Getting Stoned!

today the bluestone guy started. He now needs to grout between the stone pieces and then do the 'pointing' which is pretty well drawing lines between the stone with white paint. He said he will finish on Monday. We keep laughing that now the front is almost finished that people will think the house is almost done! yeah right; new target date; 2010!

Front Plaster

They have finally finished plastering the front of the house. They are still so slow to progress through the house, apparantely they were busy doing their homemade wine last week (isn't that what weekends are for!) so they only worked 1 day!! No wonder it's slow. The stonemason will come and start next week to put the bluestone on the front and then the verandah can go on.

'Cos we didn't have enough to do

we decided we didn't have enough to do so we started renovating the business! it needs a bit of surface work but structurally it is fine. We hope to be in around september (heard that before)!! the fireplace was removed so that we can divide the room into two treatment rooms. in the carpark picture we had a shed removed to make room for more parking spaces. in the pic of the back facade, you can see Frank's dads ingenuity, he turned a screen door on it's side and made it into a window security screen!! we have also had the bathroom and laundry retiled and will polish up the kitchen floorboards but at this stage the kitchen stays ($$).

Random Brick pics

Getting Plastered

The plasterers started their handywork last Friday. After a few (minor) arguments they have started with the front and will hopefully go and do the wet areas next ready for the tiler. The biggest problem is while they made us wait for 6 weeks for them to start, they have now started and have asked for a few things that will take another week to order!! So we are busy chasing things up for them, that could have been done while we were waiting for them to start. Oh well, that's the game. It is exciting to see movement.

The bit that looks like the most fun is the pre-plaster when they basically mix up concrete and just throw it at the walls! this gives the plaster something to stick to. They think the whole job will take about 4 weeks.

Movement

The carpenter has been putting the doorjambs in ready for the plasterer to start on Tuesday after Easter. Frank had to call the carpenter up to 20 times per day to try and track him down (unsuccessfuly BTW, he called us when he was good and ready!). The plasterer told us he would be ready to start 2 weeks ago but with Adelaide's heatwave, he thought he would postpone (and not tell us). in other good news, the paperwork is with the certifiers and ready to go to council. Fingers crossed it will only take a week or so to be approved! Happy easter to everyone. if anyone has a good memory, you would recall that were thought we might be moving in over easter, well (cough, cough) i think we should have been more specific and said easter 2009!!

Game On

good news so far. everyone seems to think that drawing the roof is fairly easy. Our draftsman came back yesterday and had a walk around to inspect the roof. He just needs to draw us a picture and then we can re-submit the plans to council. Council are taking about 2 weeks for a response so fingers crossed they are running on time!! yeah right, who am i kidding! At least it is progress

Hold Up

tools down, game off! there has been a slight delay in house progress. The council did their spot inspection and found the roof to be wrong! not bad, just different from what was submitted on the plan! mmmh, curious! so now, we are getting busy trying to get over this little hurdle. more news as it happens!

Roof almost done

After 2 full days of work on the roof, they have almost finished it except for a couple of small pieces of colorbond and the ridging. We had a suprise phonecall from the council wanting to do a spot inspection tomorrow; did someone play a prank on us!?

more photos for you to enjoy! We also spent a few hours with the sparky today going back over the powerpoint locations, styles and locations of lightswitches etc. It took a fair while and we were given homework!!

It is starting to look like a real house!

Oiling it Up

We spent a bit of time putting linseed oil on the timber windows and the timber verandah posts. It feels like this is the first bit of physical labour we have done in a while, we seem to be spending more time running around than actually doing lately! Everything looked good at the end of the day and should be a bit more protected from the sun (and rain if it happens) now that they have more oil on them.

The guttering and fascia

The roof started on Friday and they even worked on Saturday. They have now done all of the fascia and all of the guttering and are scheduled to start putting the colorbond on early next week. That means all the other tradies are on standby to start straight away. We are meeting with the sparky to choose the powerpoints and have given the cabinet maker the final measurements. Easter move in date here we come!!

Update and Some Random Pics

The colorbond roof guy came to measure up today and tells us he will be completely finished in a week. There is still some second hand timber to go into the roof space after the colorbond is on. After a bit of a standstill, it is exciting to see some movement. The plumbers have also poked some holes in the walls to run the hot water pipes through and they and the sparky are ready to go when the roof is on. When we went there today, we found this manual which made us feel slightly nervous!! and the left over roof trusses are reminiscent of putting an Ikea chair together!! there always seem to be left over pieces!

And the trusses go up

Here are pictures from the second day of putting the trusses up. They have been working pretty fast in the last 2 days so the roof is really taking shape. We have also been trying to select our cornices for the house and bought our watertank last weekend. A big 2000L tank, which in today's climate will probably never be full! At least we are doing our bit for the environment.