Making progress

Despite the winter throwing some truly dreadful weather our way, and both of us being laid low by The Cold From Hell, we've still managed to make reasonable progress on the house build over the last few weeks.

We've finished the cladding!

The west wall, showing the kitchen windows

We've now completed the cladding, and we've started treating it with wood preservative. We wanted a more or less clear finish, as we like the blond colour of the plywood, but there isn't anything like that available in the type of treatment we need to use, so we've gone for a mid-brown stain. It tones well with the roof, and gives the house a rustic, cabiny feel. So far we've only managed to stain the back wall and the east wall, because we've had to wait for a run of two days of dry weather to do any staining, and those have been few and far between this winter!

The stained east wall and some of our new flax plants

You may notice in the photos above that we've now got some plants in our 'garden'. They're a dozen New Zealand flax plants, which we got free from a friend of a friend, whose little garden in town was being overrun by them. In the summer New Zealand flax has large, lily-like flowers on long stalks, and the flowers attract native birds, such as the tui.

We hope to get some tui visiting our flax in the summer.

We've still got a lot of work left to do before we've completed the exterior of the house. Next weekend we're going to start work on the soffit lining on the verandah roof. When we get some dry weather we need to continue staining the cladding. Once the staining is finished we've got to put beading under the eaves and on the gable ends, fascia under the verandah, and timber reveals around the windows and doors. Then there's the verandah deck to build!

Close-up of the stained east wall

Even though we've not finished the exterior yet, we've still managed to complete the first job on the interior, which is insulating the walls. Our next indoors job is to put the insulation in the roof and gable ends. Once that's done and the exeterior is complete apart from the deck, we can get the building inspector in for the 'pre-line' inspection.When we've passed that, we can start putting the gib (plaster board) on the walls.

Frosty morning scene during the cold snap we had last week

Although we're still a long way off finishing building the house, the end does feel as if it's in sight at last, and we're hoping, like all good self-builders, to be in by Christmas. We're not saying which Christmas, mind you! ;-)

Blimey, is that the time?

I can't believe we're into February already. Christmas seems like only the other week.

We've made slow but steady progress on the build in the three weeks since the last blog post, and we've passed one significant milestone: the roof is now on. Putting the steel on the roof is one of the few jobs that we're not doing ourselves. We decided to get contractors in partly because neither of us has a head for heights, and partly because we knew that if we screwed things up, it could have all sorts of disastrous repercussions. The consequences of not managing to get the roof 100% watertight or completely windproof don't bear thinking about, so we decided to leave it to the experts.

A new accessory for tightrope walkers?

Fixing the last few sheets of steel

The finished roof, complete with guttering and downpipes

The next job is to fix the cladding. We've ordered a type of plywood sheeting called Shadowclad. It's got vertical grooves in it that give the impression of vertical weatherboards. It's one of the cheaper cladding options available here, and is (supposedly) relatively easy to install, so we'll just have to see how we get on. Our building supplier can't deliver the cladding until late next week, so we've got some time to work on the yurt deck and do the thousand and one other jobs that are constantly calling for our attention.

Iain fixing a beam on the deck for our yurt. Can you spot Pookie?

Iain takes a breather

Iain cutting one of the beams for the yurt deck with his latest toy tool, a mitre saw.

 It's got a laser, which is very exciting.

Team Whittaker is going to be a man down for a spell (a woman down, to be precise). I was planning on visiting the UK in July to see my Mum, but she's been taken ill, so I'm bringing the visit forward. I fly out on Friday, and I'll be away for eleven days. This will delay the cladding going on, as there's no way Iain will be able to put it on by himself. The sheets of plywood are 2.7 by 1.2 metres and 12 mm thick. You'd have to be a giant squid to be able to handle that on your own.

Gratuitous cuteness: one of the sheep our neighbour is grazing on our land

And with that non-sequitur, I bid you goodnight.

Helen

In the frame

First of all, apologies for the odd photo placement and sizing. Blogger isn't playing nicely this evening; it took ages to upload the photos, and then I couldn't get them in the right position or the right size. Never mind; I don't mind the fact that the final photo is huge -- I think it's a really nice one of Iain.

A couple of days ago we finished building the verandah roof, which means...drum roll...
...the framing is now complete.

The building inspector inspected the framing yesterday, and, much to our surprise, it passed.

Above: the finished verandah and the yurt

Below: the front of the house

An embarrassing blot on the landscape: our building site. From left to right: the posts for the yurt deck, a pile of soil and clay dug up when the water and septic tanks were buried, the water tanks (with septic system barely visible in front), blue tarp with the concrete mixer underneath, pile of earth from the slab excavations (front) the caravan (middle) and house (back), pile of hardcore left over from the driveway (front), our car (middle), piles of timber (back), our yurt

The first beam of our yurt deck

Iain takes a break from building the deck

Now that the framing's been signed off we can get on with closing the house in. The roof goes on first, then the cladding and finally the windows.

