Follow our journey as we build our forever house for us, our 3 sons, dogs, chickens and Nan

Sunday, 29 March 2015

29th March Progress Report

Another massive week has seen some serious progress made. A bit of a scheduling problem saw the vinyl plank flooring installed this week.  Unfortunately we haven't finished plastering as we had hoped so we have to be careful and cover the floors with tarpaulins

The door frames have all been installed.  3 piece metal frames.  I got some tips from Chris the carpenter and the install went smoothly and easily

Plastering is progressing well.  The process of plastering in a steel or timber frame house involves taping the joints in the walls and ceilings.  The tape is applied to the joint with a small smear of plaster behind it.  The tape is then smoothed over with a trowel to push out any air bubbles. Once the tape and plaster drys a second coat is applied designed to fill the joint.  Then a final coat is applied to make it all smooth and pretty (a little bit of sanding is also thrown into the mix). 

The beauty of this build is we got a really good deal on some Tapetech Flat Boxes.  These are the go for getting plaster into the joints in a smooth and ready to go.  This is what the professionals use and even amateurs like us can get a really good finish using these things.   Flushing joints by hand really sucks.  These flat boxes make it an almost pleasant experience (especially the final coat box which takes premixed plaster straight out of a drum).  You basically fill the box with plaster the run it along the joint applying pressure and like magic you have a really nice plaster job

In between second and final coat you also need to tape and plaster the internal and external corners. The tape has a crease in the middle that naturally folds to form the corner.  There is a bit of a knack to it but they are generally fairly easy.  External corner have a steel trim that you set into the plaster.  A little time consuming but generally fairly easy

Once the plastering is all done the cornice can then be installed.  Cornice has to be one of my least favourite jobs.  If anyone can explain to me the secret of cutting nice matching mitre joints with cornice and then installing them I would love to hear about it.

In between all this I have dug the trenches for the gas and water lines and laid the water pipe from the tank to the house.  I have also installed some more storm water pipes.  

Anyway the tiler starts on Monday.  We will be continuing with plastering and hope to be mostly complete by this time next week.

 Flooring Installed

  Flooring Installed

 Door Frames Installed

 Taping in the open area

 Flushing Box in Action


 Cornice close up

 Buttering Cornice - Smallest Room in the house

 Bathroom Cornice

Storm water leaf catcher in action(keeps mosquitoes and vermin out of the pipes as well as diverting leaves away from the system)

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