Renovation by the river...

Not happy

It rained today, quite a bit actually, and we still have no downstairs roof (now you can see where this is going) so when we came home from work, we had a small pond appearing in the ceiling!

But wait, there is more...

And just to complicate matters further, we are flying off to Adelaide for a week in the morning... not happy at all!

Taking shape

Ok, now here is the photo you have been waiting for! The scaffolding is down again, and the renderers have finished their job (still waiting on the roofers) but it is starting to look something like the finished thing.

Now, there are a couple of things wrong in this picture - can you pick them?

Well, first of all there are the rainwater pipes, which seem to be in Woodland Grey, and not Classic Cream to match the walls. And then there is the render itself, it is supposed to be an exact match for the downstairs render (Classic Cream) and while it may not be obvious in this picture, the new upstairs render is definately more yellow.

Ground floor render

The renderers have been and rendered the ground floor extension, problem is the scaffolding for the roofers is still up, so I wasn't to sure how they would do it, until I got home tonight to find a whole pile of scaffolding lying in the backyard.

Still the render job isn't bad, however, it does seem to be another one of those things we have to paint ourselves!

Not quite right

We have a 'pre-completion' inspection coming up, and so we've been taking a look around the place to try and pick up any issues, and, well we are trying to get quite a list. Like the doors to the balcony.

That is quite a gap, I'm pretty sure there is supposed to be some sort of tongue & groove type thing on one of the doors, but it doesn't look like it has been installed.

And then there is the plinth blocks. You see, downstairs (the original house) had these rather nice plinth block feature to the architraves. We quite like them, and to maintain consistency they are to be put in on the new arcs. So to make sure they got em rite, the site manager pulled of one of the original blocks back in December so that the timber fabricators had a template. And it worked well, they made an exact replica.

As you can see, the architraves for the new extension are different, they have a 30/60 camber, and the plinth blocks have a 60/30 camber - and well, it doesn't quite work.

Wood and Tiles

The chippy has finished installing the nosing, architraves and doors, there are still a couple of minor things to do, as he couldn't quite do all the arcs because we are still waiting on the wallers to do some stuff. Here is a shot of the new dining area, showing the nosing on the windows.

As you can see they've also finished the tiling to the downstairs area (although not the laundry) as well as the tiling to the upstairs bathroom.

Looks OK I reckon. Still waiting for the taps and showerscreen to finish it off.

Scaffolding is down

They took a lot of the scaffolding down during the week, leaving it set up for the roofers for the first floor, which is good and bad. Good cos it gives us an idea of how the place looks, bad cos it makes the place look like a juk yard.

Here is our view from the balcony!

Can you believe only 4 months ago I used to have a lawn there!

Tilers are here

Took the day off today to start work on laying the floor boards. So I drove Amanda in to work and came back already to go, come on back and head upstairs, where I find the tilers, mixing concrete in the middle of the lounge room floor!

Um, yep, I know what you are thinking, good thing I haven't put the floor boards down yet!

So, time for plan B. Spoke to the chippy and he is coing to leave a 16m clearance all around so that I can get the floorboards under.

We got doors!

The chippy has put the doors on upstairs, and is now working on the nosing (which apparently is the technical term for the bottom of a window - and I thought it was the window sill!). Here is a phoo of the balcony doors open!

We also have a bathroom cabinet!

Carport roof

Ok, as you know, I am on holidays, and one of my holiday chores is to replace the roof on the carport, especially now that we can see how rusty and sagging the old one is when looking down on it from the balcony. So it was off to Bunnings to get some timber, and Stratco to get the colour bond sheets, and we are in business.

I'm getting quite used to this ladder and scaffold thing...

Picked out some floor boards yesterday, the timber is called Jatoba, and has a real nice warm look. I'm planning on taking Friday off and lay it over the weekend.

Bloody roofers!

John (site manager) came around today to check up on things, so I asked him about the roof. Apparently the roofers are on leave until the 31st of Jan!

Good news is the chippy is due to start Monday to put in the architraves, skirtings and doors etc. He reckons that it is a good idea to put the floating timber floor down first though, as it means they can put the skirting over the top and gives a cleaner look.

I'm not sure about that though, they haven't tiled the bathroom yet, and I'm not sure if I want them carting barrows of tile adhesive over the new timber floors! I'll pick up a few more dropsheets just in case.

Painting the fascias

There has been a hold up with the roofing, and it now wont be here till the first week of January. Which gives me a bit more time to paint the outside while we still have scaffolding. So here is a shot of me with a paintbrush in my hand.

The colour we have chosen here is 'ocean mist' it is the same colour as the aluminium window frames.

Staircase

They put the staircase in on the 19th of December, which is great timing, as it is also my first day of leave, and it means I can get them sealed and varnished before anybody walks on them.

Here is how they look prior to being varnished.

And here is me on xmas eve, doing a touch of varnishing.

More painting... apparently

Got an email back today from the builder, as there has been a bit of confusion about who is responsible for painting the fascias  - we thought the builder would do it, but they are not which is weird, because we spent half a day with the colour consultant choosing the colour.

As it happens, they have lowered the scaffolding ready for the renderers (should be done this week), so I should be able to climb up on the weekend to finish it off.

The painting begins....

The exterior cladding is now complete for the second storey, however, there seems to have been a bit of missed communication here, as we thought the builder was responsible for painting it, but it turns out this is a job for us; never mind, it is a good excuse to buy an air compressor!

Fortunately the scaffolding is still up, but is due to come down soon as they will want to start work on the lower storey roof. So here is a picture of me haning off the scaffolding.

And here is a picture of the painted result.

I must say it looks quite red here, it is actually more of a russett finish, a colour called 'brick wash' that we chose to compliment the existing brickwork on the ground storey windows.

Drywall and baclony

We've also had a chippy on site, erecting the side walls to the balcony.

Plasterers

Insulation

Bricky's puzzle

Air conditioning

A month later...