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We now have cupboards with benchtops in the kitchen, laundry and one of our bathrooms but more importantly it is reassuring to see that the project is starting to look less like a building site and more like a home.

Some would say its impossible, but I swear our plumber turned up today, a Saturday of all days and we hadn't so much as bribed him or promised dancing ladies. Some look to the weeping Virgin Mary, others the Dalai Lama, but for me a plumber who turns up "for kicks" on a Saturday morning brings much inspiration and reinstalls my beleif in humanity.

Well the electrician showed up yesterday and managed to get quite a bit done. He's chased the walls for a number of switchpoints and laid the conduit through to the outside of the house for our garden lights. He's a pretty talented dude but unfortunately he doesn't have too many helpers and this means its difficult for him to get a lot of things done in a short space of time.

Anyway am much happier with the progress over the last two days.

For the sparky to show his face. Hopefully won't be too many more of these posts.

There's always one fly in the ointment. In my case it's the electrician. Not saying that he isn't a brilliant electrician, nor that he hasn't suggested some brilliant ideas, it's quite simply that he's holding everything up. You can't plaster-board walls until the cables have been chased, you can't put tiles down until underfloor heating is in place...you know the story. To compound the issue, seems our sparky's method of working is to spread himself thin over a range of different homes and projects rather than tackling one job at a time and staying on it through to completion before m,oving onto the next. Ahhh well, hopefully he'll be back soon and we can get the project back on track.

Spas and Showers do not mix as we have just found out. The raised lip of the spa is likely to catch water from the shower between the edge of the bath and the tiled wall thus leading to potential water damage. Lesson learned from this one is that if you want a spa, don't bother trying to incorporate a shower at one end. Keep a spa a spa and a shower a shower.

Somehow the builders managed to disconnect the cold water supply to our one and only remaining bathroom. This means we have hot water but no cold. This may sound like no hardship but unfortunately our hot water supply is so hot that there is no way you could shower in it without at least two turns on the cold tap. So looks like its showers at the in laws over the weekend as the plumber apparently can't make it until monday. Typical.

On a more positive note the builder is managing to get people to our house every day and is delivering on his promises which in Perth's current economic boom could be considered a small miracle.

Well its been 5 months in planning, drafting and haggling but I now have people on site doing stuff to the house and it's happening at a pretty rapid pace.

Last Friday we had the whole inside of the house ripped out in one day including 180sqm of tiles, a kitchen, laundry, bathroom and dining area. We also had our second story stregthened and some windows removed (and swiftly borded up).