Progress seems to be crawling at a snail's pace over the last six weeks or so.   I seem to have been caught up in a never ending cycle of window and door preparation while Paul and Nick have been working on building the opening frames.   I guess that's the consequences of deciding to go with recycled timber windows and doors - save on money while doing our bit for recycling but expect to put in many hours of labour.  

 

Nick and Paul have been working on making all the frames for the openings. 

The idea was to fix the windows and doors into the frames and then instal the whole unit as one.  However, it's taking me so long to get the sashes, hoppers and doors ready that we've decided to go ahead and instal the frames and fit in the windows and doors as I complete the sanding, puttying and painting.   Doing it this way means Nick and Paul can get a start on the external cladding.  I've set a time frame for having all external cladding on with doors and windows fitted, in other words achieved lock-up, by the end of June. 

Today, Nick and Paul finished making the last of the frames - the one for the front door!  Then it was time to start fixing the frames permanently in place....

 

 





 

Feels good to get the beginning of the entry door in place.

 
 
Paul will follow up by waterproofing the frames around their edges with silicone and damp-proof material.  

I am making some headway with my job to get the windows and doors ready.  About a week ago, I finished chipping out all old putty that needed to be removed from windows and doors and am now almost half way through re-puttying same.  As the glass in some of the windows and all the doors needs to be replaced to meet current glazing regulations, I have spent many hours throughout April measuring and ordering glass.  I'm multi-tasking at the moment, mainly to ward off frustration, by alternating between puttying, sanding, fitting glass and, hopefully, starting this weekend, painting. 
 



Other significant trades' progress in April included the installation of all the sub-floor pipework.....












.... and all the electrical cabling for lights, fans and power points (which has involved hundreds of metres of cable).







 
 

Paul and I had some fun developing a smooth teamworking method for getting stuck into the decking.

It was nice to have our friend Tim come up and stay for a couple of nights and do some  volunteering on the job .... and chat over a bottle of red or two.













I have been fitting in some other very important jobs such as....


 



getting the edible gardens started with herbs.... 









 





and more herbs and the all important chilli bush...










 


and building a rock retaining wall around the water tanks.  









And not to forget we did our first stint of entertaining in our house at Easter.  Our dear friends Jenny and Al from Warwick and Paul's daughter Gabe and her partner Nathan came up for a long leisurely lunch on the Friday.  It was such a pleasure and one we hope to have over and over again in this house.  

I can't sign off without acknowledging my little shadow who never leaves my side, which does make it difficult for the tradies when they come as he's very protective of me.  He surprised Paul, Tim and I the week before last when he caught quite a sizeable brown snake!  I doubt he could get away with that stunt too often.  








 

It's now two and a half months since the foundations were laid and, all in all, we are very happy with the progress of the build.  Apart from plumbing and electricity, much of the build is now up to us (Paul and I) with the help of Nick (our mentor and retired builder) and his son Anthony, a builder (when available).  

This week has been very busy on site notwithstanding we have had rain on most days - when I say week I mean Wednesday through Sunday as Paul and I both work at our paid jobs on Monday and Tuesday and, for me, every second Friday.

The first job we got underway was the connection of the four main tanks so that water runs into all of them at the same time.  Paul is a wizard at this kind of thing while I'm best being the TA and doing the grunt work - under the watchful eye of Woolly the poodle of course!   

Connecting these main four tanks to the smaller tank on the northern side of the house can wait wait until Josh the excavator operator comes up to do the trenching for the septic tank and transpiration pit.  In other words, I'm not digging the trench the extra 20 metres or so!  

The end result looks pretty good and, even better, not one leak.  Great job Paul - as always.   Most of this job was done in the rain - we were like drowned rats by the end of the job.  

 

Then Paul decided to cover the eastern side of the building on the upper floor with plastic.  The rain has come from this direction much of the time and Paul was tired of sweeping out the water that was coming in.  He's a fusspot that one.   

