Gib stopping and doors

Dressing room, stopped

I've been a bit lax with the updating!  I keep forgetting the camera, and then I've got Sunday night things to attend to...  So here is a retrospective report.

By last week-end, the gib-stopper had come in and started to do the stopping in the bathrooms, laundry and dressing room.  And also the ceilings, I think.

Dining room with MDF up

The Builder did some more work on putting up MDF board.  He lined the TV cavity in the lounge, and also the stairwell.  Excitingly, he did finish the MDF in the dining room.  As those panels will not be stopped, you will still be able to see those lines between the panels after it is painted.

Bathroom tiles (bigger than they look here!)

Some tiles from the bathroom also found their way into the house, so we threw them into the shower in the main bathroom to get an idea of what they will look like.  It's still a bit difficult to tell!

The builder has also been working off-site, manufacturing the doors.  They are all huge, and the only two internal doors that are hinged are the bathroom and laundry doors (and they're also taller than normal).  The builder had already hung one, so Regan had to take it down so he could prime it.  That was when he discovered that it weighed about 80 kg.  Much cursing ensued.

So he primed both doors and has made sure that he gets to prime the others before the builder puts them up!

Checking the lounge door (stairwell is left)

I can report that the carpet did go in today, as scheduled.  Photos to follow!  The Builder is back on board on 7 January, so that's not too long to wait.

First MDF Panel

MDF in dining room

Things have been moving!  The first piece of MDF is now up.  As I said, on those areas where there is gib bracing, the MDF goes over the bracing.  That's what's happening in the dining room.  In other areas, it will go straight over the pink batts.

It has a rebate at the edge so that the next piece will lap over it with a small negative detail.  The joins between the pieces of MDF won't be stopped, so you will be able to see clearly that the wall is made up of separate panels.  And the MDF will also be in line with the white soffit so that it will look like one continuous wall, interrupted only by the window.

The builder has also been putting in more batts in ceilings (in the master bedroom and Bedroom 3), putting up more ceiling panels (master bedroom) and putting batts in walls (Bedroom 2).  He is concentrating on getting himself into a position where he has done as much as he can before the carpet is laid in the bedrooms (they are the only rooms to have carpet).  The carpet is being laid on 22 December!

Staircase

As we are using MDF panels, the carpet actually needs to be laid before the MDF panels are affixed to the walls.  This means that the carpet will slot in under the walls with a negative detail (ie. a space) between the carpet and walls, and we won't have any skirting boards.  So what happens when we want to paint the carpet?  Good point.  Apparently we'll just have to deal with the ignominy of having skirting boards at that stage because the MDF panels will get mutilated if we have to replace the carpet.

The builder has also put the bracing and ceiling lining into the top part of the staircase.  It's a bit difficult to see on the photograph, but it is taken from one end of the stairwell (where there will be a balustrade), across the void towards the entrance area.  There is a temporary framing balustrade across the void.

Main bathroom

The main bathroom and laundry are both completely lined with villaboard now.  In the photograph, you can see the shower base and the ladder is where the bath will go;  you will be able to lie in the bath and look out the door.  The idea with the door is that anyone who lives in the house and happens to work in the garage/workroom and get covered in grease from cars will be able to walk around the outside of the house, straight into the shower and hose themselves off so that they will leave only clean footprints in the house.  Hypothetically, of course.

We may or may not get a stopper in tomorrow to do the stopping of the bathroom and laundry.  It depends on our costs debate...

We have also been working.  Ray and Regan did some more work on the wiring over the week-end.  The HD cable for the TV in the lounge is now in.  Whew!  Regan also did some more staining of the back wall of the house.  He's added another coat and then stained another panel.  That leaves just one more to do.  But we ran out of stain.

Another plywood panel on the back wall done

We've also now met the newest neighbours.  They just started excavating this week.  They've got the section in front of us, so we were pretty nervous that they were going to put up some three-storey monstrosity and obliterate our views.  But it is all looking good!  And they seem lovely.  It turns out I'd met one of them before, which was funny.

The sunset tonight was also amazingly pink and gorgeous...

Acoustic panels

Kitchen/dining acoustic panels

So it's been a dead couple of weeks.  The builder was off-site for 1.5 weeks, installing a kitchen for someone else.  Argh!

