefully we will be able to recover our gung-ho spirit from the start of the project and make up sometime while we have this beautiful sunshine. Even the boys were complaining that nothing had changed.

Now we start the battle all over again for the garage/flatlet...

At last

Here is the SMS I received from the council this morning. We were worried that another week would go by before we get approval. Looks like the roof could come off this weeks once the building inspector comes around tomorrow.