Guess What...

Door, door, door, door.

Our Christmas present was a garage door opener, which me and a mate installed. Most excellent!




And our house has internal doors now. Weird.

Plenty of packing to ensure that the door fitted the jambs.

Paint

This week has been all about the paint. Undercoat/sealer throughout the week, in the evenings. A new friend came over during the day Friday and did the first top coat for the ceilings, I did the second ceiling top coat that evening, and then today he came back and we did the two wall top coats.

Stoked with how it looks.















20 weeks:

bathroom

Couple more shots of the bathroom: wetsealer dude did the glassing and laid the angle in the doorway and outside of the shower, and the tiler put in the screed.

House almost done?

Right. Update then, hey? Firstly, has no-one picked up the total lack of proofing in my last post? No? K then.

Uh, was kitchen last time, hey? Well, since then, I have nailed under-tile sheet to the floor in the bathroom and twalette (nails every 150mm), finalised the locations for electrics in the bathroom, mounted the heater/light/extractor vent tube. (Tricky, and satisfying.) Fitted the last of the ceiling in the bathroom (by myself!), so we're all done with the panel-lifter. Wanna buy a panel-lifter?
Fitted the bath:cut rebates in the studs to suit, mounted battens to support the rim, built a frame to support the outer side of the bath, and the hob (shelf) at the end.

Fitted the villa-board walls in the bathroom (nails every 150mm on every stud). Discovered that as a carpenter, I'm quite an engineer!! Cut the villa-board to fit around the bath frame. I had been using a chisel (sharpened on my bench grinder, nice!!) to score the under-tile sheeting to break it, and fine cuts with the wood saw. However, villa-board seems to be a different kettle of fish. Dulled the blade in double-quick time. Wore the corner off the chisel too. Quick trip past bunny's to mister10 for their villa-chomper (25, rather than 90 at bunny's..), and the right tool for the job- amazing. So yeah, villa-board everywhere.

Alan he plasterer cam by and set all our plaster-board, and mounted the cornices, and didn't he do a great joeorb!! Now it looks like almost a proper house!

Late last week the wet-sealer (thanks Brenton for the number) came, and sealed up the bathroom. All fibre-glass-like. Looks good tho.

Saturday we collected the tiles (man, that weighed the car down... Dunno how much they weigh, but ... carrying them all upstairs yesterday wore me down...) and carried on to the paint store. I ... um, they're all the same, aren't they? the colours, i mean. Like, all those made-up names from some totally other world... meh, this one has more yellow, and this one has more blue, and they're all the blinking same!! No, maybe we'll just get a half-strength for the walls and a quarter on the ceilings... or ... blokes don't have enough cones for this sort of a task...

And then this evening our tiler came by (thanks Matty for the number) and laid the floor-base. Hopefully there'll be a fully tiled bathroom and twalette by the end of Sunday.

And then of course, there's the painting, and the floors to think about. Final plumbing fit-off, and final electrical fit-off. Skirting and architraves. Doors. Nothing really... Maybe we'll be upstairs with 8 weeks? Anyone want to run a book? Or a pool? Or whatever it is that you run?

Um, photos? Maybe tomorrow night?

Kitchen Y'all!

We had the kitchen installed yesterday, and boy am I glad we paid someone to do it!! this fella was an expert, had all the tools, and heaps of experience, but it still took him a 13 hour day, working like a navvy, to get it done!

I would have been banging my head against the wall for 3 months, I reckon. Anyhow, it's in, with the exception of the sink (wrong handing supplied) and stove/oven (electrical requirements...)

Checkit, yo. (oh, and please excuse the *reflections of the flash off air-borne dust*)

the roof, the roof, the roof is up higher...

Bought a panel lifter the other day, and i tell you, it worth its weight in ... panels? Fantastic machine.






Today we got 16 sheets up, glued & screwed to the ceiling, drilled for lights, and temp screws until the stud adhesive cures. Col was here this morning, then Alan helped out all afternoon. Was a very productive day.





But on another point, the pipes are, how you say, clogged up with rusty bits and blocking all flow to the shower. Booger. 1/2" gal, that's 38 years old, and well undersized by todays standards. They must have had smaller H2Os back in the day... Two weeks time, hopefully it'll all be sorted.

MMmmm, public holidays...

Very productive weekend. Yesterday we gypped bed2 and toilet, and today, with Pat's help, we did Bed1 and hallway, as well as the area ABOVE the stairs. And just how hard was THAT??? In order to get to the screws up high, I climbed into the ceiling cavity. Now why did I volunteer to do that? The pics don't show quite how tight it is...

5 more done

Finished all the walls in the office, from a gyp-rock point of view. That includes the 3 fiddly bits around the outside of the linen closet, and above the door.

Got three sheets up in the spare bedroom. Came to the conclusion that "Sure, it'll be ok to use a sheet size other than what we planned on using here", as long as you use a SMALLER sheet than planned.

I think that's all. Hang on, I'll check the camera.

Gypped!!

Alan came around and graciously volunteered his muscles, and we got the first 6 sheets up, in the kitchen. Glued and screwed... Then another sheet this afternoon in the office.

(You're all gonna get bored of posts like this: 3 more sheets up, bed 2 and bathroom!!)



Ceilings still bare, though... Waiting for large hardware chain store to get in the light cable for us, and this week we'll probably pick up a panel lifter...



Carmen does the internal corners...



The afore-mentioned kitchen. Looks good, no? (This is the living room, cabinets, you're all s'posed to be next door!)



Feel free to post your reactions, too, just so as i know i'm not just doing this for my own good...

Our Rumpus Room

Here is a quick tour of our current living space...



We bought a bunch of lights this morning. Ended up going with 12V halogens, on gimbles. We'll see what the future holds for these little beasties.

I fly off to San Fransisco in the morning, for 5 days, for work. Fun fun.

Shiny Floor, Horizontal Walls

Some day-time pics of the house; notice all the elec cables we've been running. (And the new ladder.) All the power point cable has been run (three new runs- kitchen, rest of house, and future for back deck) and the all light switch lines are in place.






Plus we had the gyprock delivered this morning. 90 sheets, now living in our garage. If space was tight before, it's at a premium now.

Walls out, Floor up, Ceiling down

K, so some demolition pics:











We're getting stuck in... This is me with a new heat gun ("Do not use as a hair-dryer") and chisel, removing the tiles that the demolition fellas couldn't. Or wouldn't. They suggested the only thing we could do was remove and replace the floor-boards. John Paterson had the heat gun idea, and it worked a treat. Still hard work, but a heckovva lot cheaper and less hassle and stress than replacing some floor!



And right now, with John's kickstart again, and generous loan of tools and expertise, we're running the cables for our lights and power. It's great fun!!!