We've got walls!!

Every day the external walls are going up higher and higher and the studio is becoming a very real, very imposing reality. Today will be Day 10 of block-laying, and already the walls are far taller than I. Using dry-stack blocks is a very quick process indeed.

Yesterday we had our very own brand, spanking new scaffolding delivered - Adam and I put it together last night in the dark - and it is cool. It officially looks like a construction site out there now. I can't believe we own scaffolding! Not something I ever aspired to, but awesome all the same.

More deliveries this morning - this time, 10 more pallets of concrete blocks (that makes 20 pallets total so far). I will have to get the exact number of these blocks used overall to give a clearer picture of this stage of the project - I can say, with each one weighing somewhere in the region of 15kg... there's a few muscles bulging.

Here are some more photos, taken yesterday afternoon. Already this morning there has been much more progress made - I just can't keep up! :)

Reinforcement needs to be installed at metre intervals within the walls.

Taken from the current deck

Front yard

Looking SouthLooking North

Standing where the new deck will be - this gap will be large doors

Progress Photos...

It's Sunday morning, so the weekend warriors are on the move, laying blocks. The elusive camera has been located and I have uploaded some nice progress shots of the slab being poured and the beginning of the external walls. More photos to come.

Building up the levels with dirt.

Same angle with reo just before slab pour.

Morning of slab pour.

The big day arrives and the guys begin.

Water-curing the slab to prevent cracks.

Our beautiful crack-free slab. That's 2 of our 10 pallets of blocks being delivered.

Slab.

One of the blocks used for external walls. Called dry-stack blocks because, except for the very bottom row, no mortar is needed - you simply stack them on top of one another... Like giant Lego. At the end, concrete is poured down the centre and when it dries you have an extremely strong and solid cement wall.

The bottom row of blocks being laid. The orange stuff is the Kordon termite barrier.

Day 3 of block laying - once the bottom row is done, it's quite a quick process.

We're finally building UP!

I've been sick for the past week or so and haven't been doing much documenting of anything really... but am back on board now, and as the project is due to move full-steam ahead as of today, I'll be here dutifully recording every speed-bump along the way.

Last time I posted (a few weeks ago), we were having the slab poured. Well, it all went very well, and we now have a fabulous 130 sq. m. slab with no cracks! We water-cured the slab for 7 days - which meant having sprinklers going on the concrete non-stop for the whole week. My social conscience was in guilt overdrive, but luckily Mother Nature came to the rescue and provided us with a good solid week of persistent rain so we could turn the sprinklers off.

We've had 10 pallets of concrete blocks delivered in the last week. The external walls of the studio will be constructed from these blocks, which, once started, will be a fairly speedy job. We've also had a termite barrier installed to try and dissuade the little nasties from making a meal of our pride and joy.

Today, Adam and Max are on the job again... The first of the blocks are being laid! We've all been counting down until this moment because, as my post title explains - We're finally building UP! It's been a long time coming, and now that we're here, it feels fantastic! Except for the tiniest of incidences this morning where I went to wash some dishes only to find my dish washing detergent missing. Recalling a funny story that Adam told me in our early days together of how, when he was a kid, his Dad was always building something, and his Mum was always looking for her dish washing detergent only to find it outside being used in the mortar... I went a-looking. It didn't take long to spot my lovely lemon-fresh friend sitting in the middle of the slab, and it took even less time for Adam to understand the enormous knowing grin on my face. Seriously, never in the history of mankind has there been a truer testament to the saying "Like Father, Like Son" than my husband and his Dad.

Anyway, am currently searching for the camera so I can record this momentous "Laying of the first block"... I'm not having any luck though, so will post some pictures when I finally do.