Fireplace

The fireplace is now fully installed but not tested yet, the weather has been really good, so have not tried it out yet.
The building inspector is due on Wednesday to do another inspection, after that we will be able to start doing the finishing plastering and interior painting.
As a bit of light relief Oscar (dog) caught a rabbit- who said they instinctively know how to kill.
He caught it, then didn't know what to do with the wriggling frightened little thing, so it was up to yours truly to dispatch it.
It is now skinned etc. and is now sitting in the refrigerator, should be nice with some brown bread and butter. ('family joke').

The Gib Lifter

Here's the contraption in use, a seemingly random collection of lengths of steel poles attached to a winding wheel. (See Reference -4 May 2008 Heath Robinson/Rube Goldberg and you will get the idea )

This what you do: lift the sheet on to the top platform, it's a good idea to have selected someone to help you with this task, preferably someone about the same height and arm length. If not you can end up with some very serious discussion occurring from the 'lower end!'

The next step is to tip the platform sheet so it's flat, then wind the big wheel which moans and groans with the weight and then very carefully move the the 'lifter' in position, be careful, as at this point the whole thing is very unstable a wobbles at the slightest touch, once you get the sheet in the correct position you wind it into place.

Note: At this point you must have applied the adhesive to the ceiling battens or you will need to lower the sheet again, this may cause some 'light' discussion about the the 'work' demarcation and who's job is it anyway!

At this point you may be asking what happens if the contraption breaks and the sheet drops while you are winding, what we do is put the ladder and scaffold beneath the lifter, this will overcome the possible problem of the winding operator suddenly becoming a lot shorter

All things being equal you can then screw the sheet to the ceiling.

As the sheet is still a little floppy you need to be able to hold the sheet with one hand and then put a screw to the end of the drill/driver, a tricky little operation of moving screw which you have in the in the holding hand (done before the sheet holding) then carefully fit the screw in the drill fitting.

At this point it is a good idea to have a spare as sometimes the sharp little devils fall and you need to make some hasty adjustments. once you have at least 3 -4 screws in line the rest of the process is easy.

Repeat process until ceiling is covered.

For those into bits of useless information, we have 1.777tonnes of ceiling Gib now suspended above our heads.

Pictures of Progress

The walls are now covered with plasterboard and next its the ceiling.

I have hired the Mitre 10 gib lifter, this will make this job a lot easier as all you need to do is load the sheet on the lifter, turn the handle and presto the sheet is up on the ceiling (in my dreams!).

As you can see we have already started looking at curtain fabrics, displayed on the ladder and chair.

Drywall

The building inspector has passed the internal framing and plumbing so it's full steam ahead on fixing the Gib (drywall) a tricky little job as some of the sheets are 6 meters long!

We are doing the walls first then its the ceiling (not looking forward to that job).

I have installed my little stereo so I can listen to some music while I work and not the radio which only has wall to wall gloom a doom on the economy - have also stopped watching the TV news.

Maybe I'm sticking my head in the sand but it looks as though the only organisations that are enjoying themselves, is the the media who are wallowing in a sea of bad news.

We are about to help the retail sector, we have now decided on the audio/home theater system we are going to buy.

It's incredible the ammount of cable tha a modern house has excluding the power supply, media, audio, coaxial, hdmi and some very expensive fibre (Mrs DIY dosen't know about the last one!)

Banking Final

At last I have been able to speak to a real person at the bank, a nice lady called Robyn, who was able to resolve the challenges I was having with my stolen card (identity?).
This event has been a real lesson in keeping your card info safe, and making sure you record every contact you have with your bank, mine is now verging on paranoia.

Probably a good thing...