The Man Cave...

... and the Screw Up

The husband has wanted a big shed for as long as I can remember. Or maybe just as long as our junk started overflowing from the current garden shed we have. Either way, once we found out the maximum size allowed on the block, there was no question - the shed was to be the maximum size possible, no matter what. If it meant we would have no floor cover straight away to get the shed happening, that's what we would do. It would be only fair, given I have been granted the lovely walk-in-robe and kitchen inside the house. Thankfully, we didn't need to make that sacrifice, and the man-cave (shed) was booked in as soon as the finance was approved!

The shed contractor has been slightly hard to manage. The initial contact was great, but trying to co-ordinate him to book in his concretor to coincide with our earthworker so that the siteworks weren't completed and then left sitting there.

We finally managed to lock in a date, booked the siteworks, and then we hit the stump mentioned in the last post. We had the stump removed, and got everything back on track. Siteworks were completed Thursday midday, with the formwork due to be completed Thursday afternoon. Thursday afternoon arrived, so we did our usual site visit to inspect the brick progress and noticed the formworkers were still on site. We popped up to the shed area and immediately noticed an issue.

The husband has designed a thickened area in the concrete to suit future plans, which is supposed to be installed central of the roller door, which is to be positioned directly in front of the driveway coming off the corner road. Somehow, the shed manufacturer had managed to get the long and short sides of the shed mixed up and distributed these plans to everyone without us knowing, meaning everyone's setout was 90degrees out. 

Luckily we caught the formworkers when we did, as they had only set out the external perimeter, but we still didn't like being the ones who had to break the bad news to them. We took them back some beer for the trouble! 

So, concrete had to be put off, and earthworks adjusted to suit the right plan. But we got there. The shed man received an email pointing out his massive mistake, and he has now advised he needs to resubmit the drawing to shire to confirm the orientation, and that the concrete won't be poured for another week, but this isn't a huge issue. We're just glad we are *those* clients who visit site so often, because if we weren't, we may have been ripping up concrete instead of just a couple of pieces of timber!

A visit this afternoon has the slab formed, the plastic and mesh laid, and just the bar chairs needing to be installed, ready for the concrete to be poured!

Happy Man in his future Man Cave

In better news, the bricks are almost finished! If the bricklayers do a decent days work on Monday, they could finish. The roof timbers are ready and waiting, so we may even have a roof starting to take shape by the end of next week! 

Woohoo!

The First Hurdle Has Us..

... Stumped

Well not really, but the issue is a stump. Right on the line of where the footings are supposed to be poured for the shed.

I shall call him Stumpy!

Siteworks started yesterday, and were due to be finished today, but we hit a snag stump. A quick dash out to site to measure the location, indicates the tree wasn't shown on the site plan by the builder, so we think its probably an old tree which had fallen long ago, and was cleared in the builders siteworks, but having been already down, the earthworker would not have known to dig up a stump. So, the shed siteworks company has contacted another local company, which happens to be the same company the builder used for the earthworks, to come in and remove the stump with larger equipment than the bobcat he has. The driveway has been cleared though, and the gravel looks good, even if it is only supposed to be temporary!

Shed Driveway

This will mean we have to put the concrete back a few days, and there will be an extra cost which we hadn't accounted for. All in all, this stump is painful! 

In better news, the bricklayers seem to have made more progress this week than in the past 3 weeks combined!

We now have almost all the external bricks up, and some of the internals. We have a Master Bedroom, Bedroom 2, Study, Games, and the passage wall to Bath, Laundry, Activity (minus the dividing walls between them)

Progress, finally!

The roof timbers have also been delivered, so lets hope that as soon as the brickies finish the roofies are booked to start straight away, so they don't sit there and risk warping.

Tiiiiiimberrrrrrrr!

We also have a new site supervisor who we are meeting with next Tuesday afternoon. He seems to have taken action on a couple of items I've brought to his attention so far, so hopefully he continues and keeps the trades rocketing along.

Fingers Crossed!

My Sex and The City Moment

...Now where did I leave my Manolo's?

One day I will own a pair!

Those who know me, know I have a slight shoe love obsession. Just call me Imelda! I have had to curb a serious habit in the past 6-12 months, partly due to the house, but mostly because I just can't fit anymore pairs in the shelf I currently have them stored in! Its literally overflowing!

Old photo, there are boxes stacked across the top of every shelf as with the second shelf now!

So, it should come as no surprise that the new wardrobe fitout had to have decent shoe storage! Visions of Carries closet in the SATC movie would always flash through my mind whenever I thought about it, and while I don't have that budget, I knew I could work on something more my scale!

Gorgeous!

After extending the WIR many times during the design process, it finally got to a point where I had no more room to expand, so I got to designing various layouts to try and get the pretties stored in a way that did them justice. 

With the double hanging rails and shoe space I was hoping for, I decided Ikea was probably going to be our cheapest option, so I got to designing a custom layout on their PAX Wardrobe planner. There was just one issue, the PAX system comes in set sizes, so we would inevitably be left with 20cm on one end and 10cm would need to be trimmed from the other. Not ideal, but with the husband being a carpenter, it didn't seem like too much of an issue, and for a good price, it seemed like an issue I could deal with.

Out of interest I decided to email a couple of cabinet makers and a wardrobe supplier I found through google, just for a price comparison, expecting pricing to come back cementing the Ikea decision.

Imagine my surprise when one company came back with a price that was only $150 higher than it would cost me to get everything from Ikea, and this involved a custom made-to-measure supply and install fitout plus a 10 year warranty! $150 for someone to do it, and do it well? Yes please! That saves us a trip to Perth with the trailer to pick everything up, and at least 1, probably more, days of frustration trying to get everything to work how I'd hoped!

Our Custom Layout

The style of product we will receive

So, today, I have emailed the wonderful people at Lifestyle Wardrobes to ask them to sign me up, and book it in!

Now, I am on the lookout for a lovely chandelier and a storage ottoman to double as a shoe/sock-putting-on seat!

I suspect this may well become my favourite room in the house!