Saturday 25th June - Day 67

North wall complete

Most of the east wall done

We can't really go any further for the east wall as the kitchen needs to be moved first. Before we can move the kitchen we need to put down the new flooring. Hopefully we can start this next week.

Friday 24th June - Day 66

Achieved most of the north wall today and Jo and I put all the glass into the louvres too. The window service will be a while away and we need to be water tight before the flooring can go down. There have been many chipped louvre blades but only 1 was completely shattered. Not surprising really as they were only wrapped in paper and a single layer of bubble wrap.

Thursday 23rd June - Day 65

One of us is at least working hard...
More of teh west wall.

Wednesday 22nd June - Day 64

Work on the west wall is slow and difficult due to the uneven nature of the different building materials used. A lot of "fudging" required.

Tuesday 21st June - Day 63

Finally started the west wall and got the first half of the floor boards delivered today.

Saturday 18th June - Day 62

A really big occasion today. We were able to shart sheeting the the downstairs walls. because there are no eaves to put up we should be able to go a bit faster.

Jo paid us a visit today for a few hours. After setting her the task of cleaning up the pergola area I bet she wished that she hadn't arrived.

Without the eaves to do we managed to get 2 of the lower walls done. It looks a hell of a lot better than the old weather board with paint peeling off.

The West wall needs to be next. We have to put the floor down before moving the kitchen so we need to be protected from the weather.



Friday 17th June - Day 61

Todays progress was good. We finally completed the Blueboard for the 1st floor. We even got the quad between teh eave and the board done...
Two incidents today.
1) Pete got spooked and jumped off the saw horse and sent it into the pool yard.
2) I managed to shoot one of the new water pipes. Perfectly placed nail right in the middle of the pipe.

Jo came on site and did a little bit of cleaning too.

Thursday 16th June - Day 61

Pete's first task today was to create the scaffold for the west wall. He did this amazingly quickly while I wen to the shops to get a pair of stainless steel eye bolts and brackets to add a couple of security harness points to the roof. I was under the impression that Andrew Hanna Electrical was coming onto site to move my solar panels to the new roof. No phone call and no visit.
I also picked up 4 of 6m 3 * 1.5 for more framing It was about 11 when Pete had to visit his accountant and left me to try and get the roof safetly points done. A task that proved impossible by myself so I called Jo and she came to assist.
As Jo had no idea what I was trying to do, I had to get her on the roof to hold the eye bolts still so that they could be fitted. A most amuzing site and Pat (from next door) thought so too. She took a few pictures that I'll add when I get a copy.

Wednesday 15th June - Day 60

The north wall of bedroom and verandah was the task for today. Sarking, Blueboard, extra framing for the board joints and the verandah ceiling in hardiplank with the eaves. After doing the eaves I figured the ceiling would be a good idea so I went to get the hardiplank and ordered 2 of 3 * 1.2 and 1 of 2.4 * 1.2. What I was given was 2 of 3 * 1.2 and 1 of 2.4 * .9. What UI was charged for was 2 of 3 * 1.2 and 1 of 3 * .9. Lesson learned. Always check what is put in the van and check the reciept BEFORE leaving the yard. Luckily it was enough to get the job done.

Tuesday 14th June - Day 59

The East wall of our bedroom was done today.

Friday 10 June - Day 58

The north wall of Tiarna's room and the stairs was done today.

Yay, Long weekend starts today. and Jo and I are off to Festerance. I well earned break.

Thursday 9th June - Day 57

With a little bit of pressure I managed to convince Pete that the centre pier needed a bit of attention. It is supporting the whole upper storey and the top brick was cracked. We used a car jack to lift the house about 1mm and them removed the offending bricks and replaced them with solid bricks then leave it until after teh long weekend. Much happier now.

Josh, Andy and Jack were on site today too. Lots more plumbing completed but still more to do.