The next two big jobs involved Paul and the roof - he had to finish putting screws into some of the roof sheeting and, the big challenge, get the solar hot water tank and collector panels on the roof.  The first job was easy but the second was a challenge as both items are really, really heavy.  Needless to say, being the incredibly practical and talented person he is, Paul rigged up an overhead block and tackle system and managed, after a few hours, to get the lot up on the northern roof section.  It was very hard work and I admire Paul's stamina for sticking at a really difficult task.  I did play a minor part, as directed, to help balance the last lift over the roof overhang.   What an effort - we could stop holding our breaths when that job was complete.  

We had one day that was mostly fine with a good breeze and decided to make hay while the ..... or in our case slash the grass which was going crazy with all this rain.   I'm still a learner driver.  I think the tractor is as old as I am and (like moi?) hard to handle because it's soooo heavy.  When I had my first drive of it last year I couldn't figure out how to stop it and ran over the fence.  I'm happy for the tractor to be Paul's precinct and I stick to the ride-on and push mowers.  

 While Paul was doing his roof tasks I started on my next big job - preparing the recycled windows and doors.  My sister Stancia had kindly helped me do all the preliminary sanding late last year.  Now it was the yukky bit - checking which ones need the old putty taken out and new putty put in.  But first I had to wash them all to see how they shaped up after the sanding.  

Then, it's no escaping the tedium of gently but firmly chipping away at old hardened putty without breaking the glass panes that we can keep as per the current regulations on glazing.  

  

It's going to take me some time to get through the lot but it's worth doing properly as I don't want to have to do running repairs on windows over the next few years.  Once the job of re-puttying is complete then I will get on with painting all windows and doors while Paul (with Nick's guidance) will start building the frames.  

We also had our first meeting with our electrician Alex.  We feel very comfortable with him and work can start pretty much straight away.  Once we get that done and the window frames in we can then start on the external cladding and.....can't wait....achieve lock up stage!  

This coming week I will be organising the glass for the windows that need to be reglazed and continuing with my chip chip chipping while Paul will be liaising with the electrician and organising the hardware as well as ordering our solar power system.  We are going with a 5kw system (9 panels), which should provide power comfortably for our needs.  So exciting.  

I said to Paul today that I'm really enjoying this whole process - while the rain has played havoc with my time frames we are only two and and a half months in and we seem to have come a long way to creating this incredible building.  I find it amazing, almost magical, that you can conjure up this house in such a short period of time.  We are impatient to be living in it. 

A look at the house suggests progress has been very piecemeal since the roof went on 18th February.  Rain in the last week of February meant not much could happen.  Our next steps were to get the plumbing and electrical work underway and start getting windows and doors in.  As our bracing consists of internal sheeting we need to have the plumbing rough in (pipes in the wall) and electrical work done before the external cladding can go on and lock up stage achieved.  

March 1st was a great day of activity.  Our plumber arrived and got down to work straight away.  By the end of the day he had completed the rough in i.e. all pipes were in the wall and through the floors for...

the shower, vanity and toilet (I know pipes may not excite too many people but these ones give me a buzz) ...




























(that's the shower)

... and the kitchen sink as well as the laundry. 
Also, all the pipe work to attach to the solar hot water system were installed.   Now we wait until our plumber has another spare day to come up and do the underhouse pipework and connection to septic tank and transpiration pit.  Of course, the latter two require Josh, our excavator operator, to come back and do some significantly digging.  But at least the plumbing is underway.







Also on the 1st March, Nick arrived to assist Paul with installing the first of the doors.  While we are using recycled timber windows and doors throughout the house there are two exceptions.  I had doors made up for the openings on to the eastern and northern decks.  These doors had been ordered last year and were ready and waiting to be delivered since December.  The steepness of the road proved a bit challenging for the driver but he made it and very carefully four of us unloaded the doors by hand.  Nick then installed them, teaching us as he went so that we are able to instal the rest of the windows and doors.  I'm sure we will need Nick to hold our hands a bit more while doing so.  

