Some things, all shiny and old but new!

I have a new light AND some new dining chairs.  I am so very excited about these purchases for three reasons:

1)  Because I like them a lot
2)  Because they are vintage!  Re-cycling, bring it on.
3)  Because they are New Zealand made and therefore as solid as.

I struggled to find chairs Steve and I both liked AND could afford.  All the chairs I desired were very, very expensive.  And the replica chairs were much cheaper but made in China and a bit flimsy or plastic looking.

The light was just there at the store (a brilliant little place, dealing solely in mid century Scandanavian-style furniture) waiting for me.  Glinting in the sunlight.  Actually there was no sunlight because it was in the back of the store but it was AS IF there was and it had a halo. 

I am also fantastically proud, because I asked for a discount for paying cash.  I am normally very timid about asking for money off.  But we got the light 'for free'.  Yippee!

Here they are!  It's OK if you don't like them because I love them enough for seven people (approximate number of people who read my blog).

Otto Larsen chairs x 8 in French Green. 

And my little ray of sunshine.

OK, now we cannot afford barstools but never mind.  A little over budget! 

The digger was here again today, and it filled in our soak pit so there is no longer a big hole, but now there is a channel in the ground where drainage will go. 

Here are our mini digger drivers:

 The joyful one.

 The coy one

The wistful one.

Max was absolutely overjoyed to be on the digger, and started pressing buttons and pulling levers.  I hope nothing is out of order tomorrow....  Olivia was quite chuffed just to sit up high, like a princess.  And Sofia was hesitant because she had other issues to deal with, such as her brother Max getting her special friend "Roady" all wet from the bath.

Here is the house from the back of the section.  You can't see too much progress but if you looked closely you'd see all the purlins and sarking is up and the concrete has been poured for our fireplace and for our doors.  Next week they will come through the back and the roofer is here on Thursday and Friday.  Roof shout?

Steve and Olivia with the little digger that could.

And, by the way.  I gave the builders some sweet things today and they thought that was great but wondered if I was trying to make them fat?  Hmm.  I don't think they will have an obesity problem.  But it may save me from one!

x

There's a hole in our ground, dear Liza

Today the digger is here again - it got through our tiny garage and is digging the hole for our beautiful soak pit (required for adequate drainage) which is about 1x1m and deep!  There are some large round concrete tubes to fit inside and then hopefully it will drain all our Auckland rain away. 

We heard yesterday that the builders are not busting out the back of our house until next week now, because the roofer isn't available until then - which is ok with us.  Another week of semi-normality!  Yahoo!  However the builders are busy working on the purlins and the sarking.  Neither of which I was familiar with until now (the purlins are the sticky-out-bits and the sarking is the boards laid over top of the purlins).  I've taken a picture of the current house and then the new bit and you just can't tell the difference.  Oh ok you can but just imagine if the new bit was all painted up - you'd truly never know.

Current purlins and sarking

 New purlins and sarking!

 

I mentioned in the last post that we have changed our house around in readiness for opening up the house and here are the pictures:

 

 The dorm.  See the two blue things on the ground?  They are Max's 'wa-wa's' and he has dropped them out hoping we will come back in to pick them up.  His little game is a bit tiresome and he should be asleep!  Sofia and Olivia are packing z's already but Max is partying on.  They are all sleeping brilliantly together though, so no complaints.

 The ex-dining room, soon to be hallway and storage cupboard.



Ex-girls' bedroom and new dining, kitchen and spare room.  Check out the BBQ!  We have called this "The White Room".  Where will we put the fridge?

 

The builders put on the roof bracing as per our plans a few days ago.  In my mind, roof bracing is strong and able to hold up a lot of roof so I imagined a thick metal thing.  It actually looks like this:

 

See the criss cross?  That is the roof bracing.  To me it looks like tin foil.

