Drilling piles - 2-4 August

A few days later and Tony is back again to drill the piles in earnest. Unfortunately it took two trips – Jared felt we needed to go half a metre deeper on one pile, to make total depth for that point of three metres! Great to have Jared ensuring our 2,500 year earthquake event rating is being achieved.

Setting out piles - 6 August

With poor weather forecast, the team did a small concrete pour in the base of each hole.

The Prolam piles have arrived and Matt’s team have laid these out ready for the full concreting. All the piles are visual grade and they look amazing.

Winter arrives - 8 August

Aarghhh! Wellington in a Southerly storm is not a picnic. The team braved freezing temperatures, howling winds and a site rapidly turning to mud this week. Still they made great progress.

Concrete - 9 August

As Matt says, ‘I love the smell of concrete in the morning’. The piles were all set square and aligned for their bearers, and concreted in place.

Prolam bearers - 11 August

Today the Prolam bearers were mounted to the piles, and they look absolutely stunning.

A rebate is cut into both sides of the top of the pile, and a pair of bearers is mounted on each rebate. Stainless steel bolts go through the bearers and pile to form the attachment.

With polythene down, at least the team are not fighting too much mud as they work.

Kitchen ordered - 12 August

We have been working with Kevin at Palazzo for some months now. We finalised the design by carefully walking through every element.

The joinery is made in Germany and there’s a four month lead time (which gets even tighter around Christmas), so we worked with Kevin to understand exactly when the container was planned to arrive and how the subsequent installation, and bench-top and splash-back builds could be scheduled.

We also needed to confirm some kitchen dimensions as the measurements have to be pretty accurate. Kevin made some last minute suggestions and then our order was underway.

New toby

The relocation of the power pole unfortunately terminated the water toby for the property, and Wellington Water have just put us back on the good stuff.

NZTA control box move - 16 August

Over the last few weeks, NZTA has been preparing to move its control boxes off the property by building a new steel platform beside the Hobson Street bridge (the old one was wooden and not designed to take the cabinets).

Today we found the cabinet moved. Just the concrete plinth to go now.

'L' Bar heaven - 17 August

The commuters start parking around the site on Hobson Street from 5:45am weekdays, so keeping the access clear when a driveway crossing hasn't been formed is very challenging (the crossing is usually one of the last things to be built to prevent it being damaged during construction).

The situation was a bit unusual, but thanks to some lateral thinking by Patrick from the Council's traffic team, we have a fresh set of 'L' Bars to indicate where the parking ends and our driveway begins.

Joists! - 15-19 August

The sun is shining again and joist is in the air!

They really do make it look like floor is on the way (you can’t dance on bearers).

George and Liam

And these are the guys making it happen. Junior, get in the photo!

Engineering visit - 22 August

Jared was back on site again today, inspecting the work to confirm that the bearer connections were to design, and trimmers correctly installed. He specified some increased stiffness for a small area of cantilevered joists, just to ensure vibration would not be an issue.

We didn't quite understand how often the engineer would be involved in this part of the build, but it's now clear to see how key components are checked and approved at each (and very reassuring to know that there is such good oversight).

The ply floor goes down - 22-23 August

A huge pile of 21mm plywood has been sitting on the site for almost a week, but in two days the guys have very quickly turned it into a floor.

First framing - 23 August

Garage door

There have been a number of moments during this build when we have been filled with excitement, and here's another - today the first frames were positioned. Wow!

Front door

Lounge wall

Taking shape - 28 August

The guys have made great progress during the week, despite a little rain (yes, this was taken Sunday). We can see every room, and there are just a couple of window openings yet to come on the south-west corner

Drainage - 29 August

West boundary drainage trench

Who says that drainage isn't cool! Trenches have been dug on the south and west boundaries.

An existing connection to a main lateral was discovered during pile drilling. Now is there a stormwater to match?