slow, quick, quick, slow. Everything was steaming along, walls shooting up,
and then it's hard on the brakes. It is always nice to have the house to
ourselves for a week when the build grinds to a halt, but having it finished
seems more of a priority than our tranquillity as that will be there
indefinitely once the builders have long departed.
We were warned that there might be a slight delay with the roof going on as
it may take a week or so to get the timbers cut. That proved to be wrong as
the wood appeared very quickly, there was just no one to get on with putting
it all up! The roofers are sub-contracted and come from the north coast up
from Durban at Stanger and for whatever reason were unable to get here for
over a week and a half. Once here though things got going again pretty
speedily and before we knew it the timbers were mostly up and slotted
together. They may have been slow to get here but they sure seem to know
their game. It has been great watching them work but sadly the thing I
really wanted to watch happened on Wednesday whilst we were at Garden Club.
We are having a vaulted ceiling in our bedroom and had decided at the last
moment to get open trusses rather than standard trusses. Basically this
means we have a huge wooden beam that runs 7.5m from front of bedroom above
the window to rear of bathroom, and this sits at the top of the pitch and
supports the loose trusses that hang from it to the side walls. Perhaps not
a great explanation but check out the pictures and hopefully all will become
clear. Anyway, this beam as you can imagine weighs a wee bit. I couldn't
lift one end up on my own, no surprise there! So I wanted to see the guys
get this thing up to its home using man power alone. Shame we missed it
happen, but it looks great now it is there! The roof panels arrived
yesterday and one side of the bedroom is nearly finished already.
The cutting out has been done in the walls for cable and pipe runs, and the
plasterers have been slapping muck up at a great rate. I am always amazed
watching these guys work, it is a real art plastering walls and they seem
ace at it, despite the bloody awful mess they make whilst doing it. Anything
in close proximity gets splattered, front door and paving, hall window.
Thankfully it all got cleaned up, well sort of, we had to finish the job!
The aim is now by end of the coming week (end of July) to get all the roof
finished, plastering out and in, and perhaps even to have the windows in
place provided the plastering is all done. All sounds good provided it
happens! Only real problem standing in the way is a forecast of medium to
heavy rain for the next two days, eek. Firstly we move back to a muddy mess
for a few days, and secondly part of the hall roof is off at the moment to
allow the jutting in of the roof to the garage! Fingers crossed we can get
the hall watertight before the drops fall.
As for the rest of our life here, no news at the moment. The build is our
main focus for the next few weeks along with anything major that needs to be
done in the garden. I guess the only real news is that we both need glasses!
Oh and to wear and not to drink out of! We have a three panel sliding door
from the lounge to the sunroom and a week or so ago I walked into them
closed! Yep, it hurt. Then a few days later Sue followed my lead and smacked
into them too. We panicked for a moment as we thought she had broken her
nose, thankfully just a bruised ego. Sue then repeated the trick again the
other day. Crazy, and yes we were both sober! Needless to say we are very
cautious at crossing that particular threshold at the moment. The birds do
it all the time with the sunroom doors, I guess they have an excuse!
As mentioned earlier a few more photos are up, more to come if things speed
on this week. Perhaps speed is optimistic, but you never can be sure, the
weather is easier to predict!
No comments:
Post a Comment