A rather damp week

While our intention to break the drought was heartfelt, we underestimated how good we might be at it. Throughout the process we've had some wet days, and solid, well-above-average rainfall. This has meant that our massive rainwater tank is now full, before we move in. It has also meant that any remaining leaks were quickly found and fixed. The house is now remaining mostly dry, with just 'seepage' into the cellar and basement, which will stop once the landscaping is sorted out.

The last week though has seen nature take it up a notch. In a seven day period, the airport received around 200mm of rain, a third of the annual average. We've had times during the recent drought where we struggled to reach that over a year.

One of our smaller lakes overflowed into its little creekbed...



Normally you can walk across this area, with a small hop over the creek itself...



Our rainwater tank wasn't the only thing that filled up.



We haven't reached that level since the 1990's... When we started the renovations, the dams were around 40% full.

Back to the house, which we're hoping to move into one day soon.

The spiral stairs now have their safety handrails, at each of the three levels.



It feels a lot safer now at the top landing...



More of the joinery has gone in. These are pigeon holes for our new walk-thru-robe.



From the back they have some 'texture', or as Mark described it 'designed to make his life more difficult'. As the walls will be a rich plum colour, we're thinking of a rich gold-leaf backing on this unit... We'll see.



The kitchen is coming along nicely. For the interested, it's an L-shape with an island bench. The loose cabinets here will go on the wall. All the appliances are ready to be installed once the final big panels (for the wall oven and fridge/freezer) arrive.



Lots of other little things happening too, mainly on the inside.

The loft ladder is (mostly) installed.



We don't have a lot of architraves (see, I speak 'builder' now!) but we do have one here where the wall types meet.



The tiling is close to finished. Those scary bright-green/gold mosaics aren't too bad across a large area.



And the last little patches of plasterboard are going on, in preparation for the painters.



The next couple of weeks will be very hectic, with painters, floor-sanders, electricians and other trades all starting and finishing in quick succession. We're now looking at the schedule trying to work out when we can bring in the curtains, the lights, the bed, the snooker table, etc. - and eventually us! Soon we hope. Real soon...

Getting closer

Another fortnight, another long list of jobs getting done. Things like the re-bagging of the basement walls, and the significant amount of joinery being built off-site don't lend themselves to pictures, but we know they're happening when we're making almost-daily decisions about individual drawer heights, benchtop clearances, lighting issues, cupboard doors, landscaping, ...

We can't wait till it's all done... but we have to. So where are we at now?

The Last Window has gone in. This is the postal slot into the basement, where a snooker table will have to come in. All of the glass panels are removable to maximise the opening. Even though it doesn't look like it now, the normal outside ground level will be about a foot below the window's lower edge.



Several cupboards have been installed. This one is the IT cupboard. Hence the bundle of cabling for data, broadband, heating control, and others, that end up here. It's amazingly useful to have a single place for all of them, a space to put the necessary infrastructure to connect everything, plus have access to both the roof and under-floor space in the one location. It also nicely fills an awkward corner. For the geeks, there's about 800m of Cat7 cabling coming into here.



A few more cupboards below.



Cornices are things that are generally invisible, until somebody points them out. So I'll do that here now. We have these throughout the house. The style and size is a little unusual, but is a nod to the art deco style. We'll be painting these in a slightly accented fashion, so they don't vanish into the walls/ceiling.



There's movement outside again, at last, as the remaining outside walls are clad. As mentioned, the extension is reverse-brick-veneer, with the thermal mass on the inside. That gets wrapped with an insulating blanket (air-cell, R1.5 in something that is only 10mm thick), and then the metal battens get attached to the outside of it. This stops the battens themselves being conductors through the wall. Between the battens we're also adding R2 fibre batts (much thicker, and much to the annoyance of the installers).



Finally the whole thing is clad with cement sheeting, ready for rendering/painting.



The bit around the end corner will be clad with corrugated iron, to break up the otherwise long wall.

Inside, the various bathrooms are progressing. We have a bath!



We have a powder room that is no longer an unclad cavity. However, it has been disconnected from the water, so is bucket flushed.



The tiling is going ahead. Slowly, carefully, but getting there. We're using the same tiles throughout the house, to tie it all together. There's a basic wall/floor tile, and there's a feature tile mosaic that we're using sparingly.



The vanity carcase is in, the mirror is yet to come.



And the first new toilet is attached at last, although not yet fully connected to the rainwater.



The skylight style is a Strine speciality. Both as a light source and a solar chimney to shed hot air. The inside is now fully plastered, and the outside is properly clad.




It evokes something of the Australian outdoor vernacular...

Icon(ic) constructions

This fortnight's flooding has been well behaved, and most of the work has been happening inside. One of the major events we've been waiting for has finally arrived. While the extension, new spaces inside and out, and the new floorplan are all exciting, we had a few things we wanted to be "different", "unusual" (but "noice!"). The biggest of these was the spiral stairs, inside the tower at the back of the house. It's in at last!



This is the view down the length of the house, onto the garden behind. Obviously a little work yet to go.

The stairs have a landing at the basement, to make the turn towards the basement door:



And another landing at the top of the tower for the door onto the deck. Yes, there will be handrails across all the dangerous gaps.



