One sunny day...

More progress on multiple fronts this last week. Much of it now happens behind the scenes (selecting and ordering kitchen appliances, bathroom fixtures, cabinet features, and so on), or under the floor or in walls. But sometimes it's obvious.

The rendering of the internal walls is now done, and drying - you won't be able to see the brick lines once it's dry and painted. And has some magnificent art work, or a large TV, hanging in front of it.



More insulation has been slotted into the ceiling, and the heating panels have new wiring on them. With the roof now completed (except over the stairwell and garage), this will allow the plaster ceilings to go up, or under it all. I'd probably have started with the plaster and let gravity actually help me with the rest, but then again, I'm not qualified.



The posts for the roof deck are in place and waterproofed and the roof is complete. The deck will extend about a meter further to the left of the leftmost posts, and have a nice glass balustrade around it. At the back is the stairwell, waiting for some scaffolding to go around it so it can be enclosed and roofed, and also waiting for the spiral staircase to go into it. All the doors and windows for it are on site at least.



The skylight is now framed, and the north-facing louvred window is in. As a solar chimney it will let controlled amounts of light in, and vent hot air from the house in summer. Obviously it can do that right now, but it's a little too open to the elements for our liking.



The guttering and eaves are nearly finished, with some temporary drainage arrangements, and some temporary scaffolding arrangements.



We're even starting to see some of the joinery arriving with the first cupboards on site, ready to be installed.



And even our first shower is moving ahead rapidly!



Hmmm, maybe not.

All the little things...

For this week's episode, we'll take it as read that it's been wet. However, with the roof mostly done, the inside is dry enough that a lot of inside work can continue. Such as the plaster sheeting...



The electrical work continues, coming back to the switch/fuse box (which we can see the back of here). We're keen to avoid the old approach of everything-big-on-one-circuit which means you have to decide which appliances you want on at the same time. So, we asked for the circuits to be more balanced (ie. more of them, with fewer points on each). Funnily enough, the electricians have decided we need a bigger switch box. Not all the cables are here yet.



The plumbing is mostly under the floor, hard to show except in the wet areas, such as the kitchen sink and back of the ensuite. Here we have the solar hot water (copper), the mains cold water (black poly pipe, like garden irrigation now uses), and the 'black water' (grey pipes), with the rainwater line yet to arrive. Somewhere (else) we'll also have the grey water lines. We didn't know water came in that many colours, or that many pipes.



More wall and ceiling insulation is going in, and there's a pile of underfloor insulation somewhere in the front yard.



The skylight hole now extends through the roof. Of course, it'll get a new roof above it, in case it ever rains again...



The courtyard looks awesome, with the slab now cut on gridlines which gives it the appearance of paving. The colour is a little patchy in places, but it will age over time. Coloured concrete over large areas is very hard to get perfectly uniform. You can also see the roof is now complete on this side as well. There's now only a small fiddly section round the back that isn't done yet.



One of the problems with the wet weather is that we can't fill the trench around the basement until it's all dry. This makes it hard to build scaffolding at ground level, to get up to the eaves. Nothing that can't be solved with a some cantilevered beams and props, some simple clamps, and some simple faith in friction and gravity.