Warehouse

Finally, June 20, 2011 the first sign of action on our block. (The electrical pole on the left of the gate...yippee) We are building a warehouse with offices and showroom and a house on top for us to live in. Some people think we are mad, others, especially some male friends, think it's pretty cool to have a house with a really huge shed at the back!
We have engaged local builders, Kaspa Developments, to build our warehouse for us.
The two brothers, Adrian and Joe have been working in this area for a while and are familiar with the conditions. Apart from building services they also offer drafting services.

A painful (and expensive) amount of rubbish is coming out of the ground.

Our neighbour on the back, we won't see much of him as our walls on 3 sides are from boundary to boundary.

August 1, 2011. More action. They've started to hammer in the poles, there's a lot of them as this area is reclaimed land.

It is rather interesting to see the guys hammering in the poles. It is a steady thud, thud, thud. You can hear the pole being driven through the rocks in the soil. When there are no obstructions it goes faster. I was given some earmuffs to protect my hearing, it is a noisy process and I'm sure the neighbours were happy when it was finished. The poles are driven in for about 8-9 meters, then filled up with concrete. Not sure how many went in, but quite a lot. This part was finished on August 10, 2011.

August 16, 2011 the footings were poured.

Adrian is putting safety first! This is compulsory of course...I like the decorative look of it.

There's a 3 month waiting time to get the panels poured so our builders are doing it on-site. The sizes have been marked out on the warehouse slab, depending on the weather (rain expected) they will start pouring the walls on Monday next week.

Joe finishing off the form work for the walls. First pour is tomorrow August 25.

The walls are poured 6 levels high, set-up form work one day, pour the next, set-up formwork the following day, pour the next etc. It will take 12 days, weather allowing, to do all the walls.

John standing in my office to be.

The first pour, first wall....There are four to do. It is bitterly cold this morning, the wind is going through all your clothes so it's back home for us, we'll swing by later to check the rest of the panels.

August 31. The second layer is done, forming up the 3rd one.

The brickies have made a good start on the offices.

September 2, ready for another layer of panels.

The brickies are making progress too. On the right the walls of the office, we're going to have a nice high ceiling.

September 26. After an unfortunate delay of 2 weeks everyone is back on deck. The brickies are still working on the offices, here a view of the entry to my office at the front of the building.

As seen from the inside of the office, the two smaller windows on the left are facing the carpark.

It is rather bizarre to think this is the warehouse! All the panels are done and Tuesday week we'll have lift-off. I hope its a good day weatherwise, I can't wait to see how they lift the panels...a little scary and very exciting. The panels will be secured on the top with the steelwork which is getting done now.

October 10, 2011, the walls are finally going up. I missed seeing the first 3 go up but was there for the next few. The crane is enormous.

After attaching the what-shall-we-call-thems to the concrete panel, the panel is lifted slowly and pushed into place. In the bottom of the panels are holes into which the steel bars sticking out the footings
fit. Quite a precise job. It took a bit of pushing to get it into place.

When I got back in the afternoon most of the panels were up. the crane had to move forward, a job in itself, to do the last panels.

November 3.
We've been away for a few weeks but due to bad weather not so much work was finished. the steel for the roof is up and they've started on the plumbing. You're getting a sense of space now that the walls and roof steel are up.

Looking from inside the warehouse to the front.

Plumbing/drainage in the driveway.

November 7, 2011
The roof is on!

Its an interesting educational process: you don't see a lot of what goes into a building unless you observe every step. The rubber lining on the bottom of the walls is to allow expension of the concrete, the concrete will be to the top of the rubber. A thin strip will come off after the floor is poured and the gap will be filled with silicon.
If all goes well, the floors will go in before the end of this week. It is starting to look like a real building..... :-)

Office floors were done first. A nice sunny day for it. I spent a bit of time mapping out the internal walls as I want to change the original plans just a little.....

A special attachment was needed to get the concrete into the warehouse, especially the far corner. If the roof wasn't on they could have gone over the top, as it was it needed to go through the roller door opening.

These guys work bloody hard. It's a full on physical job, it must be murder on their backs!

The last corner, job nearly done.

Friday December 10. The second storey floor was poured today. I love the look of the scaffolding but can't wait for that to go! then we can really move forward.

I arrived back from my India/Nepal trip on Friday morning and got to the site around 2pm that afternoon. We had a sneaky look but couldn't walk on the concrete yet.

The space looks smaller than I expected but it may look different again when we can actually see it from a normal perspective. I went back on Saturday to go for a walk in my living space but the ladder had disappeared. Bugger! Adrian told me it was for safety...yeah, yeah, yeah....

After washing the walls and letting them dry for a day or so it was time to start painting. We had the help from Greg, see below, who did the low work while John was doing the high bits. One undercoat and 2 paint coats, the amount of light it brings into the warehouse is amazing and worth the work.

We sealed the floors, we meaning mainly John, and then it was time to disrupt the pristine whitenesss and emptiness of the space......... start bringing in the stuff! First things first: the pallet racking.

The first pallets are in place.............................

A few more...................

Unfortunately the hired forklift doesn't go high enough to put pallets in the top spots, this is annoying as we need to get as many pallets off the floor as possible while we wait for the offices to be ready. We need space for storage of household and personal goods etc. The old forklift is still in the old warehouse. Once all the liftable items have been moved to the new place we can bring the old forklift here and start moving pallets up to the top level. It is double handling but we can't do much about it.

January 5, 2012. We have more or less moved into the warehouse. As the office are not ready we've set up some temporary office space as well as a working space for me. John has done an amazing job, with the help from Greg, to get us in so quickly. Next step will be waiting for the offices.......

January 16. It's done, finito, goodbye! The old place, and I mean that literally, is now empty. I was just in time to get a photo of the last item to be moved: the container. We've handed over the keys, the landlord was impressed with John and we got the full bond back immediately! Sometimes things work out great.....

February 3, 2012
The chippies are here....
It's great to see the walls go up in the offices.

Visiting time at lunch break. Roxy is the chippies' dog, she was shy until the first biscuit changed hands. now she's our new best friend! I attached a little flower to her collar as she needed pretty-ing up just a touch! She's a Papoose Doggie now. Pepe is secure in the knowledge she is still our number 1 dog!

It is very strange to be painting again, talk about coming full circle. Still love it though! Working on tunics from the Pupucci Pure range in Milkymerino. Temporarily working from the warehouse, waiting for my work space to be ready.....hurry-up Adrian!

The carpenters working upstairs on the roof

Happy with the progress..........

Car park area getting rendered.

Now that the hut has been removed, work on the front fence can start

I love the doors upstairs, so much light coming in, quite a change from our current dark house.

We're starting to get there. We'll be able to move into our offices after Easter, then all the focus will be on finishing the house.

Friday March 23, 2012
The walls are going up, a challenging job in the wind.

Walls are up and getting rendered upstairs. The ceilings are nearly all in. In the offices the floors need another polish and coat, the ceiling panels need to go in and the lights and data points need finishing.
The building is starting to get that 'together' look, colours outside are boring but after I realized I couldn't have the bright colour I really wanted I settled for a very pale grey with a slightly darker grey contrast on the front (still to be done). The balustrading on both sides will be bright! We're looking at getting perforated steel, powdercoated.

April 3, 2012

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