Archive for the ‘house’ Category

Door

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Last night  David, Tom and I went out with many of the neighbours from up and down the road with torches and vehicles and tried to round up two stray yearlings.  You don’t get to do that in town!

The two rabbits David has been trying to shoot have not been around - he is frustrated by the sight and the distance limit on the air rifle. A proper weapon is required. But he is not yet old enough for his own license.

And today I finished the hall ( well bar the touch ups).

Door

Door

Many thanks to Jono Inkster of JMI Construction who ‘gets’ what I am trying to do with the old house and who opened the old door.  Jono was introduced to me by Steve Jeff .  It is  truly tragic that we did not know him earlier! And thanks to Bob who crafted new and restored the old glass into it.

I thought I had blogged about this door - it was closed over on the inside but always apparent externally.  Jill Minson remembers when it was closed for good and they got more space.  For me, opening it was part of reclaiming the spirit of the house . I have wanted to do this ever since we arrived.

Jono rebuilt the wall and restored the original hall,  procured new mathcing skirting and made a wonderful job of matching it.   The day Jono pulled off the lining and confimed it was indeed a solid door was more of a milestone for me than anything else in the whole build… and it remains so.  Three new hinges was all it took to hang it.

I have left all the old chipped paint on it and just added more. Layering back some and covering over other coats of time seems the right treatement. The ewindow above it I stripped back with citrus stripper and now the  light comes in.

I breath deeply everytime I step in and out of it.

In process

In process

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The Outside

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

Serious action in the last week has seen the house take shape.   I am starting to get a little excited though still finding managing the details of it all and all the deciding very tricky  being at heart a perfectionist.  The house has been such a long time coming and we will live here  for so long to come, choices must be compromised between two people’s taste… and as the choices are made the budget inevitably rises. No wonder Grand Designs is our favourite TV programme.

My favourite photo so far!

My favourite photo so far! The dark is the finished colour.

The hebel guys have been here working for the last week or so. This has involved screwing the hebel panels to the wall and layering plaster and rendering over it. You think it looks good at each stage but the final coat , a finely textured layer, renders the coating into  a lovely finished form.  Unlike many of the practices and materials being used in the build, the tools and skills they use are essentially those which  my father had when her was apprenticed. I have them  stored carefully in the shed. ( Of course the light weight concrete panels and the gib panels internally make a huge difference to his day of lathe and plaster).

The final coat is then painted  - Murray chose Half Masala , the colour specially formulated from a  sample, painted on a test pot,  sent to Dunedin and recalculated into the Hebel Supercoat .  Its looking well with the old house and looks good with the window colour. We have been wrapped up but today I stepped out of the house just as the plastic came off the living room windows. It was a nice moment.

Plastering has also been going on inside and I especially like the reinforced palster corner papers.  Again, layers of varying plasters are being layered to get a good finish.

Yesterday the concrete guys came back and ground out the high bits ready for the tiler to come after the painters. Yes, it’s beginning to come together.  The grinding would normally be done with a water system but these guys don’t usually have to come back and they were using small hand held thing.   Understandably the gib stopper left !

"Fog" in the lounge.

"Fog" in the living room.

Things progress in the kitchen refinement but the subject is a tad raw as the joiner is not prepared to start without all in place and there are a few bits nad pieces - like what is going on the top cupboards - stillin flux. Check back soon!

Oh… and I found the perfect tap @ $1299 plus gst…. Regretfully I think it is better spent on the deck.

Not quite the same one as on Grand designs... but close

Not quite the same one as on Grand designs... but close

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Nearly closed in

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Its getting close.   Another selay as a couple more brackets were deemed necessary - again not easy to determine quite where this error of design and application lies but as of this afternoon all but one window is in.

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A view form the bridge - deck /patio will join the houses at floor level- the form looks good.

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Hebel partially finished

The Hebel guys have been working since Friday. First they fasten metal battens ont which teh Hebel is attached.   Teh panels are reinfoced with steel and cut and nailed inot place. Plaster goes over the joins and is later rendered over the whole and a special thick paint applied.

Refinememts to windows mean we ahve one to go. The frames are mounted without glass to keep them lighter. So once they are glazed we will be closed in for real!

Garage door is ordered.

I still can’t find a tap I like…..

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Big Day

Friday, March 20th, 2009

Well - lots of action today at the site and around the town.

The final windows were delivered and installed, building inspector signed off, hebel guys mounted battens, sparky finished most of pre wire, Red Dwarf finished pre pipe.  The storm watere was done yesterday which meants asump in the back bit and windows for the old house that open onto the back section were planned.  The windows in the link were installed yesterday and it is going to be a great sun trap which may well feed warmth to the old house.  Plans for tree ferns in a garden out back took another step in the imagination.

leaning windows

leaning windows

sorting the back bit.

sorting the back bit.

Meanwhile in town  months of research came to fruiton.

1. I settled the kitchen design ( pics coming soon) . Ongoing battle over the undersink cupboard was settled with a $60 toe kick pedal.  I have transformed the colour palette to light and teh ever patient Steve and I spent the good part of an hour minutely disecting shades of putty, irish cream and designer white to get the precise colour for the bottom cupboards.

2. On to Red Dwarf and selected a heated towl rail from the, again, ever patient, Michelle.

Chat to Doug about whether the toilet will fit …

3. On to Spazio Casa ( turn off the music with the wee off icon)  where Angela and Gary finally extacted some hard earned $ for an oder of floor wood.  I came home with a botte of wine and a tile option for the bathroom.

4. Taps … I don’t like any taps I have seen. They all are obesessed with little stick handles, have odd try hard designs … maybe I should just design my own.