Today we put in an order for the roof. There's a 2-week lead time on that, so we've now got a couple of weeks during which we can concentrate on building the deck for the yurt. Unfortunately they're forecasting several days of heavy rain and gale-force winds to coincide with our days off at the weekend. We're looking forward to the time when the house is closed in and we're working on the interiror, because the weather won't be able to hold us up then.

Helen

Finally, some action!

After the wettest spring since 1945, summer has finally arrived in New Zealand. The job that we’ve been waiting three months to be able to do – digging the holes for the verandah posts – is finally complete and our building morale is on the up.

Timing is very important when you’re digging in heavy clay. If we’d tried to dig the holes for the verandah posts too early, the ground would have been like blancmange, the holes wouldn’t have held their shape and the inspector wouldn’t have approved the footings. If we’d waited too long the ground would have set like concrete and we wouldn’t have been able to get the spade into it.

Me wrapping the frame in builder's wrap

Luckily, by the time this year’s window of opportunity came around we were living up on site, and we managed to get all six post holes dug within the course of a couple of days. Before we could pour the concrete we had to get the holes inspected. At the same time, we asked the inspector to give the frame a quick check. Because it’s spent such a long time being exposed to very wet weather, we were worried that the wood might be too far gone, and we might have to pull it down and start again. That would have really sapped our morale, dented our pockets, and set the build back to square one.

Fortunately both the footings and the frame passed muster, but the inspector said we needed to get the building wrap and the roof on as soon as possible. We were a bit surprised, because the official frame inspection (which we’re not ready for yet because we’ve not built the verandah) is called the ‘pre-wrap’ inspection, so we’d assumed that you couldn’t put the building wrap on before the frame had been inspected. We really wish we’d known this because we would have wrapped the frame up months ago.

 This ugly duckling will emerge as a beautiful swan some day. Or at least, a passable duck.

 We put the building wrap on the day after the inspection. The roof can’t go on until we’ve completed the framework for the verandah roof, so we got some black plastic sheeting and made a temporary roof out of that. The random pieces of wood you can see in the photo are emergency storm-proofing measures to stop the roof lifting off during the inevitable gale that blew up within a few hours of covering the roof. The house doesn’t look great, but at least the frame now has a chance to dry out at last.

Gratuitous yurt shot. I love our yurt!

Now the inspection is out of the way and the house is protected from the rain, our next job is to build the verandah. Getting the verandah posts in the right positions was fiddly but not as difficult or as time-consuming we'd been anticipating - it only took just over a day. Pouring the concrete was even quicker- just three hours! I'm really glad Iain treated us to a concrete mixer for Christmas!

Iain and the verandah posts pre-concrete

Now the concrete is poured we have to wait for it to cure for a few days before we can start building the framing for the verandah roof, so tomorrow we're going to start work on the deck for our yurt.


Helen


P.S. A trivia question for you: From which computer game is this post’s title taken?

Y-Day draws close

This week has been unbelievably wet. We didn't visit the site yesterday because, yes, you've guessed it, it was raining. When we went up there today, we found, not surprisingly, that the flooding hasn't subsided, but we were pleasantly surprised to see that it hasn't got much worse, either, and the end of the veranda trench where we did some back-filling a couple of weeks ago has firmed up considerably. All we need is a couple of dry days, and we get we should be able to drain the trench and fill it with some of the spoil left over from the installation of the water and septic tanks. Then all we need to do is wait a few weeks for it to firm up before we can dig the rest of the holes for the veranda posts. And at that point there'll be no stopping us!

There's great excitement chez Whittaker at the moment, because the yurt is now finished, and is due to be delivered some time next week. We plan on spending next weekend putting it up, and the following weekend moving in. Once we're installed in the yurt we'll hand in our notice at the rental, and that will give us three weeks in which to complete the move. This will be useful because there will be all sorts of loose ends to tie up, such as finding somewhere to store all our furniture, building a temporary ablutions block, and organising an internet connection.

As we're going to be moving up onto the site so soon, and the next two weekends are spoken for, we decided we needed to put up the letter box today. Here are some photos.

We borrowed a post hole borer from our friends, Frank and Linda.

Once we'd removed the turf with a spade, the borer made easy work of digging the hole.

I'm very fond of our letterbox - it seems very exotic to someone who's used to letters coming through the front door!

Where did you get that hat?

