The Start of the Foundations

The holes have been drilled for the wooden piles and over half of the piles are installed ready for the concrete to be poured.
Unfortunately we had an enormous storm and we had 3 months rain in 3 hours! the remaining holes caved in, it was a terrible mess with 20 holes needing to be drilled again, plus the services of a Geo Engineer to help with a solution, thankfully not too much to do, but we will now need to drill the holes down to 2 meters plus a lot more expensive concrete - oh, the joys of building.

The anchor piles (44) go down about 1 meter and yesterday checking the depth I dropped my tape, bother, my arm is not that long, had to hook it out with the end of my hammer then proceeded to get my head stuck under the prop, all very tricky...
The site is surrounded by security mesh, to keep Charlie (dog) out of harms way plus any wandering Hedgehogs.

Essential Tools...

The Site

Have started the earthworks with the underground pipes installed, with the building profile now in place.
The site is starting to look like a building site with lots of mud!!

The next job is to drill the holes for the piles and to setup the posts for concreting into the ground.

Some Background

The idea for this new project started some years back with a trip to the UK and a week staying in a converted barn in Wales.
We were so taken with the barn, that we decided that we would like a building based on similar design, although the new one would be built using different materials - We don't use slate and stone as building materials in New Zealand.
Although I'm a registered residential building designer (LBP) I don't have any formal qualifications when it comes to building houses, and I had to sign a declaration that only I would be doing the build with some help from friends and family (unpaid), family take note:)
So in the NZ tradition of a home builder DIY you can construct your own house as long as you don''t use any paid labour, with the exception of Plumber, Drain layer and Electrician.
The house design is 2 stories on piles, the reason for the piles is because following some very big earthquakes in NZ if your house is damaged you can start making good the repairs the system of Jack and Pack, that's jacking up the house and levelling the house as required.
Note: the last shake we had,was an astounding 2 minutes! Magnitude of 7.5, very scary, luckily we had no structural damage but a couple of towns further down the coast in the South island were badly damaged with the main road still closed, they have just reconnected the rail line yesterday for limited traffic.
A number of very big, relatively new buildings in Wellington have to be demolished because of the damage.
Building control now need a lot more information and detail which meant a lot of reworking of the plans to get the approval, Yes I did it, as the building was designed to exceed the current building code by a considerable amount with extra plywood internal bracing extra anchor piles plus an increase in insulation by 200% plus more hurricane straps to hold down the roof and building it wasn't to much of a challenge.

Now it's full steam ahead on the real building work...

The Container Conversion - Continued

The container conversion has become a full-time job with an element of panic setting in, we have built a fold-up bed design I found on a web-site in the USA - they supplied the instructions plus the fittings to make it work. although the instructions were a little overwritten - far to much detail but I finally got it together, and it works really well - it's call a 'Murphy Bed' for those interested in making a foldaway bed.
The container have been lined out using drywall and plastered, painted and decorated, so now looks the business.

The Foldup Murphy Bed

Pantry and Kitchen

The outside we are covering in plywood to protect the insulation and to make it look less like a steel sea container, it's now called a studio.
I have been told, if I use the word 'Glamping' once more there will be a death in the the family - Mine!

Yes, that's my shadow taking the photograph.
The solar panel on the left is to power our... all very eco.

Progress - Continued - The Container Solution

The new plans which I have been working on for our new house, have been submitted to building control for approval, (or so I thought) it has been a bit of a challenge, the detail the council require has become very detailed but, I did it, now just the wait for the build permit to be issued.
As as well as designing the new build, I had to get my head around a new CAD Program as the old Autocad had died and as Autocad don't support this program anymore, I decided to buy a new one made by BricsCAD.
The conversion worked well with all my existing files converting over to the new system.
Most of the drawing controls were very similar so there was not to much stress, plus I need a new printer which had expired (dead) in sympathy. - very surprised how the cost for new printer has dropped, purchase a suitable model on SALE for $250.00 then they gave me $100.00 cash back,  although the consumables are a little expensive.-very...

On-board life is very good, we thought it would be a good idea to have somewhere else to stay over winter, life can become very uncomfortable on the boat in a storm, and we have been having some very severer weather lately.
The solution was to convert a container that would be on-site, and would be a stable platform to work and live from as a backup and temporary home.

I have insulated the container plus installing double glazed windows making the interior very warm
The tricky bit was taking the doors off, cutting the hinges with an angle grinder, they are very very heavy, some nimble footwork was required when they came off...

So It Begins...

Well we have sold the house, only took 5 days! we will be homeless in 4 weeks.
What to do next?  well, we brought our boat back from the South Island and now we are back in our old berth in the Seaview Marina, so at least we will have somewhere to stay.
I'm not sure how the dog will feel being a live aboard dog.
It will be a bit of a shock moving from a 326sqm house to a 11m yacht
I will post some photos of the progress in the next few days showing some of the solutions that we are considering, while we build our new house - George's amazing spaces....So watch this space.

Do It Again...

After a lot more painting I have decided that I will redo the South of France painting again, taking one of my critics advice and cropping the image a little closer but this time it will be much bigger - 1220 x 910mm (48 x 36 inches).
It's becoming a challenge as its one of the biggest works that I have attempted, so watch this space.

Painting Again - South of France

After a short break, I have started doing some more painting, the challenge I have is finding a subject that says something to me - not just a nice picture, so have been going though all my reference pics and sketches - this is the first in a new series.
This is a view I saw when on holiday in France, an image that that gives you a peek at life behind the walls in a small french village, still needs a bit of polishing, almost there...

A Short Note

We have been incredibly busy since the Greek Odyssey, with the Barn section of the house being converted into guest accommodation.
It's working well with bookings  almost every weekend since listing on a website called Bookabatch - it's absolutely brilliant with a calender showing when we are available, if you are ever looking for places to stay in New Zealand this is the site to look at. http://www.bookabatch.co.nz