This and that.

Yep it's been a while. But things have been going on and progress has been made, mostly to the front wall, but I felt there were already too many photos of the scaffolding so I've been waiting for it all to go before the BIG REVEAL.
But first, the progress so far.

After a day of scratching our heads trying to figure this out, Wazza (genius plasterer) and I got stuck in to the eave lining.

but after two days we only got this far.

Eventually it was done and I could add the fascia proper.

and paint it.

Next, Chris (genius roofer) could return and fit the front flashing, thus finishing the roof!

                                          

TA DA!

And so thats where we're at. The final render will go on eventually but right now the focus is on installing the wiring and getting the plumbing sorted.
Stay tuned.

All hail the Render Queen

So one rainy day Michelle decided to tackle the fun job of smearing mud all over the walls to make a uniform surface and to fill any cracks, technically known as rendering.

I think she quite enjoyed it

Looks like a real one!

On a sunnier day I put in the last of the glass; very satisfying indeed.

OK so not everything goes according to plan. The fascia that I'd made out of plywood and was very proud of got a bit friendly with the rain and swelled up and twisted and generally ruined itself. So I ripped it off and replaced it. Broke my heart but the result is even better than the first version.

and it's made from marine plywood which as the name suggests is waterproof, and just to be sure I've sealed it. Ha!

Meanwhile the render queen was back in action, turning this wall from this....

to this. I know it's abit hard to see and it's dark because it's wet bit stay tuned cause before your very eyes....

random

Put a lid on it!

In no time at all, well, between showers and high winds, Chris the wonder roofer had the iron on.

And I put the first two layers of the front fascia on.

Badly fitting glasses obligatory.

Then comes the battens for under the eaves. Looks wrong but hopefully it'll work.

More fun and games! Building permit calls for 6mm cement sheet, so thats what it gets. Seems easy enough, but try working out the angles on the sides of those wedge shape pieces. fitting straight lines into compound curves is not easy. It took a day and a half of thinking and calculating and a bit of trial and error before we got it sussed.

This is after about two hours...

...and by the time our arms couldn't lift any more we'd come about a third of the way around.

Meanwhile the last of the aluminium strips for the window frames were drying

and the slow job of fitting the glass continued.

Interior ceiling framing is a rainy day job.

Call in the troops!

And so we did. With a super human contribution from Matt Francis and some clever use of dishwashing liquid we got those suckers up where they needed to be.

until we had a version of the statue of liberty.

I then called in a local carpenter to do the tricky stuff, and in no time we had the framing completed. Temporary roof back on the bathroom area as the rains have decided to hang around a lot more than I would like. Still, nearly there.

All that remained now was to bring the walls right up to the top of the battens, for a strong and fireproof seal. For this difficult task I called on the specialist talents of one Lynn MacLennan, who I must admit made the difficult job look easy.

Michelle took on the fun job of fitting bricks into the odd shaped corner bits....

.......and I ate a muffin.

I can take you higher

So up we go, over the door and down the other side. Metal meets mud.

and in goes the final window frame.

just one bit missing.

that bit

oh yeah there was a bit of a storm somewhere along the way there. Thats what I call ominous cloudage.

here we go again.

and on the plus side, the arrival of the roof beams means theres only one small job to do before the place is weatherproof. One teeny tiny small job. Coupla days!

carry on

One month on and the lower front walls are complete. There's still another row of windows to go right across the top.

Front doorframe installed and some tricky sloping curved lintels. Enough to make your hair turn grey.