The Piano Man

A last a weekend off - we went to hear Billy Joel in concert in Auckland, the flight 1 hour Wgtn -Auckland the trip from Auck airport to the city 2 hours! luckily we didn't have any plans for Friday night.

It was really good to have a break from building for a couple of days - still felt a little guilty not working.

Very easy to slip back into sitting watching and drinking a flat white in one of the many Auckland cafes, a changed city, not a good place to be 5 years ago but now you can get a decent cup of real coffee almost anywhere in the city.

The Billy Joel concert was on Sunday at the Vector arena which was only a 5 min walk from the hotel, what a great evening of solid Billy Joel, even without hair he still can sing.

The only drama was on Monday with the trip back flight delayed, after we had finally en planed they found some little bit had dropped of the the tail and we un-loaded and sat around.
Finally arrived back in Wgtn at 4.30pm! a usual trip of 1 hour turned into 5 hours...

It was still a great concert.

High in the Sky

At last the roof is going on, if a little slowly, I don't know how the wind knows, as soon as you get the building paper on the roof it starts to blow.
Yes, that's Mrs DIY up on the scaffold, I wouldn't have been able to do this job without help, it's amazing how much braver you feel when the roof frame is covered with safety netting.

Moving Along

The build is moving at a faster pace, although not quite fast enough to achieve the self imposed deadlines.
The electrician installing the wiring system and has almost finished, amazing the amount of cable that you need to run a modern house.
The building inspector has checked the build for the pre-cladding inspection, all was OK, I always get the feeling that I might have missed something but as I normally over-spec everything I shouldn't worry but I still do.

MasterCard Takes a Holiday

While I was building the house in Martinborough NZ, somehow at the same time my Gold MasterCard had taken a short break in Rome staying at some nice hotels and flying Easyjet around the EU.
A warning to those using the Internet, your credit card details can be siphoned off and used without your knowledge.
Luckily the users only got to take a few $$$ what they didn't know, is I hardly use it and it was no where near its limit.
The card is now officially stolen, so now I don't have a working MasterCard.
Very hard to catch the crooks, from what I can see on my statement all the bookings and purchases were done on line.
Rome is one place we haven't been, I would really like to see it, maybe next time we go to see our 'children' xcxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx, good grief, that makes me feel old!.

Truss Me

The trusses are now all in place, it was all achieved with a lot of 'instruction' combined with lots of pushing and lifting but Mrs DIY and I did it!

The next thing to happen is the purlins will be fixed to the trusses, that's the things that the roof is connected to.

The last pic is of MrsDIY fitting the last fixing of the end gable truss.

Rain Day

After a day of high wind it's now pouring with rain!

I was able to put most of the trusses up despite the high winds, an interesting experience but it was made easier by having a movable scaffold so I didn't need to climb up and down a ladder every time a small adjustment was required.

I used to feel I had been doing a 'step aerobic' class all day.

As it's an inside day I will be in the container (workshop) finishing the legs of the island bench, these are out of an old Totara telegraph pole that I bought from the next door auction (see May 27).

Framed Building

The frames are all in position and bolted to the concrete foundation the only bit of the build which is not classed as ecco friendly.

The next step is to put the roof trusses in place, I will hire the crane from Mitre 10, the local hardware supplier to lift the truss frames on to the top plate.
These will be fixed in place using some over specified brackets, when they are in place it won't be going anyware.
Then its the roof...

I will be glad when the NZ and US elections are over, all we hear on the news is financial gloom and will National or Labour be the new government and will the Democrats be moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?

Construction Starts and Stops

The build has started with the frames going up and now it has come to a grinding halt as the lower half of New Zealand is being buffeted by winds of up to 150Km/hr really a great time to be pushing around big lumps of timber, so its time to bunker down for a day or so till it passes over.
The met service tells us that it will be fine again soon like the news from Bush and Wall Street!
Watch this space...

We've Been Framed!

The frames have arrived, we are now ready for the next step, we will start putting them up, starting on Friday.
The way I have designed the house is to take advantage of being able to get the difficult stuff prefabricated off-site.
'My self-designed kitset home.'
Mrs DIY is taking a weeks 'holiday' to give me a hand, we hope to have the entire frame up within the next week.
We have not put them (frame's) on the slab because the concrete needs to cure for as long as possible to get to it's full strength.
This will reduce the chance of any serious cracking, as we are going to polish the slab, we won't be able to cover any blemishes with carpet.
The roof trusses are also ready but I have put off delivery for a week to clear some space (they take up quite a bit of room) and also they are quite heavy, I will need them close by eliminating the need to manhandle them around the site.
the next few weeks are going to be busy.
The long term weather looks OK for now.

Concrete Foundations

Monday dawned a beatiful day, perfect concrete weather, the concrete arrived on time at 7.00am and by 11.00am it was all in place

What a stressful time, I had the terrible feeling that I didn't put enough bracing and the whole thing would collapse and all the cement would run out.

It didn't.

As I blog the men are power floating the surface and adding colour hardener to get the perfect smoooooopth finish.

The frames are due to be delivered later this week so we will be able to get on with the easy bit of the build.