 







Also, I have given up on giving the builders biscuits after they didn't say thank you for my last efforts (Bill Grangers Granny Mac shortbread!  rolly shortbread with jam in the middle!).   I mean, they were a bit dry but I am a little hurt.  After all, I am a house wife and a stay at home mum and I don't get any feedback from my children, so I take every bit of praise I can. 

 

Just kidding, I don't really mind about the lack of biscuit feedback, I have so many other things to worry about..... I do.  Truly. 

 

I have, however, been comparing my days to theirs and I can't help but feel a bit ..... stationary.  Their job is so physical for ten hours a day and a lot of mine - now the kids are a bit older - is really just sitting down reading stories and making sure they share and say please and thank you.  The most physical I get is taking Max for a walk or everyone to the park, and don't forget chopping carrots for dinner.  You can see the progress in their work, but mine is definitely a WIP.  Work. In. Progress.  I will see benefits in 18 years?  Tell me I will! 

 

x

 

 

 



Slab Party

We christened our slab on Saturday night with a raging party!  It was fantastic and we were up ALL night long.  Though this wasn't because of too much partying, it was because Olivia has a cough like a barking seal and was doing that all night.

Here are some pictures of our concrete christening.  Note that such a party isn't complete without playdough.

Playdough for five

I love the indoor/outdoor flow.  Those two beer bottles aren't mine.



Dinner for five!  Pork roast, sausages, salad and fresh bread.  AND apple cake by Nikki and ice cream for dessert!

Zoe, the building site's ferocious guard dog.

 

Of other building importance, we have:

 

*  Picked up our new dining table (thank you Michael Kerr)

*  Picked up some Macrocarpa sleepers for the garden bed at the top

*  Moved out of our dining room!  The dining room is now in the girls' bedroom, and the kitchen will be there when we lose that shortly.

*  Moved the twins into Max's room in their bunks.  It's a tight fit but awfully cute with three sleeping babies in there.

*  Moved the spare bed into the new dining/kitchen!  Great for a midnight feast if you stay with us.  But I can't figure out where to put the fridge!  The BBQ is now on the front porch.

 

This is mostly in readiness for the builders to rip off the back wall so that they can start to join up the roofing.  That will happen this week and will be a major change as we'll lose our front row view out the dining room windows!  That was quite a good breakfast backdrop.

 

It's 12.30am and Steve and I are finally done.  Hopefully what we've sorted out this weekend will mean minimal upheaval when our kitchen does go!  I will take some pics of our new set up soon and post them.

 

In non building related news, Max has had a hair cut (he was looking a bit like the crazy professor on Back to the Future) and is wearing his first pair of trainers.  These are shoes Max picked out for himself at Stirling Sports with Grandma Moira.  "Thanks Grandma", said Max if he could talk. 

 

Check out both items here:

 

 

Signing off because I am ready for bed - good night.

 

x





More on concrete

Guest blogger Steve here…

Yesterday a different plumber turned up to cut a big hole in our one week old concrete pad.  He didn’t seem nearly as grumpy as the other one so I presume he was getting well paid to undo the stuff up. The beauty of a fixed price contract is that I don’t have to sort it out.

A little  bit of new concrete was laid to re-fill the hole and the kids promised me they wouldn’t go near it:

 

Mike and Ann Louise joined us for a kumara something dinner and I took this photo of our beautiful framing with the moon as a backdrop.

 

Today was even more exciting as the roof trusses went up.  Ben and the crew got the whole lot up in one day.  The next job is to join the trusses up with the existing roof which means we'll be losing our dining room on Monday.  We’ll also not have access to the main bathroom for a week – so there will be some logistics to sort out over the weekend.

 

But we won’t be short of a loo - look what turned up on the front lawn….

 

 

Weather boards have also turned up today and we have been busy finalising specs of doors for the inside - lots to do Livvy...

 

 

 

Monday Monday la la la la la la

Good evening,

Tonight I'd like to talk to you about concrete slabs and what happens if you do not put the right pipes in before the slabs go down.  The concrete slab has to be cut into in order to put the pipes in, and then concrete re-poured over the new pipes.