A visit to a bathroom reatiler yesterday was ecuational - everything we think would be obvious is out of the ordinary : two mixers for to showers turns out to be an odd request!   The solution is a worka round - converting one mixer designed for two shower heads to work two shoers .. but we have to have teh same temperature which defeats the purpose.  Somebody is missing something!

Still.. light emerges at the end of the tunnel….

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A better day

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

The day started with Steve asking me if I was “out of the dark hole yet?” … Well I wasn’t at the start of the day but by the end a cloud has lifted somewhat…

845 am : Talk with another parent at school about nightmare awning experience of inlaws.

9.30am: arrive back to a digger, two drainlayers, a builder, a joiner and a kitchen designer ( Steve)

10.30 ish I have:

agreed on gully’s for the outflow ( dreading telling Murray - bound to be wrong)

checked on wing wall location for kitchen, moved microwave location, agreed island needs revising to accomodate pipes ( MUST get around to buying dish drawer. Probably missed the sale I saw! ) , asked to see big peice of stuff for kitchen, debated deep drawers versus cupboards and many otehr petty details.

BIG news is that after weeks - no MONTHS - of trying to avoin melamine with PVC edging because Murray believes it to be inferir Wayne , the joiner, pronounces it more hardy than the shrink wrap option ot two pot. What Murray has been afraid of all thes eyears in a stick on tape - hardely ever done unless some architect wants sharp as corners at the expense of wear and tear.

So lets be clear once and for all: In order of best performance, long lasting toughness :

1: Melamine and PVC edging.

2: Thermo - lam  - does allow you to do nifty shapes and details .

3 Two pot paint.

Of course it MUST be said that stianless would beat them all as the finsih to beat all finishes. But we left that port some months ago!

11.38: checked with sparky re the ommission of down lights in kitchen which I know we discussed. This was picked up by lack of wires

12.30 Finally made contact with colour consultant and agreed to meet next week She confrimed my desire to go all through with one colur and up and over with one colour!

1.15 Doug sends an email confirming I wanted fore in red right? Very funny!

1.30:  drains all over the place - new brackets getting fixed.

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a bit of a rework

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drain in fron of the garage

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a better bracket

3.00 - Noticed down pipe in bad place on living room wall - but only real option once reviewed. Got sizes for windows in old house and will shop for these tomorrow. Made time to meet builder and project manager toorrow night to discuss time frames and some other issues.

3.45 Picked up Nick back to meet heating guy - now have paper version of  boiler on wall - water and power in wring place, looks like bolt MAY have missed heating pipe , decided on heated towl rail size, shape and location. Discussed options for water, heat and light locations that may or not be in the right places….

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Old meets new yesterday

6.31: Vacuumed up dust from yesterdays punch through wall. Now fighting paper war with all the brochures , and details that are proliferating.

Must cook some dinner!  Kitchen smells dreadful … something dead under the floor… and David needs collecting at 8!

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It’s a wrap.

Friday, March 6th, 2009

a bit of action!

a bit of action!

Well, an April 30 handover looks essentially impossible now but action this week on several fronts brings mid May a bit closer than it was.

We are wrapped - free advertsiing courtesy of a moisture layer.   Wiring has begun and surfeits are going in.

With the wrapping on we can now get a sense of wall and window - though the internal spaces are still skeletal. Its seems very dark  and we are learning much about the role of reflected light.

Decisions are becoming stacked up waiting sign off.: kitchen cupboards, where do the power points go, garage door colour, taps ( still can’t decide on those) , front door style, exterior colour ( reflect limitations - what’s the bet we want one out side them! ) ….

Coming posts : Murra’ys Wall,  Fish, Heating again, Wood, About Hebel.

It ain’t quite like Grand Designs.

From the "Dining Room"

From the "Dining Room"

The bedroom ! Wires and venting for bathroom haemoraging over where the bed will be.

The bedroom ! Wires and venting for bathroom haemoraging over where the bed will be.

No , I can’t spell it!  I am not the medical one!

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Roof done …

Friday, February 27th, 2009

Well bar the shouting and the flashing.

Its been a stressful week all. Odd weather patterns saw patches of rain and shine that did not bring forth roofers. Suffice to say by weeks end… and months end .. we now have all roof iron - sans ridging which is normal . The roofers have been advised by the builder that he will be condsidering a change of contractor.

Meanwhile Steve has almost completed kitchen designs, has bnegotaited project management with the builder and is getting prices.   That sounded easy didnt it. Well in fact it was a process to make the ofl stomach ulcer rumble.  A fixed price contratc implies a fixed set of contractors. This makes sens in that the builder collects a stabel of subbies who are trusted. But what if the clinet wants to bring in either a competitive price or a subby with a different way of working? Well then a credit is awarded from the contract.  In the case of purchasing and oven or whatever that is a relatively simple matter. But in teh case of a whole kitchen … what f the thing doesn’t fit? Who is to blame? I am pleased to say that the calibre of builder and  designer in this case has effected an agreement and we are moving ahead.

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Delays

Monday, February 23rd, 2009
Mon
16°C
10°C
Tue
14°C
9°C
Wed
18°C
11°C
Thu
18°C
11°C
Fri
20°C
12°C

From Met Service today.. there were images of rain here but they disappeared.

Frustrating delays in getting the roof finished with flow on effect to the rest of the work . End of April hand over now very unlikely!

Things are taking shape however and the decisions are coming thick and fast. Form and function are inevitbaly challenged by budget!

Kitchen being finalised, Bathroom stuff being ordered and laundry is on the drawing board.  Tiling just awaits the tiler to price and ok the tile choice. Wood colour for living room floow is also close to settled.

A quick post here  - blogging is not very easy to maintain!

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