For 18 years since I bought my piece of mountain top I have dreamed of building a home there in which I could live the creative life. Over the years I have produced a veritable stack of house designs, always trying to create the perfect one. As much as I wanted this dream, all the necessary elements to make it a reality were yet to converge.
I came close to making the commitment to build about five years ago when I got my owner builder certificate. But again other aspects of life intervened and the dream was again on the back burner. I guess it was the mounting birthday milestones that made me realise if I didn't stop dreaming and do something I would be visiting Polbre for a far longer time than I would ever have to live there. A not insignificant factor in encouraging me to take the bold step was my partner Paul's support and readiness to support me through the project.
Fortunately, I had about one month to go before the currency of my owner builder certificate would expire when I finally made the first real steps towards making my dream a reality and turned the certificate into a permit. That was just the beginning of the 'planning' stage of making the dream real. The next momentous step was to stop endlessly designing and settle on one design that ticked most of my boxes. In August 2010 I took that design to a draughtsperson.
And so into the planning and approval process and all its unexpected little surprises........council restrictions on development that changed part way through, refinements to the design, glazing issues associated with using recycled windows and doors, engineering challenges, some early false starts in the certification process and so on.
The less said about the 18 months spent in the planning and approval stage the better. Suffice to say that, at times, I was so frustrated and disappointed that I almost regretted starting the venture. Then, I would need to be therapist to myself and reframe these setbacks as a test of my commitment to living my dream and a normal part of the rollercoaster ride of building, particularly as an owner builder.
While we navigated our way through this stage we actually achieved a lot of progress on more tangible fronts. As the owner builder I had a lot of research, planning and preparation to undertake so that when the plans were approved the build could get underway without delay. I spent countless hours drawing up a project chart with materials, labour and costs for each stage, researching products and suppliers, getting quotes for subcontracting out the big tasks and reworking the budget over and over again.
Some of the very immediate and tangible tasks, which were satisfying for being so, included giving the last part of the dirt track up the mountain a make over so that it provided good access for the many trucks and utes that would be coming up over the life of the build. First we had an excavator in to shape the road for camber and drainage...
and then truck loads of gravel and road base to seal the road at least to last this rain season.
Next we needed to get a site survey, which means having the house site surveyed in relation to the property boundaries. Apparently, a couple of the boundaries, including the front boundary nearest the house site, had not been surveyed since 1902, which meant the surveying task involved more (and cost more) than anticipated. My first experience of what everyone is so very keen to tell you when you about to build but you don't want to hear - it always costs more than you plan!
We planned to be on site as much as possible throughout the build, particularly being the owner builder, so we figured we had better upgrade our amenities. We found a nice homely wooden thunderbox that fitted the bill. We have since surrendered it to the workers for their amenity further up the paddock and ours is a more interesting arrangement now - made out of steel offcuts off the job!
And still we waited...and waited...for the holy grail, the approval to build. Needless to say we anticipated that eventually it would be a favourable outcome so figured we may as well start the "set out". One of the most critical tasks of a build, we were fortunate that serendipity delivered us Nick, a retired builder who loves to mentor and assist owner builders in practical ways. Nick, with Paul working as offsider, did our "set out" and his accuracy was phenomenal. Our house would be plumb.
Not to forget the equally important task of raising the builder's sign.
And finally...finally, on the 9th December 2011 we got our approval (development permit) to build!
I should back up and say that I had been more than a bit impulsive (or over confident of my design) and sub-contracted a steel framing company to fabricate the house frame months before approval to build was granted. The frame had been completed and was sitting in the framing company's yard waiting...and waiting...to be delivered. So we knew there would be no hold ups on that score!
Another critical and exciting task was the excavation for the footings. Critical because the holes for the stumps have to be exact, there is no room for error. Exciting because it is breaking the soil to take the first part of the building - the stumps. The first one had us riveted....
by the 50th hole we had become blase and the site looked like a rabbit's paradise.
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By this stage the Christmas break was looming and, given most businesses would shut down until early January, we desperately wanted to see something a tad more substantial (suggestive of a house) than holes before 2011 closed and to show for a year and a half of planning. Our steel framing company, which was also contracted to erect the frame, were very cooperative (if not puzzled by our desperation) in agreeing to concrete in our stumps in the week before Christmas.
So the week of Christmas, Mark (the building foreman), Nick and Paul raise the stumps. While I had dared to dream (again) that I would be sitting in, at least, a house frame for Christmas after all the turmoil in the planning stage I was more than happy to be wandering amongst my stumps! I was a happy woman.
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