We don't know what happened to cause the above situation, but I do know the builders are blaming the plumbers and the plumbers are blaming the builders.  Only because I overheard comments which didn't make much sense until our main man builder sent through an email outlining the problem above.  He downplayed the problem but reading between the lines he is a bit annoyed.

Moving right along, we have bought a dining table off Trade Me.  It's an 8 seater!  It's massive!  We can have many parties!  Here it is:

A heavy-duty, glass top, 8-seater dining table strong enough to withstand the activities of small children.

It's definitely not 'the one' but it will be great with small kids and I know that I will not worry about what they do to it. The chairs are not ours, and I am still searching for some lovely pieces to perch our bottoms on.

We spent the weekend camping, or at least we tried to.  We left Auckland at 3pm on Friday afternoon to find it took us 45 minutes to get to the first motorway exit on our way north.  This meant that our one hour trip would actually take three hours, approximately.  We turned around and went to McDonalds and took the kids to a park near the beach.  It was great fun and less stressful than sitting in traffic, hauling up our tent and cooking dinner in the dark.

The next day we set off and arrived at the campsite to find our friends looking a bit drawn and tired, but ready for a party for three little ones (a 1 year old, a 4 year old and a 5 year old).  There were balloons, party food, games and streamers which is not bad for a camping party!  It rained a bit on and off but stayed mostly dry and we had a dinner of burgers (home made ones this time). 

However the next morning, it poured!  We all took down tents in our rain jackets, juggling sodden children and soggy breakfast cereal. 

This is the amount of rain that fell in mm.  See the highest bars there?  That is the time we were packing up camp.

We arrived home wet and cold and tired - but having an adventure like that is kind of fun.  After hot showers and some rest, we were all feeling better and then lentils for dinner ensured we felt virtuous nutritionally also.  Next time shall we trust the weather forecast? 

Framing turns out to be great for drying wet tents!

More house stuff to report in the next few days.

x

Introducing Guest Blogger Steve

Guest blogger Steve here tonight - yes I have been given the honour/ responsibility of completing tonight's blog - as incentive Anna is making me a cup of tea and bringing Chocolate.

It was another big today today with a whole lot of dirt going out, wall framing and a very large steel beam going up, and trusses coming in.  Here's what our concrete pad has sprouted today:

As I had the day off work I got to see and have my input into most of the action.  Maxie's day got off to a great start when the digger man reappeared as he was eating his porridge. Even better, this time the digger man was behind the controls of a Dingo Digger (stand up and drive bucket loader thing).  The Dingo spent the entire morning shovelling bucket loads of concrete and dirt through the garage and offsite.  A large pile of dirt has also been added to our top lawn so I can waste many future weekends leveling it and trying to make grass grow.

My first task for the day was breaking the somewhat unpleasant news to Ben that the large and quite complicated looking frame he had built as per the plans yesterday had the window in (erm) completely the wrong place.  If he did want to strangle me he did a great job of hiding it.  Doesn't v2 of the frame look great!

 

Anna agreed to let me go and have a look at the kitchen she has chosen this morning - this meant I got to second guess all the deisions she has made and generally ask annoying questions. I'm very happy to have made sure the bench is going to be a six foot plus friendly 930mm high, and although I didn't win the battle of the microwave placement there will be an option to put the microwave above the bench at a later dte if required.  We're both much more comfortable there will a decent amount of space in the dining area so recconsidering going to 1300mm wide.

Here's the frame around our feature doors showing the view from the back of the house. The glass will slide back completely behind the nib walls on either side - how cool will that be?

 
I don't think the builders, digger guys and truck driver were thinking that when they lifted the beam into place. 

