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

Monday, 25 May 2015

26-May Update

So many projects on the go at the moment and plenty of progress being made.

The big ticket item for the weekend was the construction of a fence and associated gates to keep the dogs in at night close to the house so they don't chase the local wildlife and also so we can leave the main gate for the driveway open so the lodger can get her car out when she needs to.  Just waiting for the big thank you.  Reminds me of that Simon and Garfunkel song "The Sound of Silence".


The new gate

The cornice is progressing and should be finished over the weekend.  We have started making the overhead cupboards for the scullery.  Most of the kick boards have been fitted.  Towel racks, toilet roll holders etc have been fitted.  We even have a clothes line.

After the great flood the weekend before last we have completed the storm water along the front of the house to avoid a repeat of the Sunday afternoon spent madly shoveling trenches and barriers and bucketing water to prevent granny's house from flooding, all while unknown to us the shed was flooding.  Typical.

Still we probably needed a good rain to see exactly where the runoff would come from and we now have drains etc in place for diverting water that are effective.  The driveway works pretty much as we expected and diverts the bulk of the water around the house.  The other bonus is the water level in the tank is looking much healthier.

Still waiting for the plumber to come and finish a few things.

Thursday, 21 May 2015

21-May Update

Ten long days after it was supposed to be installed we finally got our wood heater installed.  A big shout out to Warwick the fire installer who came out and installed it this morning thus ending our nights of shivering.  Also a big raspberry to the prick who was supposed to install it 10 days ago and failed to show and wouldn't take our calls.  You sir are a prize arse.



Sunday, 10 May 2015

11-May Update

So we are slowly getting a bit more organised but the place is still basically a building site.  Priorities have turned to building the fireplace ready for the wood heater to be installed and sealing off the drafts, which primarily come from a lot of the cornice not yet being installed.

The recycled bricks cleaned up beautifully with a bit of a blast from the high pressure cleaner and the variabilty in colour combined with the odd bit of mortar left on really contributed to the end look.  The wood heater should be fitted Monday so we are looking forward to being warm at night this week.

Progress on cornice has been slow as getting things sorted and unpacked so we have room to move was an early priority.  A few critical pieces where the worst drafts were coming from have been installed and we are looking forward to getting an uninterrupted run at cornice (I cracked up laughing as I wrote that, as if!!!!)

The paving is finished and looks great.  Good to be able to circumnavigate the house without traipsing through the sand.

The other priority is to get some fencing close to the house to keep the dogs from roaming all over the block.

Finished brickwork

 Cleaning the bricks