But he is back on site now, and has been fired up putting in the acoustic ceiling panels that we so lovingly completed.  We found a quicker way of sanding the grooves in the panels, so that moved it along for us.  The Architect wasn't overly happy with the installation of the kitchen/dining panels.  He'd already "stopped" a lot of the screws when he realised that!  So he's had a word, and the lounge looks great.

And the builder still reckons that he will have it all lined for Christmas.  Please, please, please.... The Germans next door, who only started a few months ago, will be in in two weeks!  But the house won't be complete, and given that Number Two is due imminently, they have got a lot of motivation to be there.

Staining the plywood cladding at the back of the house

We (Regan) did some work staining the back of the house.  We've got an awesomely thick black Resene stain.  It's going on rough cut plywood, and it looks like velvet almost!  It is incredibly black.

First room lined

The en-suite from the outside

Laurence has finished the lining on the first room - our en-suite!  So ceilings and walls - they're all there.  And he's put in the cavity slider for the door, so we can now walk in and be in a complete room.  The en-suite is lined with villa board, not MDF, so we haven't had to do any pre-painting there.  Now we need to organise a stopper to come in and get moving with that so that Regan can start the water-proofing and then the tiling.  Yippee!  The en-suite faces due east, so we'll be bathed in beautiful morning light when we get ready for work.

Laurence has also been working on the villa board lining in the main bathroom.  He's got two of the four walls done now.  The frame for the bath will go in one of these days - again so that Regan can get cracking on the tiling.

View from en-suite

We've been working hard this week-end too.  Well, we tried on Saturday but it didn't really happen.  So we worked hard on Sunday.  We've been carrying on with our work on the acoustic ceiling panels - we've managed to put the black material on the back of some of them.  That means that we've got six panels completed - enough for Laurence to be able to put into the lounge ceiling.  There are six going into the lounge, but the sixth one has had to be recut as the position of the fireplace moved slightly from the original plans that we gave them.

Plywood wall in library

Laurence has also put a big plywood panel down the inside of the portion of the storage wall that will have the bookshelves in it (ie. the bit that will be in the library).  That has taken away the sightline from the bathroom and laundry through to the harbour, and is making the hallway feel more like a hallway now.  In the photo, you can see a blue steel beam at the bottom.  That will end up going above the plywood as there is a big triangular piece of glass going up in that gap.

This week's evening labour

Before (with the hot water cylinder)

As I said previously, the acoustic ceiling panels have arrived after having been cut out.  It's our job to paint them.  So we've been down after work to attend to that.  We have to sand each groove on every panel (I think there are 16).  Then we need to move it across the garage to the "painting zone".

This exercise has given Regan the perfect excuse to buy some kind of pressurised spray painter thingie.  It was $170 per day to hire, but we could buy a cheap one for $300!  Then we (ie. Regan) have to spray paint each panel. 

Once we've managed that, we need to cut out a piece of black material and somehow glue it to the back of the panel.  So together the grooves and material should work to absorb the noise.

Our hot water cylinder has also arrived - 300 litres of goodness.

During

Ceiling panels

Bracing and ceiling in dining room

This week, Laurence has been putting up the ceiling battens, lining the ceilings with the ceiling batts and then putting up some of the ceiling gib.  He's perhaps 1/3 of the way through.  For me, the ceilings have made the room smaller again (at least initially) despite the fact that the ceilings are ridiculously high - three metres in some places!  I think that once I get used to them, the rooms will expand out and get bigger again.

The Architect has also now had to spend some working out the layout of the acoustic panels.  They've been sent off to be machined.  I understand that it is all done by computer.  We are having acoustic panels in the lounge and dining room, as otherwise the glass and concrete combination means that HFD could be far too noisy (like an annoying restaurant).

The fire, wrapped & stored in the garage

A little bit more bracing has gone up now too, so we have bracing in the dining room, bedroom 3, a couple of panels on the stairwell, in the laundry, in the dressing room and in the master bedroom.  This means that I can't see all the way through the house now, so I do have to keep reminding myself that I won't always be able to stand in the bathroom and see the sea!  As bedroom 2 is between the dressing room and the laundry (and its ceiling has been done), it is starting to feel a bit more like a real room.