Each time another 'bit' of the build is achieved the feeling of the internal space changes.  I was getting quite used to wandering around inside what felt like a big metal tent. While I'm very happy with the doors, just the addition of these two has me feeling like I'm cut off from my surrounds.  I wonder what it will feel like as more windows and doors go in and then external walls.   

On the same day Nick started Paul's first lesson in decking.  They began on the smallest of the areas - the front porch.  Paul felt confident and the following day, while I was at work, he completed the decking for the porch.  What a superb job he did - his meticulous side obviously a real strength here.   Now the challenge is to utilise all the decking boards in the most efficient way.  We have three sizeable decks and the boards need to go around if, and a big if, my estimation of quantity was correct. 

So now to those recycled windows and doors.  I have almost completed sanding the lot, not a pleasant task.  We've soaked all the fittings in caustic soda to bring them back to an acceptable finish.  The big tasks are getting reglazed those items that no longer meet current glazing regulations (about a third of the items), re-puttying those that are deteriorating and then sourcing reasonably priced wood to frame all of them (I say box them although Nick refers to it as reveals?).  And that's before we can begin installation.  Of course, then I need to paint all of them - even the new ones, which seems a pity.  

Since that flurry of activity, this week has been very wet.  Great for us as we've already collected around (we think) 14,000 litres of water with two of the tanks.  A good start now only 90,000 or so to go!   

Meanwhile, in addition to work on windows and doors, I need to find an electrician.  Nick is organising metal fascia for the remaining parts of the roof that do not have guttering.  Paul is repairing mowing equipment - while we focus on the build, the grass is out of control here.  
   

One of the challenging aspects of this build has been the downtime caused by rain.  I guess that's what happens when building starts at the beginning of the wet season.  My last post was optimistic.  In fact, over the past couple of weeks we have seen storms and rain squalls on a fairly regular basis.  Our road was too boggy and slippery in a couple of sections to allow any traffic to come up.  I think we rescheduled the delivery of the water tanks at least three times and had to push back the plumber's start date because we still couldn't get our roof started.  

During this time we were liasing fairly regularly with Nick (our building mentor) who offered to get a quote for the roofing materials.  I had chased up three quotes in all but it was the supplier Nick had approached that won the day with a very good price.   There were a couple of days of fine weather which allowed us to get Josh, our preferred excavator operator, to come and prepare the pads for the tanks.  Only a minor cut was required to level the pad for the four biggest tanks (4 x 22,700 litres) and none for our smaller tank (13,638 litres).  At the same time, we had 5 cubic metres of crusher dust delivered and then Josh packed it down and levelled it. 

Paul and his brother Mark, who was visiting from Perth, also got into the swing of it.  Now all we had to do was wait for the tanks to be delivered.  They were coming from a depot in Dalby.  

Finally, this week, a reprieve in the weather.  We didn't waste time.  On Thursday 16th we had the roofing materials delivered. 















On Friday 17th we had the tanks delivered and placed on their pads.   















Also on Friday, Nick and Paul completed the fascia and guttering.  Nick had very cleverly designed a fascia flashing to take the guttering given I am not having soffits but opting for unlined eaves (the shed look).  They did a brilliant job.  






















Saturday 18th was R day - the day Mark, Anthony and Nick arrived to put the roof on.    While Mark and Anthony did the height work, Nick and Paul did their bidding on the ground cutting the insulation blanket, passing up sheets etc.    











I love the roof.  Mark and Anthony are such good tradesmen - their work is neat and accurate.  I'm also aware that the roof sheets will highlight any mistakes way back at the set out stage.  If the set out is too far out then the roof sheets can have a sawtooth effect.  Ours is perfect - thanks to Nick's brilliant setting out, Josh for his very expert excavation of the holes and Mark and crew doing such a perfect job on the construction of the subfloor.

