26 June 2011

What a week! I have been very busy, but I feel that I am not making good progress.
Since we have little money, we cannot do any major jobs. Everything has to be done as cheaply as possible.

                                          Before

We felt sorry for the front veranda, standing like a lady with the arm in the hip. We cleared some of the rubbish and jacked the posts back up, but then the whole roof wanted to fall down. We quickly anchored it back to the house. It looks better now, but the whole thing will need to be rebuilt. The window frames on the deck are the same we saw when we first saw the house in 2003. They are in storage now.

                                          After

On Thursday the guy from Sky was here and fixed our antenna. Now we can watch TV again.

We had the people from the insulation company in in Friday, and they have done the insulation on the ceiling, but have not finished the underfloor because of rain. They will be back on Monday.

We also collected some timber which we had stored at our kids, and stored it under the deck, for use in building sheds.

On Friday I started removing rubbish and clearing the overgrowth from the cookhouse/gardener's cottage. It is looking better now, but we discovered an humongous trunk growing inside the double wall of the fireplace.  That will mean drilling a hole in the trunk and a good dose of weed killer.

                                          Before

Now you can even see the window

I could not clear the roof yet, because of time, and the risk of collapse. If we make it this week, we will clear the other side of the building and start jacking the roof back up.

Jackson had a gardener, Frank Moody, who is said to have lived in the cottage for three years after the house was built. He was responsible for the extensive gardens and orchards around the house. Later he got married and became the local nurseryman. We had a visit from his grandson and the grandson's granddaughter. They wanted to see the place. It was nice to be able to tell them that the cottage will not be demolished, but repaired instead.

On Friday afternoon it was raining outside, and I started looking at the second bathroom, which has a leak in the roof. It turned out it was not so bad, the leak runs directly into the shower, so no harm done (Just joking)

This picture was taken inside the shower, shower rose showing on the right. The framing is completely rotten away. The bathroom was originally (in 1975) built under the pre-existing veranda, and the roof is just gone. I only now realised there was a sheet of corrugated on the outside. I had to clear that as well.

The Ivy is gone now, and we will just keep the door closed, since we are not using this bathroom.

The next job is to do an proposal/application for the work we intend to do in the section, that is for the sheds we need and also possible future garages. It has to be approved by the archaeological people. (I can't even spell the word)

Today was Sunday and it was a nice sunny day. We enjoyed the first of hopefully many sunny afternoons on the deck.

Thanks for the interest and comments. It means I am not talking to myself.

15 June 2011
We are sleeping in our "new" house for the first time tonight!! We are experiencing very mild weather, and the temperature inside was 15 degrees at 5:30. But we just had to light a fire. It is 20 degrees now, and we are going to bed. Sweet dreams.

14 June 2011

We had the people from the Historical Trust over today. Good news. We are allowed to line the inside of the house, fit doors instead of windows where required, and generally make all the changes and upgrades we had in mind. Even skylights are allowed. The lady even suggested that we do not rebuild the missing decks and verandas. We will however rebuild the verandas on the western side.

The one little problem is that the grounds are regarded as an archaeological site, and we are not even allowed to put a fence up without approval. That puts the revamp of the cookhouse on the back burner. I will need to survey the whole section and draw full plans of everything I want to do, even long term projects, like a garage. Nothing can be done till we are settled in there. Fortunately, the sheds I will put up will not interfere with the artifacts, and i will just go ahead with that.

We had out telephone disconnected in Cambridge, so we will do the BIG move tomorrow. That means we will try to sleep there tomorrow night. If we manage that, we will report from Base Jackson.

Good night

9 June 2011

We have just received the title deed, or whatever you want to call it. The Jackson house belongs to us since 12:46 on 08/06/2011. Now we can really start moving!!

Moving yes, but for a little problem. Today we took another load over, wardrobes and boxes, and when we got home there was water leaking under the car. A leaking water pump!! And at the moment it is our only running car. Nothing to do but to fix it. That can only be tomorrow afternoon. In the morning we are having some more potential tenants for a walk through.

I am soooo ready to move over and get settled there, but I have to be patient.

Watch this space for further developments.

5 June 2011

Another week is gone. We made good progress on finishing the tasks in Cambridge. We also removed 5 trailer loads of topsoil to Kihikihi. That has been lying in our driveway since we started building here. In the living room we removed the wallpaper and scrim. It seems the timber is Kauri. And most of it is tongue and groove, which means we will not need to line it. We will discuss finishes with the Historical Places people when they visit us. Tomorrow we hope to move our extra vehicles over. There  are 3 to go, one belongs to Mieke, the second is the Austin which I have sold and the buyer has not picked it up yet, and the third is a small Toyota which will eventually replace the large car. On Wednesday the property will be transferred in our names, and we hope to begin moving the larger furniture pieces over on Thursday. We might even sleep there that night. Our one concern is that we do not have tenants in Cambridge yet. Please help us pray for good tenants.