29 January 2012

The days are getting muddled up a bit. On Monday (I think) I started building the wall. I built a level subframe and put the frames on top of that. The idea is to build a 2.4 m wall with a garage door in it, and to add a carport behind it. The major problem is that I am not allowed to dig any holes for posts to support the wall. It will end up having braces all over. Let us but hope that we do not get a strong gust of wind to take the wall to the neighbour!! It turned out that the ground drops down by 400mm towards the cookhouse. I contacted a guy who promised to deliver a load of pitsand to level that area. Still waiting. Sorry Ben, I didn't make it.

Once the sand (8 cubic metres) is delivered, we will have to level it out, and also move about one metre to Cambridge to cover a parking area at our other house. Somebody suggested I should work on my beer belly.

On Thursday I finished painting the outside wall, up to the downpipe. (see last week's picture) Next is to be the western wall. Moved the scaffold over and started cleaning the weatherboard. The forecast for Friday was rain, and I also had to go to Hamilton, so no work could be done. There is still some cleaning to be done, and one board is rotten and must be replaced.

Saturday we decided not to work. I started by spraying a weedkiller on the grass by the back door. Elna washed the car. Then I fixed my planer/ thicknesser which had stripped gears and a broken drive belt. With the planer fixed, I planed a rod down for a curtain rod in the living room. It still has to be sanded and varnished. An easy day.

Today is Sunday, a day of rest.

21 January 2012

On Monday we built the required scaffold to reach the top of the gable end. It is a bit Heath Robinson, but will do the job. It does not cover the full width of the gable, so it will have to be moved along. The scaffold will require another ladder on top of it, but that will be securely strapped down.

We did get the garage through Trademe. The condition was that it had to be removed by Friday, give or take. We only won it in Monday night. Ben and myself wet out there on Tuesday. The garage was 6*5 m, but there was an additional 6*6 "lapa" area, a semi open roofed in area. To make a long story short, on Wednesday night we had the roofs and trusses removed. Thursday we spent to take Ben to the airport, for his return to South Africa. Friday Elna and me went out there, removed the cladding from the walls, cut the frames to manageable sizes, and carted all away. This project has been an enormous effort by both Elna and Ben. Without their help I could not have done it. Now the plan is to use the material to build a screening wall to hide all my rubbish from the general view. Ben said he wanted to see a picture of the completed wall on the blog next week. Next week?

Today was Saturday. I said to Elna I will take a day of rest and planning on the wall. Then I walked around the house and the scaffolding was yelling at me. So I got on the scaffold and started sanding and painting. My little angle grinder has been giving problems, so I opened that up and found a damaged bearing. Luckily I had another broken grinder lying around and could use that part. Progress on the wall is good. It is the first time we have put the final colour on the wall. I was hoping to take a picture, but my camera has done a disappearing trick on me.

See? I found the elusive camera!! The painted part is the top left hand part.

15 January.

We have been in the house for seven months now. I think our progress is remarkable, even though I am saying it myself.

In this time we have repaired the cookhouse, cleared the outside, and finished two rooms.(although they are technically one now.)

It is so nice having Ben here, our progress is remarkable. Yesterday Ben did the varnish on the walls in the living room. I kept myself busy outside. We have decided the combined living /dining room is technically finished now.

The floor still need to have the cap filled out, and be cleaned and varnished. The ceilings are still the original dark lacquer, and will stay that way. We will also have to improve the lighting in the dining room area, we have a light on permanently in there. Most likely a roof light.

We decided to move on, and tomorrow we will go back to the outside and build a scaffold and continue cleaning the weatherboards and paint it.

We have also put in a tender to demolish a old double garage in Hamilton. We will know on Monday night and it has to be removed by Friday. TIGHT! We will be taking Ben back to Auckland Airport on Thursday.
We very much enjoyed having him here and he will be deeply missed.

8 January 2012

And guess what? Just as you thought you understand me, I will change it all.

This week we spent on the living room wall. Remember the wall that has been Gibbed and not finished? I got Ben on the scaffold to do the gibstopping, and after that we sanded it all. Then Ben decided we could not leave the outside wall without gib, for however short a time that would be. So off we went and picked up the necessary Gib. That has been fitted now, and gibstopping is in progress. The other walls have been painted and everybody says it is looking good.

We got a response from Woodoc. They recommend the polyurethane product for the floors. Well, that is freely available here. My biggest problem now is that we are removing all signs of patina. Might be necessary to add some stain to the sealer. Question will be how much?

Elna also complained about to panes of glass that was still missing in the kitchen. It was boarded up. We have bought a second hand window to salvage the glass a few months ago. Ben came to the rescue again. He cut the glass under my tutelage, and fitted it . Nice job, but what about the curtain? So he fitted a curtain rod and curtain. What about the old wallpaper? Ben removed the old wallpaper.

I must say, it has been raining most of the week, so outside work was not possible, but I am thankful for the progress we have made. With Ben's help, we are doing more than twice what I could have done by myself.

1 January 2012

The beginning of a new year!! Happy new year to you all!!

This last week had a lot of Saturdays, light duty in other words. What we managed was to start repairing the street side (western side) weatherboards. When we bought the place, there was a gap of 25 mm between two weatherboards. I assumed it was due to nails rusted away and the board sagging. I started work there and soon realised we had a total mishmash of boards. Some original 220 mm, some replacement 200 mm, and that explains it. In the olden days, the weatherboard on the sides were often narrower than on the front. I sanded part of the wall down in preparation of painting and replaced a few boards. That part is good now. Next job will be to build a scaffold to reach the gable.

We also started looking at cleaning the living room floors. That has lots of polish and stain on it. After playing around with various solvents and sanders, we came upon Lacquer thinners, It removes the marks. Problem was, part is white now, and part brown. Further investigation showed that the nice brown patina is actually dirt. Handy Andy does the trick. We have about one sq m of clean floor now. The next was finishes. I have always loved oil rather than varnish. Raw linseed oil is too greasy, Danish Oil could work, but is expensive. Ben suggested South African Woodoc. Not available here, but we fond a similar product and ordered a sample. It is an oil with wax mixed in. Waiting for delivery now.