Crunch Time in Chaosland

Been flat out building, and stressing and trying to live some form of normal life in the mean time, which has left me with little head space for a blog update. But I realise that it’s been a while and there are lots of little updates to report… as well as some pics… so here goes.

I mentioned in the last blog that we were in the midst of putting plasterboard up. Our scaffolding got another workout as we plasterboarded the huge front wall. That made such a difference to the interior, it now looks significantly more ‘finished’ with the pine studwork and my tetris-like polystyrene insulating covered up. Lifting the long plasterboard sheets above our heads to attach to the ceiling in the bedroom and bathroom was a challenge but, when I stand on our little scaffold my head is exactly ceiling height so I used a cushion on my head and supported the weight of each board while Bernt screwed them up.

Supporting the bedroom ceiling plasterboard with my head while screwing it in place.

 

Plasterboarding finished on the front wall. The two white rectangles show the back of the exterior cladding which we will cut away when the windows are ready to go in.

Our electrician visited each Saturday for a month and a half to get our electricity in and on.  We tweaked the lighting designers’ plan a little because we weren’t so confident that he had allowed for enough light in some spots. We replaced his idea of one uplight in the bedroom with 3 downlights. I’m not a huge fan of downlights but they achieve the selective-minimalist look we are going with for. Instead of allowing for bedside lamps we have installed a hanging pendant light each side of the bed. I have yet to design the shades for these, but have a fair idea of what they will look like. Our brushed stainless steel light switch plates look amazing! I’m so glad I went to the extra effort to source these. It certainly was an exciting and long awaited day when we could flick a switch and see light!!! We have been working in the bathroom a lot lately and are making good use of the new heat lamps J There are still some lighting and power point bits and pieces to get finished so we will get the electrician back in within the next couple of weeks to complete the job so we are ready for Certificate of Occupancy.

The hanging pendant bedside lights. The window Bernt has already installed is looking amazing (just above Charlie) and the long horizontal white rectangle will also be a window.

 

Our spectacular brushed stainless steel light switches! They sit flush to the wall, cant wait to take all of the protective film off them J

After a couple of months worth of waiting (and more than a couple of broken promises) the company supplying our tiles told us that they weren’t going to be able to get the ones we wanted so we’d better choose another option. It was a bit of a blow, purely because we knew that finding another tile that we liked was going to be super tough and we no longer had the luxury of waiting for weeks for something to arrive. We scoured every tile shop in Hobart with no luck, then decided to re-contemplate our initial idea of sandstone. I did some ringing around and found a lovely guy in Kingston (30mins away) who imports sandstone from India. It was exactly the colour we were looking for, but couldn’t find from local quarries. As much as I cringe at the thought of the embodied energy of stone carted half way across the world; it was there (with no wait time), it was beautiful and it didn’t cost the earth…. So we snapped it up.

Trying to chose a new tile which would work with the basin, myrtle (door frames and built in cabinetry) and celery top pine (window and structural frames).

Our last couple of weeks have been focussed on getting the bathroom finished. First I sealed and waterproofed the floor, after giving the room the scrub out of the century (amazing how a good sweep can make a building site seem civilised). Then I spent more than a week tiling the column which the toilet will hang from. We used the wine coloured slate (originally intended to be border tiles) which I cut into 3 different size strips and attached slowly in a pattern. It was very involved but the result is well worth the effort. We bought an electric tile cutter  (a standard scorer didn’t work on our tiles) with the intention of reselling it when we are finished but it is such a handy machine that I’m now really reluctant to part with it. We then laid out a pattern with the sandstone which I cut to size and Bernt glued in place. We also tiled what will eventually be the inside of a cupboard housing the washing machine and dryer (I thought tiles would be super easy to clean). The sandstone looks breathtaking and I’m now so glad that we had such a hard time with the tile company, making us search elsewhere, because this is exactly what we wanted from the beginning. Bernt built the floor-to-ceiling windows for the bathroom and installed those. They are gorgeous too, giving the room exactly the inside/outside feeling I hoped for. He is now working on the door frame (which is made from Myrtle) and starting the base coat for our plaster. Ill go in to our special plaster adventure when its finished (because if I brag about it now and it turns out to be a disaster I’ll feel like a bit of a wally).

