The pile driver arrives at last

We managed to hold up the neighbourhood traffic today getting this massive machine on site. It has to drive wooden piles up to six metres into the ground to anchor the house foundations. Notice the rare sunshine - has been a great week so far.

The builder's dog

This is Paddy, the builder's dog. J and T are fond of donuts so we took some today for the builder's afternoon snack. Paddy was also keen on the look of them.

Toothless

There has been a lot of activity on the site in the last few days but not much is visible. Lot of below ground action - our extensive drainage work is now finished and pile driving for the foundations should start any day (but we have heard that before!). There is more visible action at home with J finally losing his two front teeth - both have been threatening to go and have been hanging on by a thread for days.

The Beige Box

This is our current rental. It is very beige - the walls, carpet, kitchen cupboards, curtains etc are all shades of beige. And we don't think it has any insulation. Still it is very handy to our building site, sunny and cheapish. Which is all good.

128

We bought these funky numbers from Artikel. Which must be a funky shop if they spell its name like that ... now just need the finished concrete wall to put these on.

The Eel Family Logo

Causing A Fence

The 40m fence, forming the west boundary between 128 and the next door park and play area.

The green structure in the background is part of a six-apartment complex. Two have been built and have been on the market for some time.

The Junior Eels (Elvers)

Taken on a recent trip to Napier. J and T are currently sharing a room in the new rental. This is fine for about 90 percent of the time, with 10 percent turf war. They are looking forward to having their own room again soon.

Work starts. Rain starts. Work stops.

19 July 2006. This picture shows the site excavation (and the weather) on the first day of real work at 128. Looks much bigger with the grass gone.

Our place

Background - 19/08/06

In February 2005 a flat piece of land in Brooklyn, Wellington came on the market - the last piece of an old family farm in the area.

We were interested in it so put in a tender along with 11 other people. This was an opportunity to realise a dream of building our own house. Our bluff was called when our tender was successful.

So we swung into action - found an architect, got that process underway, and sold our house to determine our build budget. Luckily our house sold quickly, for a good price in a buoyant real estate market.

We then became renters, fortunately finding a house in near proximity to our building site. Unfortunately, that house sold after a year, and we are now in our second rental while our house is under construction. This second house is just down the road from our site, which we drive, cycle or walk past every day.

After finalising plans for our house (see concept above) we got quotes from builders. After recovering from the initial shock of the prices we went into a period of negotiation and finally settled on a fixed contract for the build. Through this period, resource and building consent was obtained from Council relatively easily - compared to some horror stories we've heard.

While all this sounds as though it happened quickly and easily - in reality it has been slow and, at times, stressful.

We've always thought we were organised people, but when the 'system' delays and confuses you as a consequence of the bureaucracy involved in the pre-build process, you tend to get a little frustrated.

Anyway, that's all behind us now as we started building just over a month ago (July 2006)... about the same time as the wet weather hit Wellington for what has been one of the crappiest winters for many a year.