4 May 2014

I was checking back on the blog. We  (Willie and I ) started work on the patio doors in June. Then some other things popped up, and the doors were moved to the back burner. My biggest mistake was removing the glass panes, 4 doors, 10 panes per door, makes it 40 panes. Removing it was not so bad, but then I had to refit or replace the broken ones.

After finishing the veranda and deck, I decided that, if I ever want to have patio doors, I must get started NOW! Monday I started fitting glass, but with me being so shaky, it is a very tedious process. Then we saw the weather forecast for the week, which promised mostly sunshine, but at least no rain.

On Tuesday I started removing the offending window, and blocked the opening overnight. Then the big job started. Over the last 100 years plus, everybody did their piece. I basically had to strip all the studs down from the inside, and fit one jack post from timber I had in stock. Only on Friday I went to buy the lintel and more posts. All went on and we boarded up again overnight.

On Saturday we started work on positioning the thresh hold. Being 220 mm wide, it didn't sit properly on the floor joists, sticking out only 120 mm. In the end we resorted to joining pieces of timber to the joists,so the thresh hold sits properly now.

But wait! There is more! Through time the floor joists sagged, except for the middle one,which sits on the brick wall of the cellar. We have leveled the bed for the thresh hold, but now the height of our floorboards compared to the thresh hold, varies by up to 20 mm.

There is more work to be done, but at least we have got a start. Monday is supposed to be rainy, so we will go to Hamilton for some business.

My biggest worry is to get the glass fitted to the doors, but as they say: All good things come in time.

While working, we also uncovered some weatherboards that was still pained in the original colour, well, about 1920's. It will be good to show critics that the house did not start out as WHITE.