I designed a niche in the shower column for shampoo bottles etc, we were able to squeeze it in at just the right height despite concerns that the in-wall toilet cistern would be in the way. This pic shows my laborious tiling job in progress, still a bit grubby and without grout.

 

Bernt knocking through the exterior cladding in order to install the bathroom windows. It was beautiful to have sunlight stream back into the room after a dungeon-like couple of months.

 

Laying out the sandstone tiles was quite an intricate puzzle. We wanted a random, but not too random, pattern so we bought 4 different sized tiles. It was also important that we chose tiles which fit together colour-wise to make the wine slate column work. It worked out so nicely!

 

The lovely windows in (the vanity with countertop basin and whopping mirror will sit in between) and our super lovely sandstone floor all grouted.

Last week we hit a bit of a milestone when we got to ‘lock up’! Bernt finished the beautiful timber/glass doors a few weeks back but he was reluctant to fill in the gaping hole in the wall which separates the apartment from the workshop. It was rather handy to be able to move big things in and out with the pallet trolley but the time had well and truly come to make the apartment lockable. So he plugged away laying blocks by himself (as I had a busy week full of shifts at work) until the hole was no more. Being able to store things safely in the apartment freed up the spare bed in the ger (which has been acting as tool storage for much too long) just in time for a whirlwind visit from my mum. Now we have a bit of a sprint to the finish, we need to get to Certificate of Occupancy within 3 weeks. Wish us luck!

…….

Bernt showing off our doors. These will act as the front doors for now. Eventually, when we unpack the container, the antique door we brought with us from Perth will sit in the wall to the left of the glass. The antique door will be the front door and these will be used to open the apartment up to a beautiful courtyard garden (which exists only in my mind at this point) while we entertain our multitude of friends on lovely warm sunny days (... both of which also only exist in my mind… at this point).

Bet you’d thought we’d dropped off the radar (or the roof) after such a long gap between blogs! We’ve had some visible progress but we’ve also been occupied with a lot of fiddly organizing bits.

First job once the roofing was up was to finish it off with barge capping (covering the edge of the roofing panels), ridge capping (covering the join along the top of the roof), ceiling capping (covering the same join on the interior), z flashing (a solid edge at the bottom of the panels for the gutter to hang from) and finally guttering. Apart from the guttering, which is a standard profile, we ordered all of these profiles to our own measurements and angles. I wasn’t aware that this was possible but apparently its pretty standard. When the barge cap and ceiling cap arrived they were not the angle specified so we had to have them remade. This was unfortunate as we were hoping to have the gap at the peak of the roof closed when my Dad, Nanna and brother arrived for a stay. My dad camped out on the mezzanine and I was worried that the rain might leak in through the gap. It turned out not to be a problem.

Bernt pop riveting the barge capping in place.

Bernt carefully sliding the ridge capping into place.

 

Attaching the ceiling capping, you can see sunlight on the left where we haven’t attached it yet.

 

The guttering was a bit tricky. It is designed to hang from something vertical but because of the nature of the roofing panel, the edge is not vertical but at an angle. We puzzled over a non-ugly way to solve the problem and settled on cutting neat wooden angle blocks, which we screwed to the z flashing. These gave a vertical surface to attach the gutter brackets to and are a not too shabby solution.

The ‘bespoke’ blocks in place with the brackets attached and ready to the hook the guttering into.

 

First length of guttering up.

 

Next we waited for our double glazing to arrive, well the first 4 windows anyway, deciding to order the glass as we are ready for it. We were able to order the non opening pieces (as the frames are already built in to the structure of the house) but are still waiting on getting a 3 phase power outlet installed so we can start work on the window frames for the rest, seemed too risky to order the glass before the frames are built as Bernt is still nutting out how he will build them.  We had some fiddly bits to do to get ready for the glass, including attaching double sided foam tape to seal the units in, a little bit of rendering around the edges and some frame building. Our new Planer/Thicknesser came in super handy.

