A Month Later

Progress has been slow of late with a few extraneous issues getting in the way and fiddly details to work out but at last Gyprock is going up.

 

Glenn and James have spent a fair time here and have created a maze of wiring but it is a very neat maze. 

The new "fuse"box in the pantry with a couple of wires. This is so much neater than the old box stuck on the wall, partly because this one is actually recessed into the wall and with its doors shut it looks great.

 Even in these conditions the 25th of April couldn't pass without a few biscuits.

When this sheet went up we started to see the shape of the finished product, something we had had to imagine up to this point. The new air conditioner will end up on this bulkhead.

Setting up the scaffold over the stairs was a delicate balancing act but was very secure when tied to the side wall. Probably not OH&S standard but it did the job well and much better than standing on a ladder and lifting a sheet of Gyprock. Trouble is, now that the wall on the left has been lined, there is nowhere to sit our supporting plank. We'll think of something.

Tony finally makes an appearance. Not his best side though. 

Some things are just too tricky for Ellie & I to do on our own.

Starting to look very neat. Those black rafters will be covered in soon and all will be white.

Note "Blog Central" through the door at the bottom of the stairs.

Another shot of the main kitchen. The space for the leadlight windows has been left over the beam in the foreground.

A few studs

It was finally time to put up the last beam to complete the bulkhead. With the beam up I was able to start filling in above the beams with studs, ready for the Gyprock after Glenn has finished his roughing in.

Having completed a run of studs.....

.... it was time for a good red. I needed a third hand for the cheese and crackers but you can't always get what you want (as someone once said). Next step was to fill in the back of the fridge/freezer alcove. To save precious centimetres we opted for a plywood wall rather than conventional studs and Gyprock. Ellie sanded and painted the sheets...

...and then I put them up.

 It doesn't look much but it was good to see this coming together. The plywood wall always had a small question mark over it but once it was in place I knew it was OK.

The second of the pantry shelves was taken out next to allow for removal of more old Gyprock.

The pantry shelves can just be seen in the background, standing in the hallway. It's a bit like coming into a supermarket now when you come in the front door.

A bit of Gyprock

Another door has to go, not far, but it will be turned around.

 

With the door out of the way I could lift some more of the old vinyl tiles. Brian's compressor and mini "jack hammer" were invaluable with this.

                                

After this we had assistance from Tony to get a couple of sheets of Gyprock up in the pantry while we could still get the scaffolding in there.

 

Ellie and I would have had a lot of trouble doing this on our own but because we were all otherwise engaged with the ceiling, Tony missed out on a photo. Now it looks like I did it all by myself. Pretty good eh ?

Ellie having breakfast in the mess. Surely, not all messes are this messy ?

View from above the alcove which will hold the fridge and freezer. Looking out through the laundry to the back door.

 Unfortunately we had another surprise when removing the corner of the laundry wall. This pipe turned out not to be under the concrete in this area as expected. $280 later it was out of the way.

And that's it for another weekend.

More beams

Serious things are happening now. This beam, which was an afterthought put in when the front wall of the pantry was constructed, is now going.

Before it could go, the pantry wall had to go, which meant removing Ellie's lead-light windows. These were taken down and packed away carefully, awaiting a new wall to support them.

It wasn't long before the windows were out and the cladding coming off. Ellie got into the swing of it as the lower boards became accessible. 

Time to put up the first beam on the pantry side so Ellie was up on the scaffold like a shot.

 

The beam is up but what is it for ? It seems to be floating. This is building in reverse. First put up your beam, then support it with something !

 

Forget the support. Let's put up another one.

 

So there is the result (with a rather naked pantry) although that beam will continue next week. We also finished the beams on the window side too.

It continues

The spaces under the windows have been bricked up on the inside and the boxes for power points and switches have been set in to the wall. Ellie is using her new "island" bench for cooking, frothy coffee in hand to make light of the work.

 

The next step was to complete the removal of the wall at the end of the hallway. This included replacing the supporting post which holds the central beams (the ones which don't line up). I was quite nervous doing this because although everything was propped up temporarily, a lot of weight seemed to be on one stud which should not have been holding up anything. Anyway, it all turned out OK.

 

This isn't the offending post. That was the one which the white one on the left replaced.

With all the timber out of the way I was able to finish the bagging at the corner of the hallway. That strip doesn't look like it's been done but the difference is that we have refined our method with the bagging as we have gone along and now we can leave a fairly clean surface. The concern now is that it might show through the paint.

Bulkheads

It was time to get rid of the wall at the end of the hallway so down came the Gyprock. Quite a messy job with all the stuff that accumulated inside the wall from generations of rodents and others. The worst thing about it was that with the wall gone, it became obvious that the beam and ceiling each side of the wall were at different heights !  Why did we do that ? That's more work that I wasn't expecting.

It was then decided to start on the bulkheads. We have been demolishing for a while now so constructing something seemed like a good idea. Fortunately we have Brian's scaffolding to help with this so we assembled that and then started the set out for the beams using a new fangled laser level and an old fangled piece of string. Brian's nail gun was also very handy.

 

By the end of the weekend we had two beams up and yet another re-arrangement of the remaining kitchen cupboards. Those champagne glasses look a bit vulnerable. I think I'll have to replace that prop with something a bit more substantial.

The tricky windows

It was a bit of a learning process getting these windows out. It took all weekend to get the two of them out. I tried using the drill to cut through the brackets but that didn't work so it was down to a lot of fiddly hacksawing just using the blade. 

The view from the kitchen was enlarged somewhat but that was only temporary. We asked Glen, our electrician, if he wanted to make use of the access to the wall cavity before the windows went back in  so he came on Friday to do some preliminary wiring.

I picked up the cut-down windows from the glazier during the week so they went back in the wall today. Much quicker than taking them out.

 

The full resources of the Triton workshop were employed to create a reveal for the top of each window. These were required so that they could be fixed to the timber lintels. All that equipment for what are basically two pieces of wood with one rounded edge !!

So that's the result at the end of the day. Those of you with an eye for detail will have spotted the gap under the windows. That's tomorrow's job, back to bricklaying.