The joinery is steadily progressing, with our linen cupboard/laundry being set up:



as well as the smaller bedroom cupboards:



The bathrooms are getting their waterproofing in preparation for the tiling and the various fixtures.





Where the old walls were, and where floorboards were somewhat dodgy, we've had holes in the floor for some time. We're now getting all the floor patched up, with ash to match the existing timber, which will later be sanded, stained, varnished, polished, etc. And fully insulated underneath as well.



The skylight is now fully sheeted and most of the joints filled - just the tricky ones right inside the tube to go. The louvres have a hook-and-rod to open and close them. As it turns out, with strong winds from just the right direction you can get rain directly onto the future kitchen bench. If it ever happens to rain...



Behind the scenes, we've also sorted out almost all the colours, inside and out, and we've ordered our snooker table, and a new bed, and door furniture, and sorted out tiling, and and and .... I don't think we ever realised how much work a renovation could be!

Closing up

The last fortnight has seen more good progress, and many more things are being sorted out. The house is almost waterproof now, and we've picked up many of our lights. Still a lot to be selected/ordered though.

Apart from the skin, there are some gaps in the walls we still need to fill. Those that aren't windows are doors, and some of them (actually, almost all) are now in. Of course that means we have to pick door furniture like handles, locks, etc. Work, work, work...

Our front door (probably not in this primer colour, we can't remember what colour it will be)



The glass sliding door for the front foyer/airlock



Normal room doors (opaque for the truly shy...)



And even the garage door. This is the final colour it will be. The walls we think will be a different colour.



The outside skin on the old part of the house is now almost completely rendered, if not finished.




The wall cladding changes texture between the basement and normal house level. The basement is clad with styrofoam insulation, and will then be rendered. The normal level gets a mix of render and corrugated iron. Eventually. Once the basement section is rendered the remaining backfill will go in, and the house will be reconnected to the garden (what's left of it...)




Inside the plastering is moving ahead quickly. The skylight and the rest of the kitchen are now "sheeted" (technical term) , see below, and the plasterer has done a couple of coats on the corners and the gaps. Then come the cornices and skirting boards. After sanding, it then just needs to be painted... (Yes, we can't recall the inside colours either. But we're sure they were nice when we picked them!)



The stairwell is also nearly done, though it's barely visible through the scaffolding. The interesting light from the window is due to a large tarp draped over the tower. It's to keep the rabbits out. Sorry, keep the bees in. The bees have been busy swarming around Canberra this week, and one swarm decided to set up home in the roof of our tower. So when the guys arrived they found some nice honey waiting for them. And a large cloud of grumpy bees. One chemical treatment later and all is well again. Except for the bees. And any rabbits that were living up there as well.




A couple of other bits have come along too:

The flashing around, and the gullwing roof on, the skylight were installed. Yes, we did pick that red, and it is the final colour. It needs a bit of contrast.



And an interesting pile of metal landed in the corridor. It's the spiral stairs! They came nice and quickly. They will have timber treads added to them as they are installed. The scaffolding in the stairwell has to come out first, to make space for the landing construction, and that can't happen till the plasterer have done the stairwell. Soon, we hope.

Getting some skin on

To assuage the fears of our loyal readership, especially the Queensland branch, please be reassured that things are still going ahead, that photos are still being taken, and that the garage loft could become a nice sewing room if we, or a future owner chose to. Your intrepid correspondent tries to post every week, but at worst fortnightly, depending on what's being happening, and how visual it is.

This last fortnight saw the rainwater tank being connected to some of the downpipes, which of course encouraged it to stop raining. We've also done a lot of planning around the kitchen joinery, but our joiner has been a bit sick, so that's had some further delays. Mark has ordered our spiral staircase at last! and that should be here in a few weeks time. That determines the positioning of landings on all three levels, and the deck, so it's one of those crucial elements that holds a few things up. We've also ordered our first 26 light fixtures, which is about half of the total. Some of the remainder will come from our collected vintage lights, others we have yet to find.

Onsite, we've had the attack of the red dust. It's everywhere. It's due to using an angle grinder to strip the old bagged/painted bricks back to raw for the external render to go on.

The raw bricks don't look too bad, but are better suited to a different style of house.






Then the render goes on, which ties a lot of the house together, rather than the 3-4 different bricktypes that actually make up the walls. The render is still very fresh in some of these, so will need to dry before it's brushed and painted.



Oh, our new meter box is in as well. About twice the size of the old one, it has everything in one box, with room to grow.





The newer parts of the house are reverse brick veneer, with the bricks inside, and cladding to go round the outside, to match the texture of the render on the old brick walls. Around the stairwell the two types meet, and we'll have cladding outside, plasterwalls inside, and lots of insulation in between. The first skin is a simple foil sarking/waterproofing membrane. This is not the final colour, in case any of the neighbours are worried...



Inside is also getting more skin. Our ensuite is now an enclosed space, behind the new built-in cupboards.



And remember the vanishing window? It had been plastered over. It's now back again...



On the 'landscaping' front, the backfill around the walls is close to done, making it much safer and easier to walk around the house now. The pipe here is the stormwater overflow from the rainwater tank.



They've also started excavating the footings for the back stairs, to meet the back door at a more dignified level.



Slowly, slowly, it all comes together.