Installing the large double glazing units was the one job I had decided I didn’t want to take part in. All along I had expressed that I wanted to be absent the day that any large glazing units were to be carried around and put in place. When we watch any building show, this is always the part that has my muscles tensed and teeth grinding with stress. So I thought Id opt out of that job, and I felt super justified; knowing that Id been a part of everything else. As the day grew closer Bernt started joking that I wouldn’t be able to truthfully say that Id co- built this house by hand if I didn’t help carry the glazing… It may have been this harmless teasing, I’m not sure, but when the units arrived and Id recovered from the stress of watching the delivery guys casually hoist the panes off the truck I decided that Id give it a go. I think it was the excitement of being able to see some glass in immediately, without having to wait to organize for someone to give Bernt a hand. Unfortunately the guys had laid the panels out in such a way that we had to start with the biggest and heaviest panel first, rather than easing our way into it.  It was a panel roughly 1.5m by 2.5m and it weighed over 100kg! It was so heavy that I could only lift it from one side, with my right arm doing the work and my left supporting it. Apparently I’ve been building lopsided so I’ve got monster muscles on one side only! HahaJ

Anyway, we took it slow, laid out some supports on the floor so we could rest frequently and built a platform under the window so we didn’t have to step down once we were outside. And we got it in! After that the others seemed easy. It’s really awesome to have some glazing in. We have been enjoying sitting in the corner with a cup of tea and not being blasted by wind or rain. Now I can’t wait to get going on the other windows!

 

The delivery guys made it look like a piece of cake.

 

First four windows in!

Our favourite corner to sit in, enjoying the view while sheltered for the first time.

 

As I mentioned, we have also been organizing lots of fiddly behind the scenes things. We chose tiles for the bathroom and kitchen/living area. They are a dark, charcoal grey which in some lights have a purpleness to them. And we chose a wine coloured slate (a very similar colour) as the border tile. We had wanted sandstone flooring but when we investigated we found that the colour of the sandstone coming out of the quarries these days is not the same as in the historic buildings around Hobart. Those have lovely tonal changes; with deep burgundy swirls… today the sandstone is very uniformly beige. So we changed our colour pallet totally and chose the deep grey/charcoal colour. The tiles will be laid uninterrupted through the kitchen, living area and into the bathroom and walk in shower.

We had been looking into Kitchen bench materials and finding it hard to find something we liked. Most stone or stone composite material is polished to become a really blingy reflective surface which isn’t the look we are going for (plus it too easily shows off a less than perfectly clean benchtop). I had found that Caesarstone and Silastone do a honed finish (matte). But these were going to prove tricky to find as they aren’t that popular (story of my life). So I went back to my original preference and convinced Bernt that a timber bench top was the way to go. We had recently picked up some bargains at a timber auction in Hobart so we took a day off the hard grind of the build and planed up some figured myrtle to have a play and see if it was suitable. It definitely was and we now have the raw materials for a beautiful bench top for only $70!!!

I spent a day in Hobart organising plumbing fixtures for the bathroom and kitchen. Taps, a shower head, kitchen sink, toilet etc. I went uber-prepared with images of what we wanted and found a superstar of customer service who sat with me for half a day sorting through it all and finding the perfect options. Everything arrived a few weeks later and they are sitting patiently in the ger waiting to be installed. I cant wait!!

We have also been working with a lighting designer (a service at a lighting shop in Hobart; free if you buy through them). So we feel like we have our lighting sorted. I, yet again, fell in love with something I couldn’t have. We were looking for big industrial pendant lighting fixtures for the apartment (which would look awesome in its big open barn-like space). The lighting companies we talked to didn’t have access to anything lovely so I went snooping on the net… bad idea. I found the perfect fittings, and not dearer that the not-so-pretty ones suggested by the lighting place. But they are American and the company wont ship to Australia. I was considering finding a way past that problem, being aware that our electrician would have to rewire them to Australian standards (but he would have had to rewire any fitting we got as they would never be long enough). But then I got talking to guy in a different lighting shop and he lectured me on the substandard standards which American lighting is required to meet compared to Australian fixtures and I decided it was all too hard and possibly a bad idea anyway. Now I’ve started designing fittings that we will make ourselves and we have organized the electrics in such a way that we can take our time getting organized with them.

The pendant light I fell for *sigh*.

 

Next step is getting the electricity moving. We have an electrician organized for next weekend to run cables etc. and we have decided on power points and switches. We are also in the midst of putting up plasterboard, which is really changing the look of the interior. Pics when we have finished.

On a personal note, Bernt has finished up with the company he was working for (as they are closing down). He wants to focus on getting the build to certificate of occupancy and start making furniture for himself. I have picked up a retail job in Hobart (with casual hours). It is so good to be dealing with people again after 2 years of dealing with building materialsJ On a tragic note; our cat George passed away a couple of weeks ago. He was hit by a car. We are both devastated as he was an awesome cat who we were all very bonded to.

