Sunday, December 21. 2008
Early on the sunday morning before xmas.. i awoke to banging in the house (i may have had a bit of a hangover from my work xmas party the night before) .. anyways I eventually got up and there was Matt, Dave and mates mate Hutty the gyprocker sheeting the new room. Even though my head was hurting it was great as it realy looked like we were going to be in before xmas!!
Saturday, December 20. 2008
Time for the insulation to go in.. matt brought out the disposable suits and rubber gloves.. of course i just wanted to get dressed up.. but he made me work.. hmph! Glad we wore all the gear as we wernt itchy at all after.
Friday, December 5. 2008
Look at me with my electrical lingo.... roughing in means to place all the wires in the walls before any wall linings go on.. I didnt realise how many different types of wires there are... speaker wires, coaxel cables, lights, poweroints. What big decisions to make where to place all the lights.. we have so many lights.. over 20 lights for this room.. but thats what u can have when your brother (matts brother dave) is an electrician.
Sunday, November 30. 2008
After arriving back from our relaxing holiday in Thailand it was straight back into work.. took a couple of days to get the cladding finished and finally the boards can come down from the previous back door.. its now looking like a proper little house and we now semi use it... until the next day of mess comes along..
Wednesday, November 5. 2008
The roof was put and in place by the time we left for thailand... matt can now sleep at night and relax on our holiday. It was semi at lockup stage.. but we still left the boards up whilist we were away.. Trying to select a colour for the roof was an effort.. we drove around the streets of terrigal and avoca looking at all the different colours.. to me picking the colour was easy.. we wanted a light colour (but not too light) and not grey. There was only really one option .. dune colour.. when it was delivered it was the same colour as the house next door... whoops.. matty was not impressed! I dont really see the issue as we dont even see the topside of the roof? Anyways.. its looking good and coming along nicely!
Friday, October 31. 2008
so hard to find time at the moment. We have been so busy every weekend with all these weddings to attend.. and matt now working back in sydney.. doesnt get home until later on in the day. Matt has been having a few days off to get a few things going.. so were still hoping to be at lock up before we leave for phuket.. It also doesnt help when both your gyprocker and electrician both are getting married and going on there honeymoons.. how rude... hmm we didnt factor that one into the time schedule!! Also you might be interested to know after attending all these weddings i decided to ask where my ring was.... my answer was .. 'sonia what about the roof that can be your engagement ring cant it'... i dont think so!!
(see below for another recent post)
Monday, October 20. 2008
The windows for the extension were delivered and were placed in position without any drama. The deck was finished off and is looking really good. Its all getting there. The cladding of the outside walls has now been started, luckily this was all in good time for daves (matts brothers) bucks bbq - as they decided it was a good idea at the time to let the 'entertainment' perform outside in the new room (dont worry everything was disinfected the next day)! It really is getting there though.. and were hoping to get it at some sort of lock up stage before we jet off to phuket for dave and lorraines wedding.
Thursday, October 9. 2008
We received another delivery of timber and materials... including the hardwood decking material. The hardwood is from indonesia and looks and smells great its just lovely (OMG - im really becoming a reno geek now). As matt is waiting on roof material - we decided to start on the deck. When we unpacked the timber, some of it was bleeding (or leaching as matt calls it). It was ok - just gave it a wipe over and polished up nice. After some issues with the nail sizes and shapes we started laying it down and it is lookin' good!
It was a beautiful day but then the rain and hail came soon came over. I think i must of swept the water off the deck and floor like 100 times!
Sunday, September 28. 2008
Up early on a Friday morning to go off to work. Matt having a day off to work on our place. Get all nice and in my work clothes and then 10 mins before i have to leave matt starts demolishing the back door. Matt removes the architrave around the door and literally about 500 ants came out... we sprayed them and they starting dropping.. honestly it was raining ants.. i quickly got armed with the vacumn cleaner and started chasing them around the house. It was pretty funny. (dont worry - they were normal ants not white ants/termites).
Off to work for the day.
Hmm... so i arrive home from work on a friday afternoon... where matt has been working away all day ... now i dont have a back door... so it gets boarded up at night and screwed to the house. Should i be worried that there are now accrow props holding the ceiling/roof up and only a couple of screws to break in through. Matt assures me that it would be easier to break in through the front door than get though the back. OK should be ok.
Another thing.... now i can see evidence of the termites.... its kind of freaky - they eat only enough of the timber to still keep the house standing .. somehow they know how far to go!? Matt reckons there the best engineers in the world.
The weekend passes by and the wall frames are complete.
Tuesday, September 23. 2008
Slave labour alright.. thats matt making me work like a slave!
