We’ve spent a long time designing our own kitchen and almost as long trying to find a custom manufacturer to make it for us. We contacted a lot of companies and were surprised at how average a lot of them were, in particular their customer service.

However after a lot of research I found DL Cabinetmaking out in East Tamaki. Kylie and I popped out to meet owner Dean Lucas this week and we instantly gelled with him. He grasped our concept immediately and added a lot of extra ideas. We’re so excited to be working with Dean and his team. And he’s also going to be making a lot of other custom features in our home, from the bathroom vanities and laundry through to our internal doors, wardrobes and living room cabinets.

It’s a different story over on the bedroom side as the sub-floor is speeding ahead. It’s really awesome to be able to walk around on the floor and see what our views will be like from each room. And so far it’s just how we imagined it! Yay

So the weather has been pretty crappy for the past few weeks. And it’s held construction up a lot. While the bedroom pod has been able to speed along, it’s been a different tale on the living room side.

Things turned into a boggy mess as the huge piling rig churned up the already waterlogged soil where our garage area will be. Then it’s rained for about 3 weeks since, meaning the builders haven’t been able to do the footings for our retaining walls. One of the retaining walls is also acting as a foundation for the house, so that has then meant the sub floor can’t be built and so on and so on.

The unfortunate consequence of this is our Formance SIPs panels will now go up in two stages. The bedroom side first, followed by the living room side as soon as possible after that. Ever since we heard that the walls of our house could go up in a day with the Formance SIPs system, we’ve been eagerly awaiting that day to happen. Ready to pull out the picnic blanket and watch our house appear at an unbelievable speed. Alas, it’s not going to happen that way, but we’ll still have the satisfaction of the bedroom side going up in a matter of hours, then the living room – just at a different date. However because of the speed of construction using Formance SIPs, we’ll catch up a huge amount of time and hopefully be back on track with the overall construction schedule soon.

 

 

 

 

 

We have piles. Lots of them! Was awesome to watch the Ground & Pound boys thump 50 odd poles into the ground and see the first parts of our house emerge from the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Man, things are happening pretty quickly now…as soon as Ray & Garrick had the profiles in place, the earthwork contractors, Stu & Mike, were on site working their magic as they formed our building platform, nailed the levels and put in some drainage. And after only a couple of days, she’s looking pretty sharp even if we do say so ourselves!