RIP George

Up, up and AWAY!!!

Houston, we have a roof! We had no idea how we’d do it… but we got the job done. It’s taken us roughly a month of 4 day weekends. We averaged 2-3 panels per day (on good days) and 1 argument per panel J. Its probably pretty clear from my grimacing ramblings that I am not a huge fan of heights, having an irrational fear of tumbling (down hills, ladders… pretty much anything with a slope to it). Combine this fear with the act of roofing and you have yourself a fairly unwilling and often useless building companion whose fear quickly turns to angry outbursts. Poor Bernt, he did a lot more climbing of ladders than he would have had I not been such a big baby!

Here's how we managed the incredible feat of lifting 22, 7.4m long, 1.2m wide, 140kg panels up to 7m in the air;

Firstly, as always there was a bit of fiddly stuff to get done before we could start. Bernt cut an angle off the lowest purlin, which meant crawling along the beam while manoeuvring the circular saw. There were also a few places where the timber frame needed tweaking, either to get it flush or to secure joints.

With that done we proceeded with a brain wave of Bernt's; to glue strips of thin foam to the timber purlins. This levelled out any inconsistencies in the timber, protected the underside of the panels from scratching and gave a bit of resistance so the sheets wouldn’t slide off while we were working. This was the first of many height related tasks… I stuck to the lower purlins and passed Bernt things while he was up the ladder for the scarier bits.

Bernt gluing the blue foam to the top timbers.

Then came the moment… the moment where we stood in front of the first panel and decided how the hell to get it up there. We were equipped with all of the tools which Bernt thought we might need; suction pads (like they use to install glass), pulleys, a length of quality rope, a couple old blankets and a few ladders.

We started with the roofing to go above the mezzanine, thinking that the mezzanine floor would be a handy stepping stone in manoeuvring the panels up onto the purlins. Our first stack of roofing was already half way in the apartment so we attached the suckers straight to it and, with a pulley rigged to the timber beams above, started hoisting it. There was just enough room in the apartment to swing its length around to get it parallel. With a blanket protecting where it touched both the mezzanine and the middle purlin we hoisted it up and up until it was balancing on the middle purlin like a seesaw. At this point we flipped it over. We had decided initially to lift it wrong way up because the underside is flat and the top side has this slight profile to it. We were unsure if the suckers would attach well enough to the profiled side so thought it safer to flip it once it was up there. We soon realised that the suckers were fine on the profile and it was so much easier to flip the panels on the ground so we changed our game play.

The first stack of roofing stacked in the apartment, pulley attached, ready for lift off.

 

Roofing panel lifted onto the mezzanine.

 

Panel balancing on the middle purlin.

So, huge panel teetering like a seesaw and with suckers needing to be moved, Bernt asked me to stand on the wall plate (3.4m high) and hold the panel while he moved the suckers. Hold it!!! Damn straight I held it, I held on for dear life and ended up in a blubbering mess once the job was done… or actually I think the blubbering began while half way through… though it takes skill to blubber while standing on a narrow beam, frozen with fear, holding a 140kg seesaw. Despite my break down, the panel was in the air and needed to be secured so I temporarily sucked it up to get the job done.

To ‘get the job done’ we had to let the panel down slowly with Bernt supporting the lower end so we could weave it under the top purlin. Once the tip was past the top purlin we could pull it back up again into place. It was then a fairly simple matter of sliding it along the purlins to its correct position, though as the first one is cantilevered over the edge of the building it was tricky to get it in the right spot. When in place, Bernt got up there and screwed it down. Meanwhile I convinced myself with utter certainty that this was not a job that we could do ourselves. Too big, too heavy, too scary, too dangerous, too many risks…. Panic, panic, panic… time for a cuppa…

First panel in place, Bernt on top screwing it down.

After a breather and a calming cup of tea we went back to the build to have a look at our achievement. We had got a panel up!! By ourselves!! And… I relented, telling Bernt that if he could think of a different method to get the next one up, that I would give it another chance. It may have been the satisfaction of seeing a panel up, it may have been the knowledge that we couldn’t afford to have any outside assistance but it was probably my sheer stubbornness at wanting to be able to say that we did this by ourselves. Though I realised a week later that these things are only a benefit to your own self esteem, you can tell other people you’ve built a house with your own hands till your blue in the face but your still going to get some old fashioned fella from the local hardware store who’s not keen on a ‘lady’ carrying two pieces of pine at once.