The plumber/roofer (I still don't understand why they are a combined trade in New Zealand) has been in this week and has put in the chimney flue in the lounge for our little Studio fire.  It sits about 3/4 of the way into the room, off on the right.  Eventually it will form part of the room divider, separating the lounge and library.  For the next few years, it'll just hang out in the middle of the room.  Regan reckons that we'll be able to boil a kettle on top of it!

HFC?

Trinny in her new favourite sleeping spot

So the dog gets a lot of air time, but there's actually also a cat who will live in HFD one day. 

Regan is secretly hoping that she will either get lost in the move or will not like HFD and will leave (the fact that the cat door has not been installed has been noted).  But I think she'll stay, if only because she knows that it will annoy him.

Currently her favourite sleeping spot is on top of the carpet samples.  And it must be said that the new Eco Strand carpet samples are not showing the pet hair!

The (future) stairwell light

 Our current abode (Elderbeary Barn aka The Barn) is overflowing with assorted HFD paraphenalia.  The garage is packed with kitchen appliances (no car of ours has ever lived there.  Except for the Escort, but it doesn't go, so it doesn't count).  There's a tv in the spare bedroom.  Brochures cover the lounge.  I had a small meltdown over the light fittings littering the hall recently.  Regan sweetly moved them to the garage (no idea where to).  The only one that has survived is the future stairwell light, which survived the Christchurch earthquake (where it lived at the time) and is now being stored by hanging impotently from a spare cable in The Barn living area.  It's my piece of Italian lust.

We've gone over all kiwi and bought a David Trubridge (http://www.davidtrubridge.com/lighting-set/) for the dining area.  They come in flat pack!  And they come in black!

Gib bracing has commenced

Ensuite on left, gibbed masterbed on right

The builder has been busy on the interior this week.  He has put up the gib board over the pink batt-filled walls in the master bedroom to act as the bracing.  We are not lining the walls with gib - we are lining them with MDF (gib is "too obvious").  So the MDF will go on top of the bracing gib. 

The plumber has also dropped all sorts of things off.  Our bath is now on site!  It is being stored in the en-suite for the moment, but it will eventually go into the main bathroom.  From the looks of things, the plumber had to have two goes at cutting the plug hole into the concrete in the main bathroom...  The en-suite seems to be being used as a general storage area at the moment!  The plumber has also delivered the taps, so they are being stored in the garage.  The toilets and basins are still in our garage at home!  We're feeling rather overwhelmed with house bits at home at the moment.  The hallway at home, for example, is piled high with light fittings.

Gib stored in the lounge

All of the bracing gib has been delivered, and it is piled up in the lounge.  It is pretty thick stuff, and the weight of it all in one place is so great that they have had to prop the garage again so that our concrete floor doesn't crack or bow.

The metal ceiling battens have also been delivered, and they are stored in the dining room/kitchen.  So the lining is starting to happen, which is pretty exciting.  I understand that the gib bracing will go up first, then the ceilings, and then the MDF.  And somewhere in all of this, Regan needs to sort out some acoustic panels for the ceiling....  

Macrocarpa outside the kitchen

The builder has also continued work on the cladding, and has put up the macrocarpa cladding outside the kitchen.  That big framed window is a huge picture window in the kitchen.  The dining area is to the right, and the outside area will eventually be a courtyard.

 That macrocarpa wall is a continuation of the wall that you can see outside next to the master bedroom in the exterior shots from the last post.  It continues all the way through the house along the same line, and finishes here outside the kitchen.  The interior bits of it haven't been done yet.

Ray, Regan, Scott and ceiling battens 

Scott is visiting from Brisbane, so we took advantage of the situation to put him to work as another electrician's apprentice, and he, Ray and Regan did some wiring on Saturday.  Exactly how much was done is questionable, as I had a long telephone conversation with my mother, did the groceries, brought them a late lunch and then got home at 4 pm and they hadn't done anything yet...

The scaffolding is down!

Despite it being a long week-end, the scaffolders arrived at around lunchtime on Saturday to take the scaffolding down.  One of them was wearing a black singlet that said "Trust me, I'm a doctor"!  Actually, the German neighbours' builders were working too.

The scaffolding coming down was pretty damn exciting for us, as it means that we can finally see what the house looks like properly.  It's pretty cool to be able to see the whole profile now, and to be able to see that the idea of the car port "floating" (at the left) does work.  In the photo, we've got the master bedroom door open.