So progress is far exceeding what we were expecting at this stage (nine days in).   Progress means large bills have started coming in for reaching milestones like the laying of the concrete pad. This week I wasted a lot of time chasing the friendly but not very efficient folks at the BNZ for deposit money. $40,000 came through on Thursday but we have spent that already.  Our overall budget is also ticking up as small bits a pieces are added - it now sits at $270,000 for everything.

Next week there's a few more frames and the trusses going up - then the roof gets connected - yeeha.

Finishing with Maxie again - he found his way to the dirt pile up the back while we weren't looking. Here's what his white shoes look like now...

More next week ... have a great weekend all.

Slab down

Here it is, the long awaited house update!

Since last week, the builders have been going gangbusters.  I might let the pictures tell the story. 

Now, where were we up to?

Ah yes, that's right.  The trenches were dug.


And we actually bought the lights.  Remember these?  We ordered one in smoke grey, one steel blue and one pink.  I figure that our kitchen is all white and our walls will (probably) be white too, so to inject some colour this way will be fun.

Our new kitchen lights (look at the three larger ones and you'll get the idea).

The poor builders have had no more biscuits or tea because I have been a working woman this week.  I filled in as Sandy from Grease at a trade show.  The girls thought it was excellent because Mummy got into dress ups every morning.  It was lots of fun but it has left me under no illusion about how organised Steve and I would have to become for me to go back to work full-time.  Another realisation is that I feel like I have had a break equivalent to that of a 5 star cruise in the Bahamas for ten days. 

I don't look that relaxed but this was the first day.  I was semi-waiting for little people to jump out from behind trees asking me to wipe their bottoms.

Despite the lack of baking, the builders were happy because the nanny was a young gorgeous blonde Irish girl.

And perhaps she made them work harder. This is the progress this week:

Not really a progress shot, but don't Uncle Mike and Steve look sweet together? 

 The insulation laid down

 

And the concrete pad!  All marked out for our beautiful big stacker doors. 

We will have enough room for our dining table!

 

And that is all for today because it's bedtime.  Tomorrow the framing goes up and it's door day.  As in, choosing some doors for our new house!  And then it's the weekend (we're going camping!) so look forward to an update on Monday.

 

Lots of love,

 

Sandy x

 

Day 5

Dad wants me to write more often, ideally daily. 

So Dad, I am ignoring my children (well, one is asleep) to write this.  Currently - and I kid you not - Sofia and Olivia are climbing on the balcony at the front of the house and while they are very good at balancing and gymnastics I am not 100% comfortable with it.  But we have lost our climbing tree out the back for a while and it seems they need a height fix every day.  I could tell them they can't do it, but it makes them want to do it more.  And I am supervising, sort of!

Now they're back inside and practicing their ABCs.  Much safer.

Where we are at today building-wise:

- we have had the concrete poured for the foundations
- we have the base course down (two loads from the big truck which actually managed to back down our driveway)
- the plumbing for the kitchen is in - for the sink and for the fridge which has water in it
- the roof angles have been measured in preparation for getting a roof on! 
- we are losing our kitchen in about two weeks - hello kitchenette/BBQ/Gas cooker!

What I found out today:

The apprenctice builder is 17.  Seventeen seems so young (and the plumber on the job still has his L plates). He's only been on the job for five weeks so he is a total newbie.  His father was a builder so he knows how it all works and anyway, he is good at doing what he is told, which is his job right now.  He drinks tea with one sugar. 

The builders work 7:30am until 5:30pm and the main man on site said that's normal - he said that the owner has them on a pretty strict schedule.  Today though they are finishing early to have a few beers due to another builder guy leaving.  I just thought that the apprentice is not even legally old enough to have one. 