So we tweaked our method slightly, making the whole thing safer and less scary. We bought Bernt a climbing harness so he could be attached to something while up in the air and we bought two extra suckers, which came in super handy. Attaching the panels to each other was challenging at times. They have a male/ female joint which first is filled with sikaflex (a kind of silicone product) then needs to be pulled in together. We used a combination of ratchet strap (while it was long enough) and a sucker system, in which we attached a sucker to the edge of each panel and used a clamp to pull the suckers, and therefore the edges together. The first time we did it we felt a real sense of urgency at getting the joint together before the sikaflex went off, but we soon realised that we had plenty of time.

Bernt trying out his new climbing harness.

Bernt running sikaflex ready to pull the join together.

Clamping the suckers to pull the panels together.

 

Bernt on the roof screwing a panel down.

So slowly, as always, the roof progressed panel by panel, argument by argument… all usually based on my perceived lack of communication and Bernts desire to lift first, think during. Personally I find it easier to yell than think when supporting 140kgs precariously.  We had to change our tactics a little when we started working on the other side of the roof and in the workshop as the mezzanine was no longer there for support. But we pretty much used the same technique all the way through.  It was such an awesome thing to see the space rooved. It still feels like you are outside, I think because of the height and that the north side is nearly completely windows (or gaps for windows) but it feels sheltered and much more like a building. It feels a little like an atrium. And the mezzanine is awesome, with the pitch sloping nearly to the floor, there is a little nook where the roof meats the wall. It’s very cosy and we can’t wait to use this space. The white underside of the panels look awesome as the ceiling.  Very clean and contemporary against the chunky unfinished timber beams.

Sunset on the beautiful roofing.

 

First rain on the roof. 

Some panels in place waiting to be hoisted up.

 

View from the street with roofing three quarters finished.

 

Nearly there.

 

The beautiful finished ceiling against the timber frame.

 

The interior of the apartment with the roof on.

 

The cosy mezzanine.

In between putting up the roofing we took delivery of the exterior wall cladding. More polystyrene. Its 7.5cm thick sheet, one side has a mesh and thin render coat which you render over again, once installed. It’s very light so really easy to install, just cut to size, carry up the scaffold and screw to the pine studwork, gluing the edges of each sheet together. We took a few days off the roof to get the front and northern walls done, first finishing the pine studwork then attaching the cladding. This makes the apartment nearly completely sheltered from rain, as the rain doesn’t generally come from the north, where the gaps for windows are. The only downside of the putting up the cladding is that we have temporarily covered up the window holes on the front wall, which were looking really cool. This means that the build looks like a big concrete windowless monstrosity from the road. Wonder what the neighbours are thinking! But it’s just a matter of time before the window openings we spent so much time designing are there in all their glory.

Stacey fixing sisalation to the stud work in preparation for the cladding, it’s basically a moisture barrier.

 

Bernt cutting a cladding panel to shape.

 

Bernt screwing on the first cladding panel.

 

Cladding partway finished, you can still see the window openings.

 

The window openings looking over the river (the upper most white rectangle is also a window). They step down from mezzanine to ground level creating different ‘snap shots’ of the view. People think we are crazy for having so few windows on this wall overlooking the river but its essential for passive solar design to have few windows on the west face. We will, however have a veranda on this side and a landscaped area beside the house which will take full advantage of the view.

 

The front looking rather depressing with cladding covering the window openings. With Bernt in the foreground the scale of the build becomes really apparent.

 

Cladding finished and roofing looking rather sexy!

 

The apartment is clad.

When the guys from the roofing company came to cut the angles on our panels we were left with piles of polystyrene off cuts. It was way too much to dispose of so I rang around to find where I could take it all for recycling (one of the few environmental benefits of the product). There is only one place, over an hour away but he was reluctant to take the waste unless I had bought it from him.  So I put my thinking cap on and decided to use the off cuts to infill the stud frame as an extra layer of insulation. The exterior cladding already takes us way over the minimum r rating requirement but you can never have too much insulation, plus it will save us a few dollars as we had planned to add some insulation to the cavities anyway. Also importantly it makes me feel a little greener, I get a real kick out of reusing our building waste and which so far we have managed to keep to a minimum

Using the polystyrene off cuts to insulate the wall cavities.