By now I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that 'Chez Whittaker' is getting further behind schedule with every week that passes. Fortunately, Iain and I laugh in the face of schedules, and like John Cleese's French k-nig-ht, we blow raspberries at them, too, (but only when we're sure they're not looking).

We had hoped to finish off the purlins last weekend, but we didn't go up to the site at all, because I was in bed with the 'flu, and I wouldn't let Iain go on his own, as I didn't think he would be safe, working three metres off the ground with no-one to look out for him apart from a few dozen bemused sheep.

Since the last time we were on site a fortnight ago, Iain has bought himself a new toy --an iPhone. He brought it along with him this weekend, partly in case the house got burgled while we were out, partly to find out what sort of 3G reception we're going to have (not very good!) and partly to test out the iPhone's camera. The camera's not bad. Here are some of the pictures it took:

Sartorial elegance, Whittaker style: if you look carefully you might be able to work out where Iain got this hat from.

My hat's from the same place (the local DIY store). It's not quite so in-your-face as Iain's, but I reckon you could have somebody's eye out with that brim.

View of the building site from the highest point on our land, which we refer to affectionately as 'the nob'. The building on the right is the neighbour's woolshed.

Me in action, attacking some wonky-looking batter boards with a sledgehammer, in preparation for marking out the veranda...

...and working on the eaves at the back of the house.

So, how far have we got now? Well, the purlins are finished at last, which leaves just two more jobs to do on the roof. The first task is to attach the hanging rafters, which hang out over either edge of the roof, resting on top of the end trusses. Once that's done we need to construct the eaves along the back of the house, and the roof will be complete. If we're lucky we might get this all done next weekend, but given our rate of progress so far, it's more likely to take us the next two weekends.

Merlin of the purlins

It's Sunday evening, I'm tired, my brain has turned to mush, and my hands are playing up from a combination of arthritis, RSI and excessive use of a club hammer, which means I won't be typing much, and I'll be letting the pictures do most of the talking.

It was a glorious day today. This is the view down the valley from the top of our driveway.

I spent most of the weekend up scaffolding, hammering wire dogs and z-nails into the trusses. This is the view from my little perch. Nice, eh?

On Saturday Iain got the car stuck in the mud. Our neighbour Mike, who sold us the land, offered to pull us out with his quad bike...

...but the quad bike wasn't up to the job, so he had to use his tractor instead!

Driving home through a sea of sheep on Saturday

Iain, AKA 'Merlin of the purlins' attaches the first purlin on the southern side of the house.

Progress so far - a view of the house from the west

In the pink

Last weekend Iain took a couple of days' leave and we spent four days on site, putting up the roof trusses.

Since the house is only 5 metres deep, the trusses aren't excessively heavy, but it still wasn't easy for a pair of wimps like us to get them into position on top of the wall framing. Strong winds on Sunday made the process even trickier, and we almost gave up at one point due to safety concerns, but after a cup of tea, a sit down and a bit of head scratching we managed to develop a system that allowed us to hold the trusses rock steady in even the strongest gusts while we were in the process of securing them.

The trusses are a rather fetching pink colour, thanks to the type of wood-preserving treatment they've been given. In most 'normal' house builds in New Zealand all the internal framing is this colour. Our wall frames, however, are green (a higher grade of treatment) because we knew they would be exposed to the weather for several months rather than the more usual couple of weeks.

Last weekend's work was really satisfying, because it was the first time in about six weeks that the house has looked different at the end of the weekend compared to the beginning. Once we'd got all the pieces of the frame up, it took an awfully long time to nail in all the hardware, get everything square and attach the ribbon plate, and there wasn't much to show for our efforts at the end of each day's work.

The current state of play is that all the roof trusses are up, and we're about one quarter of the way through attaching the purlins (the horizontal timbers that stabilise the trusses and will support the weight of the roof). Another two days' work should see the roof framing complete, and then we'll be able to move onto the verandah and deck. It's getting more exciting all the time!

This coming weekend we won't be doing any building work, partly because there's a severe weather alert, but mainly because Iain has got an assignment to do for the e-learning diploma he's currently studying for. I'm enjoying the build a lot, but I'm really looking forward to the prospect of a rare weekend off!

The roof trusses looking very pretty in pink

Iain taking a breather from securing one of the end trusses

Me enjoying a break from hammering and a short spell of sunshine

It's starting to look more like a house now the roof's on

Iain defying gravity to attach the purlins

Plans and progress

Plans

I've just realised that the only plans we've posted on the blog are the first set we had drawn up, which were designed by an architect. As you may already know, we had to abandon the original design because it would have been too expensive to pay someone to build it for us, and too difficult for us to attempt ourselves as first-time builders.

