Didn't make it up to the site this weekend...

...will try and make it up tonight to do today's progress report. Until then, enjoy this excellent advert for the NZ Book Council:

Week 2 of construction - more fence and a bigger pile of dirt

I visited the site again on Saturday, and not a lot has really changed. More top soil has been removed, with different areas leveled off to different heights to account for some minor slope on the lot. The pile of dirt in the middle is bigger. I've also noticed a few amenities being added around the site, like a portaloo and a tap. Now the builders can be a little more comfortable on site!

Here is the newly gravelled entry way. As you can see, the main pile of dirt is bigger than before.

The view from over the road. Get used to this view, as I'm sure it will be harder to get on site when they start closing the front gate over the weekends. You may also see that there is a second pile of dirt in effect. Riveting stuff!

The site now has all mod cons.

Our lot from the inside. Note the proximity of the portaloo.

Dana putting up with me taking lots of pictures of dirt. You can just see her patience beginning to ebb in this picture.

Not hugely exciting progress in the grand scheme of things, but better than no progress at all. I'm quite chuffed to be able to see progress for two weeks in a row after such a long time waiting for the DA to be approved. Hopefully there will be some more interesting reading next week.

Week 1 of construction - Fences and a pile of dirt

OK, so here are some shots of the very initial progress at the site. Firstly from across the road:


The very observant may be able to notice that there the fence doesn't even go all the way around yet - things are still at an early stage. Next the lot itself. As you can see, not a huge amount has happened apart from the removal of the topsoil. If you look very closely, you can see the lines that mark the border of each townhouse plot. They're not very clear at all at this resolution though [Edit: clicky for bigger pixen!].

Here's a close up of the lines that you can't really see in the picture above.

And at the end of the line is a stake with our unit number on it!

And here is where they put all the dirt they collected....

That's it for now! I'm going to try and do weekly updates to keep track of the build process.

Construction has commenced!

Things are still very much early days at the moment, but a site visit on the weekend showed that things have definitely kicked off. So far, it's just fences and clearing work, but there's also some lines on the ground showing where the lots will be.

I'll put some photos up later on tonight.

We also received an email this morning from the builder, confirming that construction has commenced. It also contains the cryptic line "the developer is confident that the construction period will not be lengthy". I'm choosing to interpret this positively, but it really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Still no word on what the conditions placed on the approval were.

Ed Roth of Stencil 1 (via Design*Sponge)

Design*Sponge have an excellent feature on Ed Roth's apartment. Ed Roth has released a couple of books on stencil art, which I'm a big fan of. You can find out more about his art/books/blog et at the Stencil 1 website.

I like the exposed wood/bricks and a lot of the colour palette used, as well as the furniture.

DA - APPROVED (conditional)

WOOOOOOO! The DA for the new place has FINALLY been determined by the ACT Dept of Planning. My estimate is that it took about 15 1/2 weeks from their lodgement date to the determination, which is far above and beyond the statutory limit of 9 weeks. I'd like to say something nasty here about ACT Planning, but I guess I don't really know the full details. After all, the DA wasn't lodged by me, and I don't know what else needed to be amended or re-negotiated in the application.

The result that I can see on the ACT Planning website says "approved conditional". I don't really know what the "conditional" part of that means, but I assume it has something to do with the hold up. Hopefully it won't involve much deviation from the plans that were part of our contract...

We've had no word from our real estate agent yet, but hopefully we should hear from them soon. And more importantly, see some movement on the site!

I'm very excited about it, although its only a very early milestone still. From previous estimates of the build time provided by the builder/agent, it should take about another 7 months to build. That puts the finishing date at mid June next year (I'm assuming it will be more like the end of June/start of July).

When I think about it like that, it still seems like such a long, long way away. I'm going to have to learn to enjoy the process of the build.

One other thing that I've been thinking about on the house is the costs of cabling - do the benefits of fixed cables outweigh the costs and hassle of installation? My preference is for a wired home network, rather than a wireless one, but this is meeting some resistance from Dana. I shall have to do some sort of cost/benefit analysis and present her with a business case or something.

Happy days. It makes me think of this song:


PS: Yay!

Nanami Chowdroy

OK, I know I said I'd blog about my ps3 slim next, but I lied.

Instead, I'd like to share some artwork I saw online a while back (I think on Australian Design, but I can't remember). The artist is Nanami Chowdroy, and her pieces have a European/urban take on a more traditional Japanese style.

This one is called "Royal Flush" and has to be one of my favourites.

According to her website:

Nanami Cowdroy was born in Sydney, Australia with close bonds to her mixed Japanese-European heritage. Growing up with such contrasting cultures and surroundings, has greatly influenced her style of art and creative expression.

By intertwining complex characters and highly detailed objects her pieces reflect a juxtaposition between foreign and familiar entities and environments. Her imagination is illustrated through works which are elaborate and exotic. She is drawn to subjects, which may on the surface seem delicate or fragile, but are given strength and depth through her pen and ink techniques, intricate hand illustrative style and mixed media compositions.

Her signature detailed style reflects a refined monochrome pallette with her name 'Nanami' (meaning 'Seven Seas' in Japanese ) stamped in red. Fluid line-work, watery creatures and Goldfish are some of her favourite subjects, and distinctive forms which are featured in her artworks.

I think they're awesome. Here are a few more, Tori Trigger and Wired Dolls respectively.

If you want to get your hands on one of these prints as much as I do, you can find them at Urban Uprising, or at Nanami Chowdry's website. She also does some groovy jewellery.

Delays and more delays

This site is looking decidedly neglected. The reason for the neglect is that the ACT Department of Planning (and whatever else it is that they do) has still not approved the development application. We have confirmation from our real estate agent that this is the hold up and that it should be resolved "soon".

In the meantime, I think I'm going to change the focus a little bit and look at some other bits and pieces. The first is to start re-posting some design blogs that I've been enjoying, and also probably some game reviews.

Time to get into it! Firstly, here's some interesting post on desiretoinspire.net on a house by Whiting Architects. The house skirts a very fine line of being a little too severely modernist for my tastes, but some bits of it look supremely livable.




These two pictures are my favourite from the lot. The rest is all a bit white and stark edges, which is nice to look at, but I can't imagine living in.

Tune in next time, when I'll talk about my new PS3 slim!