26 February 2012

Not much to report this week. I spent time to move our junk behind the new wall, and have the two remaining sheep grazing there now. Billy the goat  got moved back to the neighbours, he was eating too much of our grass.

We had a rainy day, and I started work on the new bathroom. That is inside work. I removed some of the sarking boards. It takes some time. I use an angle grinder to grind away the heads of the nails, and the pull the board off. Otherwise it would just split up. It does leave an ugly burn mark or groove, but when we reuse it, we use the backside. No dating evidence yet. I was hoping to find some newspaper or something inside the wall.

I also visited our local museum. They have the original map of the farmland allocated to Jackson. It was 400 acres and was awarded in 1865.

We started painting the new wall on Saturday, and got halfway before lunch. We stopped and when I went out after lunch, we had a slight drizzle. We packed up and had a lovely sunny afternoon. Just our luck.

Anneke and Matt visited today, Sunday. They were in Hamilton for the official opening of the Tudor gardens, for which Anneke made the sculptures. Anneke made us a lovely colouring and drawing of the street view of the house, as it should be. Now I have a lot to aspire to.

19 February 2012

We have had our old ewe killed on Monday. Thursday we processed it. The wood band saw does not really work on meat, the blade keeps dropping off. The meat is a bit tough, but we are tough people. We also got given a Snoek, or Barracuda in Kiwi speak. Kiwis only use it as bait fish. The Snoek pie went down very well, and was enjoyed by many friends.

We had one day with a little rain, and I decided to start work on the new dividing wall between the new to be kitchen and the new to be bathroom. It involved only moving the computer and wardrobes. Material will have to be bought.  

I also spent time on the half built partition wall. I started planning the carport ans store room to go behind it. Then I realised the target was only to get the wall finished. That reduced the amount of work by about 70%.
The frames are secured now, and the iron sheets are getting there. I expect a few teething problems, but nothing that we cannot handle.

I know, it looks terrible! Keep in mind it will be secured properly and water blasted and painted. hopefully I can add a new photo next week, or the week after. There is a door lying in front of the tip up door. The other door also has a story to tell. I took a lot of pain to make the frames true vertical. Then I fitted the door, it didn't fit. Why? The top of the door is 1000 mm wide and the bottom is 1050. Now the whole door will have to be taken apart and rebuilt. All the material used so far are from the demolition of the shed in Hamilton.

12 February 2012

Another week. Monday we had a public holiday, no work. Ha ha, no such luck. I sanded the wall to be painted and replaced a few rotted weatherboards. Tuesday I had to go to Hamilton. I was summoned (is that right?) for jury service. That happens on a random basis. Lucky for me I did not have to go again. Tuesday I completed the sanding process. Then we started painting. First of all, an undercoat of mismatched paint, and secondly the final colour. It was quite a job and very hot, especially in the afternoons. Up on the scaffold I was on my own, but up to chest height Elna did the brush work. It saved a lot of time. You have to paint all the corners and crannies by hand (with a brush of course silly!) and then paint the remainder of the board with the roller. Well, we rushed in and finished at 2:30 pm on Friday, at the heat of the day, on most likely our warmest day. (26deg)

The Bay window and all of the wall on that side is painted now, as well as up to the gable end. That is the wall that will be covered by the veranda. Rebuilding the veranda will follow after the hiding wall is finished.

Ben sent me an email and told me to take Saturday off. I did. I only built a new pen for the sheep, mowed the lawn, tidied up the car. And yes, we had a complaint from the tenant in Cambridge and went over there as well. Easy day.

Now, there is still a half built wall in the back yard.

See ya!

5 Feb 2012

Monday saw the sand being delivered, a whopping 8 metres of it. We had to put some sand down in Cambridge, and we took 5 trailer loads over. Good exercise. Apart from being in Hamilton for two days, I shifted some sand: "Playing in the sand pit." It is looking better now, but far from finished. Saturday was a day off.

The frame is for the sheep.

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.