Sundown

The end of a great day - achieved a lot, the roof and Velux skylight/window are now fitted, so now the rain doesn't fall on our heads.

We finished the day sitting on our neighbour's deck sipping champagne watching the sun go down, 'what a life'

Moving On

The roofing contractor left his scaffolding behind, so I have made good use of it, its very high up there, especially when you are wrestling with a 1200 x2400 sheet of plywood.

I now know why Sloths move so slowly when they are climbing trees, they are scared of heights!

This insight came to me while I was moving very slowly over the roof.

The soffits (that's the lining under the eaves) are now being fixed, a difficult job as you have to work above your head height and up the scaffold! (good fun)

Roof

Today the roofing team arrived and now we almost have a roof, only one more side to go and we will be roofed.

Before I can start cladding the building inspector needs to check out my penetrations! (Holes in the building, e.g. pipes etc.) so he's visiting tomorrow.

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...