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

New Year update

This post is brought to you courtesy of Never Mind the Blabbing, Show us the Pictures, Ltd.

 
We've made really encouraging progress on the build over the Christmas break. I've got to start work tomorrow, so Iain will be knocking nails in on his own over the next few days, until he goes back to work himself on Monday.

At the same time as building the house, we're also building a deck for the yurt. Don't let anyone tell you we don't like to make life complicated!

Iain fixes the yurt deck posts in place before we pour the concrete

What with the verandah posts and the yurt deck posts, Iain calculated that we've mixed and poured 2.2 tonnes of concrete since we bought our little concrete mixer!

Me cleaning the concrete mixer 'apres pour'. Glamorous, eh?!

Iain attaches a rafter on the verandah...

...and now it's my turn.

We're very close to completing the framing for the verandah now. We finished fixing the rafters today and tomorrow Iain's going to make a start on the purlins (the cross-pieces). Once they're done we'll be able to call the building inspector in to check the framing. Once we've passed the inspection, we can get the roofers in to put the roof on - that will be a real milestone!

Right, I'm off to do some yoga before bed. Night, all.

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?

We're still here...

...honest! We've just got incredibly bogged down with moving-house related stuff, not to mention house-building stuff, and the ever-time-consuming W word. We'll do our best to make a proper post at the weekend, after which normal service will be resumed.

Helen

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!

It's a washout!

The last couple of weeks have been extremely wet, which is pretty typical spring weather here. At this stage in the build there's only one job left to do before we can make any more progress, and that's putting in the posts for the veranda. We managed to dig one of the six holes before the rain set in two weekends ago, but when we went up on site last weekend, we found that the trench where we need to dig the holes was flooded. We bailed out as much water as we could, but the ground was far too gloopy to dig. 

 Our newly-installed septic system and water tanks looking the worse for the rain

 Oh dear!

There's been an awful lot more rain this week, with more forecast over the next four days, so we're expecting the flooding to be even worse when we go up to the site this weekend. What we need is at least a week's worth of fine weather to dry everything out before we can do any more work on the build. It's very frustrating, as the chances of going for a week without rain at this time of year are pretty slim. The build could easily be held up for another month.

This is where the veranda posts go

On the positive side, we've now only got another two or three weeks to wait for the yurt, and once that arrives we'll be moving up onto the site. We have to give 21 days' notice on our rental, which we won't do until we've got the yurt, which means we'll have a nice and leisurely three weeks to do the move and work out where the heck we're going to put everything.

Picture post

So much to do, so little time...but just enough to do a quick picture-based blog post to bring you up to date with developments on the house build.

High altitude power tool usage -- Iain takes his life in his hands as he trims the hanging rafters

Batter boards, Mark II: our new, improved version, with string lines marking out the position of the veranda

We were given this caravan by our friends Frank and Linda. They lived in it while they were building their house, but it's spent the last twelve years as a storage shed.

 First job is a thorough clean (I'm halfway through that now), then we'll give it a couple of fresh coats of paint inside and out, and some new upholstery. It'll never be roadworthy again, but it's going to make a great kitchen/diner while we're living in the yurt, and a cosy office-come-guest room once the house is finished.

 

 Rob the Digger Bloke starts digging the hole for the septic tank.

Our septic tank is huge. Iain's planning on doing a lot of poos.

20 minutes into the dig. It would have taken us months to dig out that hole by hand. Hooray for diggers!

The septic tank is winched into place.

The installed septic tank (buried, at the front) and water tanks (half-buried, at the back)

Spring is sprung

September the first is officially the first day of spring in the southern hemisphere, so in honour of the occasion, here's a little ditty my parents taught me when I was little.

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz,
I wonder where the birdies is.
The little bird is on the wing.
Well that's absurd!
I always thought the wing was on the bird.

I've no idea who wrote it. My parents used to recite it in a bad New York accent, saying 'boid' for 'bird'. At that age my only experience of a similar accent was from watching The Abbott and Costello Show on Saturday afternoons, so for years I assumed it must be one of their little bits of nonsense. After a few minutes of Googling I discovered that some sources attribute it to Ogden Nash. I've not found definite proof that it's one of his, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were.