Regan outside the master bedroom

During the week, the builder also finished the macrocarpa cladding next to the master bedroom, and all of the glazing has now FINALLY gone in!  As you can see, there is still some building wrap up that needs to be clad over.  All the areas of building wrap that you can see will be clad in plywood (to be stained black).  I understand that the builder will be concentrating on finishing the exterior before moving to the interior.

We brought some beers down for the builders on Friday night, to start the long week-end out on a good note.  The builder's apprentice has got a five month old pug puppy named Daisy!  She is pretty excited about being the site dog.  We asked what our mission was for the week-end, and Laurence said it was to paint the soffits.  So we did.  Well, we managed to prime the area around the master bedroom and got half way through the second coat at the back.  We had a mobile scaffold to work off, which made work easier.  It is threatening to rain today, so we are not going to paint today.

Morning tea in the dining room

I say "we" as I was Allowed (the momentousness of the event justfies the use of the capital letter) to assist in the painting (priming counts as painting).  I also carried out other important jobs, like Passing Things To Regan.  The most frightening bit for me was moving the scaffolding, as I was terrified of letting it swing into the house!  I did spend a fair amount of time sitting on the bank, reading "Dwell" and Providing Regan With Moral Support (another important job).  I limited my attempts to be chief scone maker to driving to the local cafe to retrieve coffees and lunches.

As the weather was gorgeous, we had lots of visitors.  The neighbours even brought over a couple of beers for us!  Regan was most impressed when Alex showed up in the white Porsche that he has done up.  He has now decided that it would look great under the car port (purely for aesthetic purposes only, of course).  I'm trying to persuade him that our white Legnum adequately performs the same function.

Zaha worked hard too

This week-end was the first time that I have spent a whole day at the house, so it was really interesting to see how the sun moved and to play with doors to open up the house, and also to get the air moving without being too breezy.  The house performed fabulously!  The sunny week-end also lead to Regan making the important discovery that the closest beer shop is expensive.  So he now has a cheap beer fridge in his sights.  To keep the builder happy, of course.  When I pointed out that the added bonus was that he would be able to keep it in the garage after we moved in, he almost managed to look as though that was a brilliant idea that had not occurred to him.

Macrocarpa cladding starts

The macrocarpa cladding on the house has begun!  You can see it on the front of the house, between the dining/kitchen (on the left) and the lounge (on the right).  (You can just see the bedroom wing sticking out behind the lounge.)  And you can see that the garage door has gone in (underneath the lounge).  The front door is just next to that.

Some of the window soffits have also got macrocarpa cladding around them - like the big picture window on the east side of the kitchen, so some of that has started too.

Some more plywood cladding has also gone on the bit of the house that extends out into the outdoor courtyard.  You can see some plywood, and then black beneath it.  We are going to have to bring in some more fill to bring the ground level up so that the ground starts at the bottom of the plywood area.  It turns out that the level is a little lower than anticipated!  In the photo on the right, Regan is standing in the north east corner of the dining room.

And the sparkies haven't been idle either.  As you can see, there are now acres and acres of wire lying around...  

Rocking' it by night

It's a poor quality photo, but it still looks pretty cool (at least to us).  It's a shot of Regan working with his 500 watt spotlights at night, trying to do the wiring.

Sparkies on the job

Jeromy (stairwell behind him), between kitchen and lounge)

After Regan spent most evenings this week down on site doing the apprentice-type jobs (like putting in the rest of the flush boxes), he, the electrical engineer (his dad, Ray) and the authorised electrician (his brother, Jeromy) descended on site this week-end to wire the place up.  It's looking like a proper site now - chip packets, takeaway coffee cups, empty insulation bags and sawdust all lying on the floor, and wires lying everywhere.  They're putting in phone jacks, data cables and normal electricity wires too.  Reams of wires.  We've got a cupboard in the library/lounge that most wires will run from.  Regan assures me that a PS3 will be the most appropriate operating system for all of these things.  I, naturally, remain unconvinced.  They're also wiring the place for the future, for things like speakers outside.  The very, very distant future.

 After spending the whole day wiring the place, they realised in the evening that some of the lights were halogen and some are fluorescent, and have different voltages.  This all lead to spirited dinner table conversation about transformers (not of the Megatron/Optimus Prime variety).  Some amended plans were made this morning, and work continued.

