Frustration!

The rain ceased as soon as it started and the sun came out, no wind, it turned into a beautiful day. No wonder we choose to do all the work ourselves, having to rely on other people can drive you to distraction.

Raining!

Bum it's raining, so no roof today, my roofers gone away (sounds like the start of a song) but I'm sure I can find some thing to do.

All Wrapped Up

The Barn is now wrapped waiting for the roof, an interesting exercise trying to tack 160 sq meters of synthetic paper to the outside of a house in a light breeze, how that artist wraps structures like the Eiffel tower? is any-ones guess.

We had hours of 'fun' just wrapping the barn, this included a lot of loud discussion.
Especially when the number one helper slipped and bumped one of her front teeth with a hammer! No tooth, very traumatic, very expensive...

Building Inspection 'Passed"

The posts for the deck/verandah were erected using the HiAb crane from M10, the next day the building inspector passed the build to this point.

The posts are now concreted in and now we can proceed to installing the deck.

We are running a little behind schedule, caused by the extreme winds over the last two weeks, it was to dangerous to work upstairs 120 - 140Km/hr winds, the building creaked and groaned but the temporary bracing worked.

Next it will be wrapping, cladding and the roof (Monday) subject to weather.

Summer has arrived????

What a day, the weather was great, achieved a lot put up the 7m posts for the deck it took a little longer to erect than expected but with the Hi-ab from Mitre10 we made it.

With a great day at this time of year means frost, the helicopters have been arriving all evening, when the frost comes down it can get very noisy with the choppers moving over the vineyards at about 100m, just above the inversion layer moving the warm air down, it sounds like 'Apocalypse Now'.

Gale force Winds - Only 110kms Predicted!

A beautiful clear still day this morning, so I was able to get the scaffolding up to align the truss ends (string line and a saw).

All went well even though I was a LOOONG way from the ground, I had to move fast as the weather was predicted to change by lunch time - it did with a vengeance, the blue skies turned to black and we had all the rubbish predicted.

Another Rain Day

It's raining again, I had to call it a day as the water was dripping down my neck and my power tools were getting a tad moist.

The build has been moving along well with all the trusses in place and securely fixed, all the bracing is complete, so now the house will not fly away in the winds we get in Martinborough.

The good news is that we have someone to put the roof on, a job that I was not looking froward to as its quite high up there, plus he can do it when we want, which is within the next 2 weeks, ya.

With all this rain all the grass is growing very fast -especially the bit which had all the attention for the cricket match...

The Stress of it All!

The truss frames were lifted up and 'roughly' placed in position, the wind was increasing, the frames were starting to swing and yours truly was hanging on about 6 meters above the ground.
I was only able to get 3 fixed in place before the predicted high winds arrived (est 120km/hr) this went on and off for the next 2 days.
Sunday arrived and between the All Blacks/French game we finally finished the truss fixing, with Mrs DIY shouting at the TV and Oscar hiding in his retreat under the stairs, a very emotional day!.

1st Floor Frames

Time delay photography over 3 days.

It got a 'little' exciting putting up the end gables, almost ended up with some very expensive firewood! but with the help of Mrs DIY it was all completed.

The next bit is the roof trusses which will be interesting - I am not keen on high places...

Builder's Rest Day

The building work has come to a welcome halt as it's raining!

I can't complain , because up to today, progress has been really good, the ground floor framing is now complete with the flooring fixed on the 1st floor.

As soon as the weather clears I will get the big fork-lift from Mitre10 to come around and lift the 1st floor framing up, then I will be able to start on the top floor.

I should have the top floor frame up ready for the roof trusses to be fitted by the end of this week (builder promise!)

During this stop I will finalise the stair drawings, making sure they will fit the allocated space.

The making of the stairs should be an interesting project, I plan to make them in our double garage - the garage has never held a car as I took it over as my 'shed'