The work begins.

Well, pegs were out before we even had developer approval for the external materials, colors and landscape plan. One week later, developers approval granted, final approval for mortgage (was pre-approved just needed to have the construction valued to make sure we weren't being over charged and that the house wasn't too flash for the area - no worries there ;0) and we already have pipes sticking up out of the ground. Apparently the slab goes down next week and framing starts the one after that. WOW this is fast. Lindsay had a wee melt down over the bricks we had selected so it was back to the suppliers for lists and the drive around looking for houses identified by lot numbers that now have street numbers. Found a house in progress with the brick we like and a pallet wrapper from the supplier in the yard. A quick cell phone call later and we had our brick, Jarrah. Gee wiz the one I picked in the first place ;)~. The builder tells us he will be ordering them this week and then it will be too late to change our mind. We have changed our mind about the flooring too, had selected timber and thought we were saving on the carpet until we discovered that the timber was more than double the price of tiles and the carpet we "absolutely must have" ;) is double the budget. So it was back to the tile shop and guess what we got tiles for way under budget (now that is a monumental occasion, everything else has been "just a little bit more"). So now we can tile right through the alfresco too (there goes the savings again I guess). Another meeting with the builder on friday so more after that.

Mike