Totally floored.

There have been over 355 views of this blog so far - but no house has materialised. Questions are being asked! Mostly by other people, wondering how the demolition went, has the new house been started, etc etc.

Mr Demolition Man, whose business name I will not mention but is a synonym for Fast House-Squashing, has not been living up to that moniker on either count.

I have penned him a missive (sent an email) suggesting that the time for action is NOW. I am picturing a Barack Obama-style of urgency in that "now", while Demo Dude is probably picturing a naggy housewife. But whatever works.

Meanwhile, we are expecting that the building regulation variation we applied for will be approved and in our hot little hands within the next few days. That then allows the full set of building plans to be drawn up and the building permit itself to be applied for. At my reckoning it will be at least 6 weeks before any building works can commence. Riveting, I know - but you did ask.

Rather than sit idly by, we have been working on the flooring issue this week. We are determined to have solid hardwood floors, but what variety? What price? And how to overcome the ins and outs of laying over a slab onto battens, which means the floor would be about 60mm higher than the bottoms of the exterior door frames and any other abutting flooring such as tiles and carpet.

Jason has been working on the latter, consulting with the Lovely Building Company and the Eager and Helpful Carpenter. I will be happy to simply receive the solution once it is arrived at but it seems to involve the slab design and hence our sense of urgency to get the flooring sorted out.

Tossing up: jarrah or spotted gum? Favouring a tung oil finish, and 180mm wide boards are not only our preference but cheaper - who'd have thought? For those who know and care: we are a top-nail kind of family, no secret nailing for us please.

In my quest for best price, I've been working on quotes this week but interestingly there has been little variation between suppliers.

Also on flooring: a previous post mentioned I was eyeing off a great deal on some marble tile for the bathroom - and it WAS a great deal, selling off at about 20% of cost. But in the dying hours before that opportunity closed off, we suddenly got distracted by another great deal of some larger format marble tiles that we liked even more! Hoping to snap those up tomorrow...

As "The Nanny" used to say: Never pay retail!!