24/07/2008 IT STARTS TAKING SHAPE Cracking day. Sun out and everyone working at full steam to strip and stack all the shuttering from the first floor columns, walls and upstand and garage falsework. The columns with the paperbacked WISA board came out perfect. The ones with the more expensive stuff weren't so good. The upstand is fine and the underside of the slab looks great. It's surprising how much difference it makes taking down the falsework. It's starting to look like a building.

22/07/2008 THE DAY WE POURED THE FIRST FLOOR WALLS or as Bob would say - THE DAY FROM HELL Nice dry day. Pour due for 10am eventually started at half one due to late pump and bureaucrats! This gave us more time to check that everything was sufficiently braced. In the beginning everything seemed to be going well....but that's no fun. You need drama to make a day memorable, and you can rely on high flowing concrete leaking to provide it. First challenge - grout loss from the bottom of the lift pit. Soon sealed but it shows we have weakened the forms too much by cutting grid out for retro fitting waterbar. More bracing needed - inside and out. Next the sloping wall to the left of the site. The lid blew letting a metre or so of concrete flow away. What was surprising was that we were pouring 20m away when it went - that's how dense this stuff is. But these were easy, we needed a bigger challenge. Bring on the exploding corner block at the back of the lift shaft. No warning just bang - Polysteel and ply shuttering shattered. Concrete thought it had won but it reckoned without International Rescue - Bob, Maf, Willy and Steve will not be beaten. And win they did, rebuilding the corner and carefully controlling the rest of the concrete. International Rescue 1: Concrete 0. It is now 8.45pm and our faithful workers are re-charging their batteries with a curry. So a big thank you to Bob, Willy, Maff and Jack; to the Hanson team - drivers, batchers and the incredibly resilient Paul Baker for their patience with us; to Steve for operating the pump and putting up with the long waits in between deliveries. And finally Trevor for instantly getting the extra acro props International Rescue needed to save the day. WHO CARES WINS!

16/07/2008 COMPLAINTS DEPT. Message received from complaints dept. Apologies for not updating website more frequently. If we were true builders we would have found someone to blame by now but it's taken so long there's been no time left to update the website. So it's the builders' fault for being faultless - nearly. Since Bob's birthday we have: Recovered; Resolved the water bar and waterproofing problem; Got good support from PUDLO waterproofing (David Ball Group); Got fantastic customer service and support from Hanson; Got most of the Polysteel retaining walls up in the Granny Flat; Got most of the columns up in the granny Flat; Delayed the wall and columns pour due to predicted rain - again; Learned Willy (Crocodile Dundee) is a sex God; And enjoyed ourselves.

05/07/2008 SETTING OUT THE FIRST FLOOR 7am start for Bob and Nathan setting out the first foor slab - now that's commitment. Bob's 50th tomorrow!

03/07/2008 THE DAY BEFORE WE POUR THE FIRST SLAB Maf and Verge working late again - 9:30 tonight, 8:30 yesterday - good old fashioned hard graft to make sure all the steel is in before the 11am deadline tomorrow. Verge has broken the record for hours worked in a week - 56. He's kept smiling and mad others laugh - especially with his steel tying. Thanks verge.