Back to how the builders have their hot drinks.  Steve is firmly of the belief they should be catered to and he is a wonderful host to them.  On Tuesday, he took them out some cuppas in takeaway cups and wrote their orders down on the fridge so we would remember for next time.  I felt guilty I hadn't been making the offer so yesterday I baked chocolate chip biscuits (doubling as an activity to do with the girls) and took out about eight enormous biscuits and hot drinks to the three builders.  There was a knock on the door about ten minutes later, and it was the apprentice delivering the tray and empty containers back to me.  I stupidly thought the biscuits would last all day.  So I can't be baking for them all the time; they'd eat us out of house and home.  Anyway - I won't be having an oven for much longer.  That won't excuse me from tea and coffee-making though! 

Chocolate chip biscuits made by Sofia and Olivia

They wee behind the shed. 

OK change of subject:  http://www.markdouglassdesign.com/#!he-says-she-says/c1vzw.   Latest thinking on lights is a cluster of these, and perhaps two of the wall lights for the lounge area.....just not sure on colour yet.

The kids are all back to climbing outside, after having a dance on the dancing rug.

The builders have packed up and have gone home at 3:21pm - so we are free to go outside and play! 

x

Uh oh....

I know, I know, it's not a promising and positive title to this post.  It's also Max's favourite expression at the moment, so it's fitting on two levels.

Here's why:  Last night, Steve and I decided that we didn't have enough space in the new dining room and needed to push the extension out by at least 1 metre.  Steve called the builder last night, the builder didn't answer, so first thing this morning I cornered him outside with the bad news.  Bad really for us, due to extra cost and time involved, however I can imagine him rolling his eyes internally as I tell him what we've discovered.

This is why it's kind of bad timing for us to discover this:

The trenches for the foundations have been already been dug out

To enlarge our floor area, it would mean we need to go back to our draftsman, get new plans drawn up and probably re-submit for council approval. All the while there would be builders and sub-contractors twiddling their thumbs.  And money would be flowing freely down the drain pipe.

So we're not doing that.  The builder talked me through the space we have, and it's clear there is enough.  It is just not going to be the massive, airy, lofty space which was in our heads.  Even if we pushed out by 1 metre, it wouldn't give us that.  Instead, it will be a comfortable, light and sunny extension with massive doors which open all the way in summer and a space which will be cosy and warm in winter. 

My kitchen loses out a little - we are going to cut the depth of the island down from 1.3m to 1.2m to give us 3.6 metres (from the edge of the kitchen island to the exterior doors) for our dining table. 

Here are a few more progress pictures:

Danger! 

 Uncle Mike home after his first day at work in NZ after many years away



The trees are gone! Yesterday there were arborists, plumbers, builders, diggers and engineers on site. 

 

So that's that for today.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.  Probably more pies for the builders, that much is for certain.

 

x



Aha!

This picture is of the things we found under the deck when we demolished it today:

The case of the missing utensils has been solved.

Now I know what happened to all our spoons!  While I wasn't looking, the girls and Max were putting them between the deck palings.

The deck is now all gone, apart from a few posts still in the ground.  Steve and Michael did most of the work with a sledge hammer and a crowbar.  I did a little bit with the crowbar and relocated some plants to safer ground.  It's so satisfying to be able to see your progress as you work.   I might start thinking about a new career in the trades.  Not plumbing though.

My sister, Nikki, looked after our three children as well as her own this afternoon while all this was happening.  They trampolined next door, did chalk drawings, read stories, had ice blocks and generally burned enough energy to power Auckland, Sydney and London.

 No access allowed

 

It's our wedding anniversary today - what a way to spend it!  Six years ago today I married Steve and it seems so long ago.   So much has happened since then, mostly babies but also various places to call home, as well as different jobs.  This next year of marriage has had an exciting start and heck, we may even get a year's worth of sleep this year!

Here are some deck demolition photos:

Now you see it...

 



...Now you don't!

No steps!

How cool is that?  We were very lucky to have Michael and Nikki to help - as without them we would still be working now.

The helpers, Michael and Nikki

Tomorrow is a quieter day, but the plan is to get the posts out of the ground ready for the Tree Fellas on Tuesday!

Better go and clean those spoons.....

x