Wednesday 8th June - Day 56

Tuesday 7th June - Day 55

Saturday 4th June - Day 54

As I without Pete for the day, my plans were to get the roof finished if the weather was fine. Thankfully Ian offered his services for the day. So after a lazy start of 9am (we needed to allow the dew to dry off the roof) we started with finally fixing the ridge capping together. This involved using rivets to join the adjacent caps and plenty of hex screws. The biggest issue we faced was how to install the foam infill strips under the capping to stop the wind blowing any water into the roof. This is particularly important as the roof only has a pitch of 10 and 13 degrees. Because of the 20mm flange at the edge of the capping the foam cannot be completely under the capping as there is no pressure to keep it in place. Instead it has to sit under the edge of the capping so it can be compressed and held. Originally I didn't think to would look very good with a black infill partially exposed on a cream roof, but it actually makes it look completed.
The odd thing is that they make infills for capping that is perpendicular to the roof ribs but no infills are available for capping that is on the angle and the existing infill doesn't really stretch very well to allow a different period in the corrugations. My options were a tar based product that is apparently very messy or a foam expander that I thought might do the trick. The expander seems to work but it also is pretty messy and quite expensive for how much it does. I used one can doing only 1 & 1/2 edges of a single ridge cap. As I only bought 2 cans I won't get the job completed today.
When 4pm rolled around, we called it quits with two ridge caps still missing and a third still requiring the infill to be installed. I think I might need some more screws too.
Many thanks to Ian for his help today. Hopefully I can repay the favor soon.
Clay popped in a convinced me into going to watch the Rats play. Not a bad game but the Rats came off second best.
Black belt grading tomorrow :)

Friday 3rd June - Day 53

Jo arrived in her best work cloths and commited a rather big clean. Clay was on site again and refused to work in such a mess ;) but then spent most of the afternoon crawling Round under the floor. Pete was only on site till 12 as he was off the Jindabyne so we tried to make the most of his time and got the eaves up above the kitchen roof. With that done our plan was for the south wall off our bathroom to be clad in Blueboard.

We tried to drag up the first 3m board and discovered that we weren't going to lift them over the roof. The next best option was to build a ramp onto the roof and carry the boards up. We thought long and hard about what planks to use and then remembered the hard wood rafters we have saved for the pergola. 30 minutes later we had our ramp.

We the specific boards carried up we started the cladding. Pete had to leave just after we passed the window to our bathroom. 3 more sheets to go. With Jo and Clay to help we got the first wall finished.

Plans to get on the roof to complete to ridges will have to wait till tomorrow.

Thursday 2nd June - Day 52

First order of the day was to finish the stairs that we started yesterday. With the flooring installed and 3 of the step frames done the Blueboards arrived. Pete took full advantage of the crane on the truck and loaded Ivan's firewood into his van the easy way. Most amusing.

 



Taj always finds somewhere to be noticed.



After completing the stair frames we started on the south eave outside our bathroom. We need to get the eaves up before the Blueboards go up.

Clay was also on site and trying to get the power circuits taken care of. Jo came out for a quick visit with pies and cleaned up our mess again. Bloody good job...

Wednesday 1st June - Day 51

I managed to finish the cladding of the west wall so that when the Blueboard arrives tomorrow we can put them up. That of course depends on the weather... I have been waiting for a chance to finish the roof without success. Just the flashing and capping to go. I picked up hopefully the last of the roof flashing today.
Pete fixed a couple of framing issues before the inspector turns up tomorrow, then we cut out and prepared the flooring for the stairs.

Clay was also on site for a few hours and he got some temporary globes wired into the new lighting circuits.

All good.

Tuesday 31st May - Day 50

If we had a recycle day last week, today was rework day. The first order of the day was to move the kitchen window 170mm. I set the widow to be the centre of the bench but the sink is not centered on the bench. Worse yet, because the window is bigger than the original, the last cupboard wouldn't fit. As such the move was necessary. Next on the rework list was the stair landing. We needed to have the steps in front of the window far enough away so that we can open the louvres easily. The choice was a smaller step width or move where the corner joins. The best choice was to rework the landing.
On a positive note we did a bit more of the cladding for preparation for the Blueboards and finished the frame in front of the garage.