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.