And at the end of the day we had a roof over our house with temporary connections to the water tank until the plumber arrives and puts in the permanent connections.  In proper building tradition, we had to celebrate the roof....











Thanks Anthony...

 Nick...
. 

         

 Mark and Paul.  Well done guys. 

And now to the next stage....I'd like to say what's happening this week but a check of the weather sites tell us we're in for a wet week culminating in a predicted 50ml rainfall on Friday.  Never mind, there's always some tasks that can be worked on off site.   

The end of the first week of February and we have completed a major stage of the build - the complete frame is now up.  

The week commenced with putting up the last of the bracing sheets and getting the roof trusses on as well as the battens.  A smooth run to the finish was not to be with the rain cutting short one working day, cancelling another and on the other days causing many frustrating stops and starts for the framing guys.  








Still they had a goal and that was to finish by the end of the first week of February and perseverance got them there.  




That's my studio up there!






























 
It's done and the framing guys leave for the last time on Friday.  I think I'm going to miss having them around.  
























All weekend I have been walking around in the house getting a feel for the spaces and picturing what will go where.  Via a ladder I have been climbing up to my eyrie and loving the views.  I know exactly where I'm going to put my various art work tables and bits and pieces - oh and of course a comfy day bed to just take in the views.

We attempted to have our water tanks delivered this week - five in all.  Unfortunately, the truck came on a day of intermittent showers and there were sections of the track up the last part of the mountain that were proving a little testing.  There has been more traffic in the past three weeks on this track than I've seen in eighteen years.  While the work I had done to seal the track was holding up well enough other sections which I had not had sealed were becoming a bog or too slippery.  The truck driver delivering the tanks took the first two up and refused to take the second lot up, which were waiting further down on a trailer.   That is to be rescheduled to this week.   This weekend has been clear and hot so the boggy bits of the track have dried out nicely.  

The roof sheeting plan has changed in the last couple of days.  The contractor who I had chosen is unable to get on to the job for at least two weeks as they are now trying to catch up with all their work since the break in the weather.  That's too long for me as I need the roof on to get at least two tanks connected before any more rain comes.  The new plan is for Nick (our mentor and a retired builder), Anthony (son of Nick and one of the framing guys) and Paul to sheet the roof.  Nick is figuring out all the materials required and then I will be doing a very hurried whip around for quotes for supply.  Hopefully, the roof will start in a week or so.  

The plumber came up today to start measuring and figuring out pipe lines.  He will start work in the next week or so.   Meanwhile, I have to make final decisions on tapware and bathroom fixtures.  That's a fun bit.


 

Now let me bring you up to date with what's happening on my owner build project since 2012 dawned ....

We started the new year with our complete set of house stumps (steel) standing tall in their concrete, which had been curing nicely over the christmas/new year period.  Our most important task during that time was to keep water out of the hollow posts.  Water because we were now running into what we had planned to avoid...the onset of the wet season.  With all the hiccups during our planning and approval stage we lost a valuable 3-4 weeks at least in our planned schedule.  My hope had always been that I would have the build progressed at least to having the frame up and roof on before the wet season got underway.  Given the household will be totally dependent on rain water I needed to harvest this season's rain to set the house up nicely for its first year.    

Meanwhile, with fingers crossed that the rains would not start yet, we taped plastic bags over the top of each stump.  Annoyingly, the magpies and crows just kept pecking holes in the plastic so after many re-tapes we gave up and put rocks on top of each stump.  The birds came to perch anyway.  

I was also feeling on top of my project management task as I was going into the build having already chosen, from among the requisite three quotes I'd collected, both my roofing contractor and my plumber.  I had been collecting quotes for the supply of floor sheeting, timber decking boards and internal and external cladding materials and decided on the best deal.  I had also been liasing with an extremely helpful guy at a glass company in Brisbane about reglazing my second-hand windows and doors.  By the end of 2011, that dilemma had been resolved and I was happy with the solution and the cost.  And, very importantly, my projected budget was looking good.   