Iain and I have been very busy since I last posted. In my free time last week I took part in a collaborative project called SPARK, in which writers and artists create new pieces using each others' work as inspiration. I was paired with artist and musician Jim Doran from Baltimore, Maryland, and I wrote a story inspired by his photo 'Sisters'. Jim created a wonderful cartoon after reading one of my poems. To read my story and for a link to Jim's cartoon visit my writing blog here. By the time you read this, the work from the latest round (Round 5) might have been posted on the SPARK website. If you go there you'll also be able to see the photo of Jim's that inspired my story. It's well worth a look. And, of course, it goes without saying that you'll also be able to see the work created by all the dozens of other writers and artists who took part. I'm looking forward to reading what my friend Melissa has written.

House-build-wise, Iain and I had a wonderfully productive day last Saturday, and an incredibly frustrating one on Sunday, so our batting average for the entire weekend was fair to middling. We've completed the eaves on the back of the house. Cue photo...

To paraphrase Churchill: 'Never in the history of human building has it taken two people so long to attach 12 pieces of wood.'

We've also installed the hanging rafters on one side of the house, and trimmed them and the purlins to the right length.

Iain attaches the last of the hanging rafters on the east side of the house

We're now only a couple of hours (or, as Iain would say, 'a gnat's cock') away from completing the roof framing. So next weekend we'll be able to make a start on the veranda posts (at last!) This will involve concrete. Be prepared for some interesting photos of mess and mayhem!

Helen

Suggestions, please

Like most writery-types (and pretty much everyone in my family too), I'm obsessed with names.

We've already got a name for the house when it's finished. Being typical newcomers to the country, we wanted to have something that shouted 'New Zealand'. We didn't want a Maori name, though. In New Zealand, having a Maori house name when you're not Maori is the equivalent of having a French house name in Britain (i.e. it's a bit pretentious). We've decided on 'Fantail Cottage' because the fantail is one the native birds that regularly comes to visit us on the building site.

So now all we need is a name for the yurt. If you've got any ideas, we'd love to hear them.

The fantail, a native New Zealand bird (Maori name: piwakawaka)

Y-Day Minus 56

We've been and gone and done it now - we've ordered the yurt! Estimated delivery time: 8 weeks. It's taking such a long time because all Jaia's yurts are custom-made to order, by hand.

Living in a yurt is something we've both fantasised about for years, for some unfathomable reason. Neither of us have ever even seen a yurt 'in the canvas', let alone set foot in one, but we're attracted to them like bears to honey (or, more accurately, like hippies to alternative forms of accommodation).

On Friday afternoon we decided on the best position for the yurt, and used some electric fence 'pigtails' to mark out where it will go. In this short video Iain gives a guided tour - in mime. You may notice the picture shaking a bit; this is because I was laughing so much I couldn't hold the iPhone still.

The Game...

...is afoot!

Not much progress on the house build this weekend, but some interesting developments.

We spent Saturday on site as usual, but on Sunday it bucketed down with rain all day, so we ended up having an enforced day off. Having time on our hands, we got talking about the build, and we decided that we want to do something to speed things up.

So we've made a decision. Gulp. We're going to give up our rental in town and go and live on site. That way we'll be able to put in a lot more building hours per week, and as an added bonus, we'll be living in the place we really want to be.

Camping out for three (or more) months won't be easy, but at least it will be during the spring and summer, so we shouldn't get hypothermia. We've thought up solutions to every practical problem we can anticipate, such as what to do about cooking, having a shower, going to the toilet, doing the laundry, connecting to the internet (essential for my work) and storing our furniture, we've drawn up an action plan, and we've taken the first steps on it. Our aim is to be camping out in our paddock by the beginning of October.

We've not yet finalised exactly what we'll be camping in, but at the moment the front-runner is a 7-metre yurt, hand-built in New Zealand by the lovely hippies at Jaia. Take a look at some photos of their yurts here.

One of the first steps on our action plan was to buy a letter box, as we won't be able to have mail delivered without one.

Our letter box -- rural NZ utility style. I love our house number, and it's so easy to remember: 'Unlucky for some, the answer to the ultimate question'

Random silly photo -- Iain has been playing around with a program called iCover which lets you transform your snaps into magazine covers. This is his favourite result...

...and this is mine. The bundle of fluff is Pookie when she was an itteh bitteh kitteh -- aaah!

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