As an end note, it is apparent from some of the photos that we aren’t currently working on the whole build. We are getting close to the deadline for the first home buyers grant (the extended one, which was part of Kevin’s stimulus package, gives 18 months to complete the build) so we have decided to put our energy into finishing the apartment, and leaving the workshop for now, in order to achieve certificate of occupancy by the deadline. This means we have only got  half of the total roof up and are only focussing on cladding the apartment for now.

 

Roofing Sweet Roofing.

Our long anticipated roofing arrived 2 days ago! Which has prompted me to get myself up to date with the blog, in order that I might (very soon) be able to post some pics of the roofing up and… well… being a roof. So lets begin the update.

Last time I blogged we were starting work on the 4^th frame. In order to get that up we had to build what will be window frames in the first bay of the workshop. This starts to enclose what has up to this point been a huge open concrete slab, and what will one day be a huge open workshop. I, at this point, was really feeling disillusioned with timber frame building. It is such a long, slow, heavy process which is no longer new and exciting… more of a slow slog. It also started to feel completely unachievable as Bernt had gone back to work fulltime and we were only able to work together on the weekends. After a few weeks of working like this, and another delay as we were both taken ill with a nasty stomach bug, we decided that it would be better for the build if Bernt started working part time. Arrangements are now in place, Bernt works 3 days a week for the time being and the build has once again picked up pace.

You can see the window frame beyond the dividing wall which starts to define the edges of the workshop.

Due to my sporadic distaste for timber frame building we alternated between timber frame and laying concrete blocks to build up the wall which divides apartment and workshop. Although laying concrete blocks is not a glamorous job, it is quite fulfilling. You can stand back at the end of every day and really see a change in the build. And there is something strangely satisfying about ending the day so covered in concrete that you have to take a shower as soon as you walk in the door.

So the wall grew, and the timber frame slowly came together on the ground. We filled the concrete blocks with concrete at intervals as we got higher. If we had left it all until the end, not only would we have had to lug more concrete to a greater height, we would also run the risk that it might not pour smoothly down such deep cores. Air pockets would weaken the structure.

The timber frame was eventually ready to raise. We bolted Frame 3 onto the concrete wall for added stability, but as we had only filled the blocks to a certain level we could only bolt it about half way up. Bernt attached the chain block to the collar tie (3 quarters of the way up) of Frame 3 and started the ascent. Dan was there as moral support that day, and well needed as I was very close to calling the whole thing off when the rafters of Frame 3 started bowing so badly under the pressure that I was sure something would break… Something did indeed break, one of the horizontal purlins connecting Frame 3 to Frame 2 broke its dovetail and with a loud band fell onto the mezzanine floor. It was a joint that we had already deemed insufficient and had changed for the next bay. The damage was not huge, and fairly easy to fix and Bernt convinced his worried onlookers (Dan and I) that he was safe to continue… As ever, he was right.

Frame 4 on its way up.

 

Aaargh! Look how the top of Frame 3 is bowing due to the weight of lifting Frame 4!

 

Frame 4 safely up

Oh, Ill get side tracked for a minute; a lot of people have been asking about how we make the ‘curvey bits’ (which are actually called braces… which is such an uninspired name :) We cut a straight slab of timber 300 wide then Bernt expertly uses the chainsaw to roughly cut the curve. Then we use an electric planer to get the curve all smooth and lovely… and viola! The curve looks deceptively more curvey than it actually is.

Bernt expertly chain sawing a rough curve to the ‘curvey bit’.

Laying concrete blocks and lifting buckets of concrete up to 7 metres in the air is not as simple as it sounds… haha. We had to rig a pulley up to the top of the scaffolding (god bless scaffolding… that is when I’m not cursing it for feeling so wobbly and scaring the bejeebies out of me) which we used to pull up each block and each bucket. It worked pretty well, though the pulley we bought for the job carked it within the day and we had to resort to a rusty old thing out of my ‘rusty old things’ collection. But that one went the distance.

Our pulley system greatly helped us to get blocks and buckets of concrete to that crazy height.

Stacey at the top of the scaffolding sending an empty bucket back down to Bernt.