January 10th was the big day!  The framing gang arrived, Mark (the foreman) along with Tony and Brad.  Their first task was to 'level' the stumps, which meant using a laser to project the floor height across all the stumps and then....











.... cut the stumps to their appropriate size allowing for the changing levels of the ground.   The plans specified adjustable stumps were to be used because of the highly reactive soil on site. 










One of the most longed-for sights was the house frame being delivered.  I could hear the truck engine as it laboured up the last bit of our mountain and I'm sure the drivers did not expect a photographer to be waiting around the bend.  

 The first of many loads to come....






























My flat pack house ready to assemble!













During the excitement of all this activity, I was not idle.  I had decided to try a long shot and get a fourth quote for the supply of floor sheeting, external and internal cladding materials and timber decking boards.  It paid off and the deal was better than any I had got to date.  I locked that in.  I was also getting quotes from suppliers of rain water and septic tanks and making a decision on that front.  Importantly, I was also mindful of keeping the roofing contractor, plumber and excavator operator for the drainage updated on the build progress to ensure no time would be wasted in having each of them come in at the right time.

Meanwhile, it's still dry and early January when Mark, Tony and Brad very carefully laid the ground floor bearers and joists ensuring the floor would be level, a very exact and critical feat.  I have a lot of respect for the professionalism and competence of these particular guys. 







 

 
Satisfied they had the subfloor just right, the guys then sheeted the floor with Green Tongue Termiflor.  The sheets must be in place in order to erect the walls although other floor surfaces can be laid on top.  Something I am planning to do provided the budget doesn't blow out on other fronts.   


It was amazing to be able, finally, to get a feel for the height of the ground floor, which was at its minimum 400mm from the ground.  I was also concerned that the 'space' was adequate although a real test would come when the walls were up.  And there wasn't long to wait...

 
 At this stage, the third week of January, the weather is great and the guys are going great guns.  With the first section of wall going up, I am starting to see the suggestion of a house....











....and, more than a suggestion, a house with rooms....














....and then a house that has the beginning sections of the upper floor - my studio! 














My favourite times during these couple of weeks are early morning and evening when the builders haven't arrived or have just left and I explore the build.  I take up countless positions throughout the space appreciating the framing of the landscape through the design.  I am so very pleased with my design - it's exactly as I had imagined and painstakingly worked over on paper.  When I stand in that frame I see exactly what I dreamed and planned I would.  It's perfect.  

 
The bracing goes on and, unusually, on the inside as specified by the engineer.  








 





There is so much bracing in this house (over 100 sheets) that the guys reckon nothing will move the building.  Uh oh....look at that sky, not looking too good. 
 
It's the third week of January and we were exceptionally lucky to date in terms of the rain.  So optimistic was I that nothing would impede our progress I informed the roofing contractor that the time line looked okay for them to start the middle of the fourth week of January.  I also ordered the delivery of the rain water tanks for the fourth week.     


I was too optimistic given that, in that third week, each day the clouds would build up all morning and at around mid-afternoon right on knock off time we could see the rain coming in over the valley.   So far so good because the guys were still getting in a day's work. 

I must admit that, increasingly, the sky was looking decidedly ominous and, while luck had been on our side, the wet season was on our tail. 


And then....


















....this!  The rains came.  Everything came to a halt.  

Each day this fourth week, we would talk with Mark by phone about the weather forecasts and the possibility of a change.  The delivery of the rain water tanks had to be postponed and phones calls to the plumber and roofing contractor had to be made.  Thursday 26th seemed to fine up a bit and Friday the 27th looked good so Mark, Tony and Brad got back to work.  But....lunchtime down it came again.  And that's where it's at!  


It rained solidly for two days and Sunday afternoon started to clear up again.  Fingers crossed for this week!  I want the rain to hold off just until I get my roof on (second week of February) and then it can pour down as much as it likes because I'll have 104,000 litres of rain water capacity waiting to be filled!