Foundations, plinth and slab done

Ready to go up!
The conduits for the electric wiring and gas are installed.
Slab down.
Greyton was in the upper 30s today and sweltering.
Kath and I visited, dropped off gates and fireplace, and had lekker lunch.

Foundations Done!

The foundations have been dug beautifully and bricks brought on site for the plinth and pillars between the sandbags :)

We spent a fun week-end at the Hippo and visited the plot.

The dig starts!!

Richard has started to dig the foundations!

Dealing with a hierarchy of contractors is challenging.

Andy the main contractor
Arn his Cape representative
Richard, Arn's chosen builder
Andrew Swain - initial architect - now consulting
Terry - current architect

And then making sure we are in line with the aesthetics committee and the council.. Quite tiring..

New updated plans

Final plans updated with a lekker outdoor braai and stone chimney.
Also much bigger doors and little walls around the stoeps.

Dam Coming Along

Dam had it's lining put in, and then river rocks to line the borders.
Makes a very nice swimming pool, but need to find a couple of big flat rocks to make a place to get in and out.
Also a pump to fill it up during our leiwater slot.

 

Hier kom 'n Dam

Richard Hess is managing the development of a dam for us.

Here's George and co putting his digger to work.

Check out that soil!











We are probably going to have to pump water from the lei water to fill the dam (to the top) but I still want to find a way to just pour the stuff in through a sluice from the lei water channel.

For our first summer we've bought a weekly Saturday afternoon 30 minute slot. I reckon about 5l per second flow - so we should be able to keep it topped up nicely all summer for the princely sum of R1200 all in.

Trees are gekap

So the trees are down..
Gekap.
The big old gum at the entrance and the big old pine in the middle.
The gum was a bit of a headache with the Stodart treefeller company.
They took it down and then carted off all the timber which wasn't part of the deal.

I had to get them to return it - which they did. The aspect of the plot from Park Street looks quite strange without the old tree there. I got the feller to leave a 4 foot stump - with the intention of carving something out of it. Not sure what yet or how or who can help me with it.














Then the old pine. The dam's going to go in the hole left by it. I really dislike removing any trees, but I have to keep telling myself it's ok. We are going to plant at least 20 in their place.

Now I'm just hoping that we can move this wood down the plot before it 

"grow's legs" as my neighbor says. :)