So here, at last, are the plans of the house we're actually building! Iain and I decided on the layout together, and I produced detailed sketches which Phil (our tame architect) then transformed into proper plans that would cut it with the planning department. Not so much Grand Designs, more like The Playschool School of Architecture ('Which window will it be today?'- the square window!)

The floor plan

After my friend Melissa and her son Nikko came to visit us on site, Nikko expressed concern that the bedroom might be too small for our bed. I can assure Nikko (and anyone else who's wondering the same thing) that the bedroom is big enough for the bed, but that fitting anything else in the room once the bed is in (such as a person, for instance) might be a bit of a tall order. There's a reason why the bedroom door slides into the wall rather than opening inwards like a normal door.

The sitting room's not a bad size; in fact, it's bigger than the sitting room in any of the houses we've lived in since we got married. The kitchen is compact, but no smaller than the kitchen of the rental we're in at the moment, and that's plenty big enough for us.

We're not bothered about the size of the rooms, but there are a couple of things we think will take a bit of getting used to. Firstly, the lack of storage (there's just one small cupboard in the entire house) and secondly the fact that we've effectively only got one usable room, so we can't get away from each other very easily. Still, there's a whole lot of outdoors to escape to!

A view of the cabin from the front

Here's a view of the front of the cabin. At the moment we're thinking of painting the cladding red and having a green roof. There are lots of north-facing windows (the equivalent of south-facing windows for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere) so the interior should get plenty of light, but the veranda will keep out direct sun, which should keep the house nice and cool in summer. Both rooms have sliding doors out onto the veranda. We're planning on extending part of the deck a couple of metres past the veranda, so we've got a nice outdoor living and entertaining area.

Progress

At long last, we've completed the wall framing, which is quite a milestone! It's taken us six weeks to do what a team of builders could have accomplished in a couple of days, but we're chuffed to bits about what we've achieved so far. It will take us as long as it takes us, and fretting about how slow we are won't help us to finish any faster.

The two photos below show us both in action, nailing the ribbon plate onto the top of the external walls. We're using clamps to make sure the ribbon plate is flush with the outside of the top plate.

Iain shows off not only his hammering skills but also his double chin

I prove that hammers and double chins are not just for blokes

After we'd nailed the ribbon plate down we had to secure it to each stud with a wire dog. The wire dogs require a lot of force to drive in, and I wasn't getting anywhere with an ordinary hammer, so I used a lump hammer instead. Every ten minutes or so I had to take a 'pathetic girly' break because my arm was aching so much.

View of the frame - looking towards the kitchen from the bedroom door

Next weekend we move onto a new and exciting job - putting up the roof trusses. I'm looking forward to it!

A frustrating fortnight

Progress on the house build has been frustratingly slow over the past couple of weeks. We had hoped to have got the roof trusses up by now, but things won't allow themselves to be hurried, no matter how impatient we get, so we're doing our best to just go with the flow and enjoy the ride.

Last weekend we finished attaching the hardware, which was cause for a minor celebration. Every window needed a strap on either end of the lintel and every stud above the lintel had to have a strap attaching it to the lintel and going all the way over the top of the frame. Like the wire dogs the week before, everything had to be routered in. Regulations call for six nails in every side, which came to a total of around 240 nails -- that's a lot of hammering! My hammer, a cheap one that came as part of a tool kit, started to fall apart, so I had to buy a new one.

The finished strapping on one of the kitchen windows

We've spent most of this weekend trying to square up the frame. There were still two corners to plumb up, which proved to be a real headache. We had to rebuild part of the frame, taking out a couple of nogs (the horizontal pieces) and replacing them with shorter ones so we could bring the end of the wall in a bit. I'm sure that if we'd known what we were doing we could have straightened everything up more easily, but we haven't got a clue about what you're supposed to do. When our first method (whacking the thing with a sledgehammer) didn't work, taking the frame apart was the only alternative we could think of.

Once the corners were plumb we made a start on getting the top of the walls straight. They tend to bow in in some places and out in others, so you have to use a string line to work out where they ought to be, and then use bracing to keep them there. We've now finished the bracing along one of the long walls.

We've borrowed the neighbour's lawnmower -- Mike's bullocks grazing our hill

The completed bracing along the front wall

Once the bracing is complete, it has to stay in place until after the cladding is on, otherwise the walls might bow out under the weight of the roof.

Next weekend Iain's taking both Friday and Monday off work, so we'll have four days to spend on site. The next steps are: 1. Brace the other three walls, 2. Attach the top plate (more wire dogs - ugh!) 3. Put up the roof trusses. This week I'm letting go of expectations, so I'm not going to predict how far we'll get. We'll just have to wait and see.