our home build journey - construction phase ♡

Coming into the construction phase of the build we thought we would have tonnes of time... our builders were ready and lined up to start the build on the first of March and here we were thinking we would have a slab before Christmas. After working flat tac to get our earthworks done with our little 2 tonne digger (should have got a bigger bigger digger 🥴) our slab contractor pulled pin at the last moment on the first week of December, due to pre Christmas workload pressure. Eeek. But hey, it wouldn’t be a home build without a few stressors right?

Needless to say, from that moment on, we have been under a little bit of heat. We recontacted another contractor who had already told us months earlier that our dates were unachievable, for him to recheck his situation, and luckily enough for us (thank you manifestation) he had workers wanting to come back early from their Christmas break and he would manage to squeeze us in. And what a squeeze it was. Over the period of 5 weeks, and several hiccups (thank you engineers 😅), we finally got a slab, right on time for the builders to start. Phew 😅

While this had been getting sorted, Beau was dusting off his old engineering gloves and fabricating the steel portals for the hub of our new home - It’s been 8 years, and he’s had a few ‘scratch his head’ moments, jogging the old memory bank, but he’s done such an incredible job (with the less than average engineering detailing provided 😬). Once the beams were welded together we got a hiab to flip the beams, weld the other side, and then the tedious job of painting 6 coats occurred - which our 6YO son Otis helped us with. We were so impressed with his hard work, it really wasn’t a bad effort for 6 YO that’s for sure - the labour was well worth the $5 😂 Our super speedy builders whacked our frames up in one day on the first of March, and on the third of March the portals were stood. The portals are just as incredible as we had imagined - worth every bead of sweat and beer that went into them.

I’m so proud of Beau who has been such a trooper handling all of this whilst also dealing with a bunch of other work-related life stuff lately. We’ve had our lows this month with kids not sleeping well, tiredness, stress and a little bit of anxiety here and there, but as always we chug back a double shot in the morning, tackle one thing at a time together, try to stay glass half full and keep our eyes on the ball. We’ve had many-a ‘we got this babe’, ‘it’ll all be worth it’ moments, and I’ll tell you what, the relief once those portals were up. Tremendous.

We now have frames up, portals in, and our builders are ready to start our trusses this week. Our window site measure has been completed, the roof is booked in and our baby boys have all picked their bedrooms - excite!!!

We’ve been asked a lot lately when we will be moving in and to be honest we haven’t put a time line on it - really the aim of the game at the moment is to get it done as quick as we can without the pressure of a timeline - does that even make sense?!. We have a couple of big life decisions coming up soon that can’t be made until the build is finished so we’ve got our fingers crossed for some smooth sailing from here.

That’s us for this week on the home of The Home Planner Co. Stay tuned 😻

Lauren & co x