What a Mess

What a big mess! The digger man has dug a ditch around the house so I can fit the storm-water system and now the house has a changed look, instead of sitting in a nice green lawn, we are now sitting in a land of dirt and trenches. 

I am hoping that it dosn't rain in the next few days or the whole place will turn to a sea of mud.

It had to be done but it is still a bit of a shock to see the piles of dirt and pipes laid everywhere.

I should be able to finish this messy bit off in the next few days.

The 17th

Another step towards completion the dry walling is complete with the exception of the small guest toilet which is waiting for the plumber to fit some extra pipework for a possible extra washing machine.

This will mean we will be able to make the house self sufficient and the barn which houses our bedroom, office and studio locked on its own security system.

A slight overkill but it reduces our insurance premium.

Dave the digger man was working next door so took the opportunity to get him to move a great big mound of topsoil that was collected from the drive and house site.

We are placing it so we will get some slopping ground (small hills) along the the lines of the approach to the 17th at the golf club.

When I mentioned the likeness to Augusta Mrs DIY said "why don't we dig a lake as a water feature". Oh dear why do I make these off the cuff comments.

The digger has decided to take a rest (breakdown) with the hydraulics pump busting an 'o' ring and dropping its entire oil supply over the lawn, looks as if it may be resting there over the Easter weekend...

The Dog Reports

man what a day - i finally caught one of those pesky rabbits. boy, can they move but I can move faster. the 'boss' is really pleased and said i was a good boy or something like that. the '2 legs' don't speak very clearly.
i have been trying to catch one for ages (one of those furry things) as they not only sneak onto my patch, they leave lots of little round poos all over my land plus they dig up the lawn and make holes around the trees, which makes my 'boss' cross.
sorry must go now, as the boss is heading towards the silver thing in the other room - they call it a fridge, it's the place they hide my food.
they think they are very clever but i know were they hide it, one day I will find out how to work the security system and get the goodies they keep in there...
wonder what's for dinner?

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...

Insulation

The horrible job of installing the fibre glass batts is now underway with Mrs DIY aka the 'bat lady' all covered up to stop the sharp fibre from getting at any exposed skin (itchy!).

When this is completed we can get the building inspector to give the OK to start putting up the drywall, this really means we are at last getting near the finish of the build.

Bankers...

The drama goes on with MasterCard (See Oct 2008) they still cannot answer my letters (5) and phone calls (about 6) on why I'm still being charged for some crook who is using my credit card around the world.
I've just received a dispute form re the disputed items, this is the 3rd time I've done this, maybe 3rd time lucky!
What a bunch of incompetent nits, maybe they need to be awarded the order of the bin liner!