Drains, pipes... heaps of dirt and mess...

Yes it's time for another update on the building site next door. Remember the owner of the company told me in October last year that all building work would be completed by early December, then the site would be closed for the Christmas break and the landscapers would be at work in the New Year...well it hasn't really worked out quite that way...
A few weeks ago DH and I were visited by a 'man with a clipboard' and he obviously had a can of spray paint as well...

 This fellow was from the company who were going to connect up the houses next door to the sewer line in the street. You know what's coming don't you...access was needed to our property which we gave but under the proviso that he change the plans to pile up soil in our property.

The side boundary

So at the start of the next week all the mess and mayhem was to start...
Our street was closed at both ends for a few days...but residents could get in and out at the eastern end when the man on barrier duty would move the witches hats...

 This had been my garden bed at the side front of our property...

I trimmed the pentas shrub and the geranium as I knew they would get a battering...but I didn't realise how much of a battering...my edging in this garden bed is those interlocking brick type blocks...an area of approximately one square metre has been removed and the edging blocks that have been removed are stacked under the front veranda. This garden bed was slowly built up by me over many months in 2007...a lot of compost and a lot of purchased garden soil went into this bed...but as you can see the a lot of the bed has been flattened back to the original ground level.

 The young man driving the excavator dug up this poker plant and replanted it in a pot, when it became obvious that it would be uprooted...I appreciated that even though the plant looks a bit sad...

 The preceding photos deal with the drainage work towards the front of the 6 terrace houses and the connection to the street...now here are some photos of the line being dug along our side boundary...remember the temporary fence is on our land...

 Now the fencing is resting against our house...we preferrred this to what the engineers had wanted which would see huge mounds of dirt in our yard against the battens of the area of under our house...this photo was taken while I was sitting at our PC...

 The next photo was taken from the front bedroom which is my sewing room...

Taken from just near our back door looking down towards the front...

Just before I left for Melbourne the previous week, a load of fencing timber was delivered...

 By the time I got home, some fencing had been built...

 What a narrow little house this one is...

 And during this last week, work has continued with the drainage at the back of the property......

I have been promised full restoration of my garden bed by the engineering firm...however I will be away when this is supposed to happen. Am I being a cynic when I suggest that 'I won't hold my breath'...as to whether the missing soil is returned and damaged plants replaced???? And they still have to construct the new fence on the boundary line...will this be a further chance for the contractors to wreak havoc... ?

'Forgive me my trespassing...'

From May 2013 I regularly did updates on the building work next door to our home, where one 50's style house is being replaced by 6 terrace houses and 1 detached house...7 on one block, yikes!

My neighbour Judy took photos of the demolition while we were away in New Zealand...

Within a month, trenches were dug, pipes laid, the footings were made ready and the  floors of the new houses were poured and the walls were started...

The walls of the house grew higher and higher...most of the houses were 3 levels, but some were 2 levels...

By the end of November the site looked like this...

Now the trespassing bit...one Friday, a week before Christmas the tradesmen left a sliding door open at the back of the house which is built at the back of the property.

Tradies working near our side fence...

The detached house at the back of the terrace houses; this house lies adjacent to our backyard...the sliding door that I mentioned is at the back of the garage which is on the right of the photo...

On the Sunday I became rather bold and took my camera and slipped through the temporary fencing...

And I then sneaked into the house via the open courtyard door...well it will be a courtyard one day! lol

The garage...note the roller door at the front of the garage isn't closed completely either...

Looking from the door into the house from the garage

The kitchen was being installed...

Another room at the front of the house on the lower level...

 The rather narrow stair case leading to the second level...which I didn't explore...

 Back outside, this is the backdoor of one of the terrace houses; you can see through to the street in front of our houses...

I'm now taking photos from our front yard, showing the terrace houses and the front door of the first one...these first 3 houses are 3 storeys high....

 So before Christmas, the front yards are still pretty rough...

The building site was idle for a few weeks after Christmas but mid January, the tradies started returning...tilers, kitchen/bathroom installers, plumbers, electricians etc have all been coming and going. The street has been full of utes like these!

I don't plan to do any more trespassing but I have continued to take photos of what is happening on the outsides of the buildings and will continue to write occasional posts until the building and landscaping are finished and people are moving in :-) .
Ooops! I forgot to announce the winner of the Fantazia Fabricland pack...the lucky person was Becky from Life for Us blog. Congratulations, Becky :-)

How is that building work going?

The weather here lately might be a bit disappointing for the gardeners among us, but for the builders next door it has been perfect weather. No delays caused by rain...just sunny spring days.

In the last update, the lower 2 levels of timber framing had been completed. We knew that the next levels would be started soon because the scaffolders came in and worked over 2 days. Other than the earthmoving equipment in the first week of this project, I find that the scaffolding days are the noisiest and most irritating. There is also a tendency for these workers to use 'strings of invective'...shall we say?

Here's Brad in the front, behind him is Rich, the owner of the company and a third person...standing on the scaffolding near my kitchen window... having a bit of a conflab!

After the scaffolding had been extended upwards another level, another mobile crane came in again.

And its job was to lift the bundles of timber up to the next level...

While all that timber was being hauled up on all 7 houses, the team of bricklayers were building the common brick walls up to that 3rd level .

The top level of bricks is just about finished...

This is the view, looking back, from our front veranda....

Below is a panorama shot of the development taken on the Sunday of the week before last...the brick walls on level 3 have all been completed...

An ordinary photo taken the same afternoon from across the street...

 And turning the camera more towards the end of the street...

And this these are the photos that I took last Sunday...

Level 2 of the house next to our property at the front...

There is a small passway behind the garage of house#1 and the 6 attached houses...

 The photo below was taken from the other side of the street and shows the progress...the 3rd level brick walls have been completed

 I noted the triangular shapes propped against the walls on level 3...

I found out yesterday (Monday) that they are prefabricated roof trusses...
So that's what's been happening next door during the last fortnight...