How long does it take to re-join and stump a house?

Almost 2 months apparently. At this rate we should be finished the house by the time the boys start university. Detecting a note of frustration? You bet.

The lack of posts over the last few weeks has been a self-imposed ban, I was scared that I would be sued for slander if I wrote about what we were going through! To cut a very long story short, we have had issues with having the stumping completed and have only been able to resolve it by playing a little hardball. Which is not the way we like to work. Thankfully having a husband in the industry meant we knew what our rights were. It is disappointing because it didn't have to be an unpleasant experience. But all's well that ends well, and we are now putting that phase behind us.

The house is now stumped and looking more solid on it's steel posts. It has actually given us a sense of how the downstairs layout will be, as the posts are to be set in the walls we have a rough feel for where rooms will be.

So today hubby has headed off to the block to begin work. He had a huge smile on his face (which I daresay may not still be there in a few months time!) and looked like a kid about to be set free in a toy store.

The first project is building a set of temporary stairs at the front to enable easy access during the renovation. I pushed for this one, as it is a precarious exercise getting two little boys up a 3 metre ladder! Stairs will be great. And we plan to recycle the timber into a fort for the boys once the real stairs go in.

The next things will be footings, retaining walls, the concrete slab, and the sewerage system (we are not connected to town sewerage). And then we will be able to begin the real cosmetic changes on the house, which is the part I am most looking forward to (not surprisingly). I can't wait to see the house with a new roof, poor little thing looks so sad with saggy tarps hanging off the beams!

I will post some updated photos of the weekend's work soon.

x M

Skylights and Water Features

So we had an eventful afternoon at the block yesterday. Not only was the sunshine beaming down on our little house, but we also managed to instal a skylight and a bunch of water features to boot! A bit premature you ask? Well yes, but you see these weren't PLANNED features ...

Despite the fact that hubby is a qualified and exprienced tradesman, I wouldn't recommend his technique for skylight installation - he literally fell through the roof of the front verandah and by some incredible Spiderman-esque acrobatics managed to land on his feet with little more than a scratch on his leg! So as you can see in the picture below, we now have a "skylight" on the front verandah (never mind the fact that he didn't even discuss it with me beforehand!). Needless to say, this won't be a permanent fixture. For the record, I don't think I earned myself any wife brownie points during this episode - my friend and I screamed and covered our eyes. Extremely helpful. Thankfully hubby is fine, shook the whole thing off as men do. Actually I think he quite enjoyed it.

 The boys on the roof just before the incident ...

 The resulting skylight - adds quite a bit of light to the entry!

See? Rapunzel is fine!

As for the water features, hubby and a friend decided to tighten the tarps covering our roof as water was pooling in them. The boys thought it was hilarious to see waterfalls pouring off the roof! I was amazed by the amount of water that had collected up there over the last couple of weeks. The roof can't go on quickly enough for my liking now!

The boys had a little friend come and play in the mud with them. They had a ball ... although Oliver did take an accidental mud bath (and his mummy took photos instead of cuddling him!). All in all it was quite a nice afternoon - big boys playing on the roof, little boys playing in the mud, and the mums wishing we'd brought a bottle of wine and some chairs!

 Cheeky mud grubs!

Poor little man, he hates being dirty!

x M

A slow couple of weeks

I must apologise for the lack of posts recently, but nothing has been happening of any interest to report! Nothing to do with the house renovations anyway. I did think about posting about our lovely family Easter, and some other "non-renovation" topics, but I really want this blog to be about the journey of the house and decided from the beginning that I would stick with only house-related posts. I'll save the funny stories about the boys and our day-to-day mundane stuff to bore my Facebook friends with (unless of course it relates to the house!).

The weather over Easter started out beautifully, and we were hopeful that the site would dry out enough for the re-stumping to happen, but sadly by Sunday it had started raining again in earnest, and didn't really let up all week. The boys from Wright Bros did brave the wet and mud one day, but no real progress was made.

However, it has been GLORIOUS weather here over the last few days! And while we have been out enjoying bush walks, the beach and a spot of fishing, we have also been keeping our fingers crossed that this week will be "Stumping Week"! We have an excavator due to arrive on site tomorrow to cut the block in a few more places (mainly to clear the area for the garage). So with any luck I will be happily posting away again as things start to happen.

In the meantime, wishing you all a wonderful week!

x M