A very hot weekend - we both had Friday off work but most of the day was used running around in panic as our laptop stopped working! But in the afternoon Matt got the South wall frame up (with my help of course). There is a huge beam that will be placed above the double doors leading out to the deck which is massivly heavy. I said to Matt that i would be unable to help carry it as its just too heavy. But of course early on Saturday morning i was woken up to help carry the beam up to be placed into position in the frame. One of the neighbours yelled out to matt and was saying that i was working hard (hannah hardworker in his words). A few hours later matt asked (i say asked - but i relly had NO choice) to help stand the frame up. We had a go but i couldnt do it. I had a little break and then tried again. Honestly it was the heaviest thing i have EVER had to lift. The 2nd go we got it up - but that wasnt even the hard bit. The hard bit was just trying to keep it standing while matt braced it. The other neighbour on the other side was now watching and we had a bit of an audience (very embarressing). Meanwhile i had to de-nail some timber to help brace it whilist holding the frame up. After it was all braced i then tried to explain to matt that it was really hard for me to do , even though it was something so simple for him (imagine him trying to do type and format letters under pressure - ok maybe he could do that). But really it was tough work. Now there are 3 frames up.
Sunday, September 14. 2008
Well another week gone and more progress to report. A beautiful sunny Saturday and were hard at work on the house. The rear extension is now taking major progress as the floor has now been laid. No more do i have jump over string lines and dodge profiles. The room is huge, its great, i have already figured out the furniture placement and colour schemes - and we dont even have any walls yet - but im sure that wont take long. We sealed the floor with some oil in case the rain came (which it did and the water could be swept straight off - excellent idea disie). Today (Sunday) we have showed off the new floor to Cliffy and Disie. We havnt yet christened it (only with a cup of tea - doesnt quite count) so waiting for Rossco and Robyn to come around this afternoon to have some more champas!! Just in case your wondering - yes i have danced on it like it is a stage.
Monday, September 8. 2008
Well Saturday was a VERY disappointing day – we woke up to torrential rain. Matt spent the whole day pacing up and down the house – very frustrating. The building site across the road started up there inside work and all matt could say was “are they teasing me” – hahaha. Sunday was better, after a nice fathers day brekky with Rossco and Robyn – matt got stuck into it. In his words he ‘detailed the posts’ – not quite sure what that means but lets just say he connected the metal thingamejigs to the posts that will hold the addition up!? Worked out that the timber that was delivered – was a little wrong. But called up the timber yard who fixed there wrongdoing up straight away. Today (Monday) came and I headed off to work after about ½ an hour of measuring up in the mud before I left! Hmm! Matt had the day off to work on the house. Arrived back at 5pm to see matt has been hard at it all day and finally now has caught up from Saturdays off day and has part of the floor frame done! Good job. The sun was fading quickly, we packed the tools up and had a walk on the floor – thought we saw glimpses of ocean from the new height– we wish!
Sunday, August 31. 2008
After being corrected too many times i finally now understand the difference between concrete and cement! Saturday started off with the alarm going off at 630am for a 7am delivery of concrete (sand and gravel) mix - lovely way to start a sunny Saturday. Dizzy (the cement mixer) got a major work out - with part of our first mixture all over me! The mixer wasnt balanced and tipped over me - quite funny actually! A quick clean up and some new clothes we then got stuck into a very busy day! I was in charge of the mix, shoveling all mix in. With the cement stock running low, a trip to bunnings was in order. Matt was busy with his concrete mix so I had to drive his truck up to bunnings. As you know i am not the most confident driver in the world - and when i got there i had to back the truck into the pick up area and load it up with 32 bags of cement (with some help from the guys in the shop). I was quite proud of my self for actually just going and doing it. Finally cliffy came down to lend a hand with the footings and i was finally off the hook for labouring. All the footings (about 13) have now been poured for the addition with just the deck footings to go. I worked very hard all day and my muscles are very sore today (or was it that dancing last night at the pub?) I keep trying to tell matt that i dont know any other girl that would be doing any of this building stuff and in his wise words... "oh sonnie i know, i just sometimes forget your a girl and think you can do all the boy stuff" hmm!
Tuesday, August 26. 2008
Three more days gone and lots more has been done! Cliffy helped out on Sunday with the setting out , lots of strings lines and marking of where the footings are to be dug. Mum came over to and the girls provided the refreshments and we watched the marathon off and on. Matt has been working at North Avoca on another job for the last couple of days but has been coming home and digging with the help of rossco and robyn. Hoping we can get the footings inspected by council this week and testing out 'dizzy' the cement mixer! Stay tuned for more!
Saturday, August 23. 2008
Day one of major renovations and we wake up to a horrible wet and windy day. Matt (of course) still pulls on the work boots and watches the clock till its turns 8am (councils approval states work on saturdays may not commence until 8am - and of course we dont want to get ourselves in trouble on day one). Matt gets the sledge hammer out and starts knocking away the concrete slab out the back. Cliffy and Di come around for a 'quick' visit and end up staying for breakfast and all the boys do is talk about the footings and the best way to do them. Then a quick trip to bunnings to check out supplies and buy some siltation fence and back to work knocking away the slab. Matt has given me given the little sledge hammer and himself in charge of the big one. Honestly i think i was pretty good, in the runnings for labourer of year i think. A couple of wheel barrow loads of rubble, some broken bricks and we come across our first taste of the termite infested house! After knocking the slab off and having a clear view of under the house, we see a bearer that has had some damage. Hmm.. a few minutes thought and a couple of refreshments matt has worked out a solution. Work finishes, a quick clean up and no back door access?!? Will get onto that tomorrow!
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