Roofing Day 1

Tuesday 31st Jan 2012

The new roof on the house was timetabled to start yesterday, but Mother Nature decided we needed a day off! Despite the roofing iron being delivered at 6.27am, 21mm rain meant nothing could be done.

But - today is another day. I've been working in the office, with the sound of cordless drills and man chatter going on overhead!

The roof being replaced over the office,

Who could complain about these working conditions?!

Spectacular view!

Brass Bed

Sunday 29th January 2012
I'm excited! We just picked up an original Victorian double brass bed for the spare room! I found the head & ends on Gumtree, and then on our way home, bought the matching connecting rods at a junk yard. All together - the purchase was just $140. Whoopee!

Now before you all rush to book a night,

just remember we need to now make the slatted base,

and buy a mattress!!

Rainwater Tank

Saturday Jan 28th 2012

Just after 7am, a rumbling was heard. It was coming from the road out front. If we'd still been sleeping in the kitchen we probably wouldn't have heard it! There's a truck out front, and it's got an excavator on back.!! We quickly get dressed. Today is tank day !!

Clearing the grass away for the pad.

The site is marked out,

Base material.

The bottom layer is constructed.

No Tanks to Robert for taking this photo!!

Second layer going up.

Do I look short in this ?

The completed tank - just as well we got rid of the Chook Trailer!

This was all completed by lunchtime - a great team effort.

Then we had 6000L of town water pumped into it, to stop it from blowing away.

Full, it will hold 48,963L - weighing over 48 tonnes!!

Floors are finished !!

Thanks to John's wonderful work, we now have a floor throughout the house, and our bed is back in the bedroom. That is, until we get the floors sanded and polished, and also when the walls start coming off. But that's later - it's nice to have a fly free zone. The work will now move outside.

Passageway

Day 6 - This morning 'Bones' and 'Doggy' finished laying the insulation. Robert dug a trench to find where the plumbing from the toilet and shower ran, and to have it open for the connection of the new toilet to the bore.

This is Pete the plumber - making sure everything is plumb! Flushing unit not operational yet!
Robert and John continued on the floor boards, finishing the lounge and passageway by day's end.

Everything lined up straight!

A joint effort!!

Underfloor Insulation

Before the insulators arrived this morning, Robert & John added a few extra joists to the lounge room floor. The timber they used was recycled from the "Chook Trailer".

The underfloor insulation starts to be stapled between the joists. The workers are "Bones" (in white) and "Doggy" (in green). We didn't ask where their nick-names came from !!

Each piece had to be individually measured and cut to fit, as the joist spacing is not standard! They were originally laid about 60cm apart, but not exactly, where insulation today assumes a standard of 45cm apart.

The lounge has been completed, now the passageway begins.

Passage completed.

Once the insulation was down in the lounge, the new floor was begun to be laid.

John clamping the first couple of rows in place.

Progress at end of Day 5.

John & Robert knocked off at "beer o'clock" and the empty stubbies were positioned so that a future generation might find a treasure.



Front Room

Because the front rooms were having the floors removed next, it was necessary to move our bed. So we now are sleeping in the kitchen - on the new floor! (It makes breakfast in bed convenient)

Day 4 - and it's the front room. John & Robert spent the day lifting the old boards up. Originally we had thought we would be able to salvage some, but it became evident that they are only suitable for firewood.

This is the board that separated the original 2 rooms - the wall of which had been removed sometime prior to our purchase.

Lifting these might look simple, but after 110 years together, they didn't want to let go. It took 2 men, 3 pinch bars and a crowbar to separate them!

Success! Man prevails!

The other half of the room.

And the passageway.

End of Day 4.

Kitchen Floor

Day 3 of renovations is replacing the green tongue chipboard in the kitchen, with extra waterproofing agent painted on the underneath, and laid on treated pine. We found there was concrete laid around the edges of the room, to prevent rodents and water penetrating under the house. We still will need to add extra drainage on the outside of the house to stop the "one in a hundred year" rains - which seems to happen more often than not.

The boards were so rotten, they crumbled underfoot.

Notice the unpainted patches where the oven and rangehood had been. We found rats had chewed almost to the bare wires, and the rangehood was only attached with 2 x 2" nails, and maybe some glue!!

Note the perimeter of concrete around John's work area.

Why didn't they just finish the whole floor with concrete ??

The enjoyable, and quickest part of the job!

Terracotta Tiles

Day 2 of renovations - John got into the bathroom this morning, and by lunch time we had a floor.

After lunch, he and Robert got into the kitchen and started on removing the EXTERIOR terracotta tiles that had been laid, partly on concrete and partly on chipboard. Everything in the house, despite shutting every door available, is now coated with a fine layer of brick dust.

Whilst all this was happening inside, 2 young lads were installing guttering on the shed - so that all is ready for the rain water tank.

Bathroom Floor

18th January 2012
Today is the first real day of living in a renovation site. Before I was really even awake, the builder John arrived. Shortly after the first 6m skip for rubbish was delivered. Then Robert & John started demolishing the bathroom.

The first "challenge" arrived when we discovered one end of the room had a concrete slab, and so there was a bit of conferencing to decide how it could be worked around.

The plumber Peter came to view the site.  Because the floors are so close to the ground, any replumbing has to be done whilst the floors are absent.

At this stage we discover the exterior wall behind where the shower was has rotted away, and so part of it will need to rebuilt. The vinyl cladding on the exterior (which we had planned to remove) was hiding this damage.

So by the end of day 1 - the dirt floor had been exposed - and only 2 pieces of timber were worth keeping. Just about everything else had rotted away.