The wall is so HUGE! Big and beautiful, though I pity the fool who has to plaster it… hang on… As it is pitched we had to build boxing along the angled edges and fill them with concrete to create a straight line. It had looked a big raggedy with unevenly stepped blocks as its edge but looks very neat since the concreting.

Stacey cleaning the mortar from some of the last blocks on the dividing wall.

 

Bernt laying the very highest block (7m).

 

Infilling the stepped blocks to create a straight edge to the wall.

 

Stacey smoothing the concrete for more infilling.

With the concrete wall finished and filled we bolted the top of Frame 3 to it. This now means that all of the timber framework in the apartment is locked into place, level and square. What a good feeling! We then worked to mill, cut and fit the purlins which connect Frame 3 to Frame 4. This went fairly smoothly as we have got the hang of hoisting them up the scaffolding with our trusty chain block. I have my moments of panic on the scaffold (some worthy) but I feel like I’m getting better.

Bernt hoisting a purlin up the scaffolding with the chain block

 

Nearly there.

Bernt hammers it’s tight dovetail joint into place.

With all of that work finished we were ready for the roofing. And after a little bit longer wait than expected it arrived!! O wow! I know how I banged on about it… well it really does live up to expectations EXCLAMATION MARK. It is a beautiful silver colour and the profile (suggested by Roofing Salesman of the CenturyJ) is spectacular! It has a very fine angular corrugation which gives the impression of a kind of two-toned silver pinstripe. I can’t wait to get it up!.... Except for the fact that we have no idea how we are going to do that (each panel weighs around 100kg). But when have we ever had an idea how to do any of what we have done… last minute of course!

What a beautiful panel!

So let me just brag for a minute about this ripper bargain buy I recently had. We went to an auction of an apple orchard that had gone out of business. We were there all day (got the sunburn to prove it) and I spent a grand total of $6 on random bits of rusty old metal… too add to my ‘rusty old things’ collection of courseJ. I love an auction! One of the things I bought was this ancient looking metal trolley. It was spur of the moment, Bernt said he was kind of interested in it and the auctioneer sped through auctioning it. When I realised no one had bid and he had worked his way down to $1.00 I said ‘YES’ at (what seemed to be) the split second that the auctioneer (with his back to me) called sold. So I assumed someone else had got it until he turned to get my number. I said something like ‘Oh me?’ which seemed a source of amusement and meant the auctioneer tried to find me in the crowd next time there was a piece of old ‘treasure’ that no one else was interested in. We lugged it home (why is it that the word lug is often associated with me spending money…), put it in a corner and I looked at it a few times and wondered what the hell I was going to do with it…

Fast-forward a month to the arrival of a semi trailer load of roofing. I got our local truck driver to help get the roofing off the semi with a forklift, up our driveway on a smaller truck then onto the slab. Semi’s are the only truck so far that we haven’t been able to get up the drive. I hadn’t figured my way through the logistics of stacking the roofing on the slab, mainly as I had no idea how it would be packed. We encountered problems as there was not enough room to get the truck onto the slab as the stacks of roofing expanded. Andrew (the fork driver) spied my humble hunk of metal trolley sitting in the corner and suggested we use it to assist the fork to push a couple of packs through the opening in the dividing wall and into the apartment. I suspected that he was overestimating the capacity of my $1 bargain but we gave it a go and it worked like a charm! I might bill the cost of it to the build budget and put that $1 back in my pocket money purseJ

The semi parked down on the road while the panels were loaded onto a smaller truck by forklift.

 

The forklift loads two packs of panels onto my trusty trolley.

 

I steered the trolley at the front while the forklift did the moving from the rear.

With the roofing safely on the slab we had guys who work for the company come out and cut the angle for the apex of the roof and the overhang for the guttering. They usually do this in the factory but there was some confusion about the angle so they decided to do it on site to be safe. They too seemed unsure of how we would get it up and in place… and they do put this stuff up professionally… Well, that’s our task for tomorrow. I will update you all on how it goes.

The guys customising our panels on site.

 

Once the steel is ‘beaten’ (cut but left with a rounded not sharp edge), the polystyrene is cut using a steel wire.

 

The polystyrene is then smoothed with a homemade tool; a rasp with handle welded on. It leaves a smooth even finish.

PS. These are the views we have to look forward to when we move in  All the more exciting since we’ve been living without windows for a while now.