Regan (with foot on tv cavity)

I was meant to facilitate all of this by doing my very best Desperate Housewives act by turning up with morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner.  As it turns out, I had a (totally undeserved) killer hangover, and managed to stumble down at around 4.30 pm with salt & vinegar crisps and some Coke.  If only the road down there wasn't so windy...  I attempted to make up some lost ground by delivering fresh muffins for morning tea this morning, but I'm not convinced that it worked.

Ray in the hallway

The Builder has started putting in the pink batts (insulation) on the walls in the lounge and master suite - before the wiring went in.  We have taken this as a sign that he is dissatisfied with the amount of time taken by the sparkies...  The ceiling batts have also arrived, and the Builder has made good use of the stairwell cavity, storing them all down that hole.  It is very tempting just to jump onto them!  The dog has certainly been eyeing them up.  She tried to have a nap on a piece of pink batt this morning, but may come to regret that if any of those fibres stuck to her.  We are also happy to report that she has figured out how to deal with the glass now, and is no longer refusing to enter the house.  She is also making good use of the windows, barking at every car of rubberneckers that comes into the subdivision.

The garage door has gone in now, so downstairs is finally weathertight (we're still awaiting some small windows and two doors upstairs).   Another nasty cold front has come in this week-end and there were lots of cars parked outside the house, so we haven't taken any photos of the garage door.

Ceiling batts in the stairwell

The Builder has also finished the plywood cladding on the back of the house, and the roofers have finished the flashings and canterbury prickles on the crest of the roof, so that is looking more finished.  Now some painters' apprentices just need to start staining the plywood black.

The back (east) side, awaiting staining

We have a front door

The front door!

We have a front door!  I think that The Architect had thought that the glass and door would be exactly equal in size, but they're not.  Thankfully the client does not give a toss and so it is staying.

And 95% of the glass is now in, which has made an amazing difference to the volumes.  You wouldn't think so, as you could see through it anyway.  It has, however, fooled the dog.  We were hanging out on the scaffolding, checking out the soffits and she clearly thought we were inside.  So she took her usual leap up from the ground through the library door...  SMACK!  She wouldn't go through any other doors after that unless we gave much coaxing.

Zaha investigates strange pipes in the kitchen

The builder has also boarded up the garage door for some reason, which means that we can now really get an idea of what the house looks like.  The plumbers have been busy and the water is now connected.  They've also put the pipes for the water up through the kitchen floor, which looks amusing.  The electrician (Regan's dad, Ray) has been around and has put in the switchboard and fuse box.  The builder is starting to get a little antsy about the electrical situation and so the whip is being cracked this week and electrician's apprentice #1 (Regan) will be going straight down to site every night this week after work.  At least he won't be whipped by the wind anymore!

The builder also told us this week that the scaffolding is coming down very shortly so that he can put up the macrocarpa cladding (not sure how he will do it without the scaffolding, but I'm going to presume that he has thought that through).  That means that (a) we'll get to do an unveiling of the front of the house soon, and, more boringly (b) we needed to get the soffits painted ASAP. 

You can sort of see the soffit.  And the TV spot, far left!

Regan had a competition due this week and was frantic, and I'm not allowed to do anything that might be screwed up.  Painting appears to be in that category.  So Ray stepped into the breach.  70 years old and clambering over the scaffolding!  The soffits are going to be painted the same colour as the interior, so that the walls are just interrupted by the window frames.  And as to Which Shade of White:  the winner is Half Ricecake.  Ricecake was on my list, but I'm not actually sure that The Architect even looked at it!

First glass

The bottom window in Bed 2 is in.

They have finally started to put the first panes of glass in!  We couldn't understand why the glass was taking so long to arrive - the small panes got here a few weeks ago, but the large ones just kept not turning up.  It turns out all the large ones shattered in the Christchurch earthquake (our glass came from CHCH).  If they'd told us that, we would have been more understanding!  The large panes finally got here on Thursday, and we were told the glass was going in on Friday.  Naturally the wind started howling on Friday.  So only a few small panes went in.

The wind also ripped off some of the building paper around our en-suite.  But we were lucky not to suffer more damage, as it did cause chaos generally in town.  And lots of lambs died in the snow.

The ripped building paper in the en-suite

In other progress news, the builder has been putting in the soffit linings.  Now the painter (ie. Regan) just needs to paint them before the scaffolding comes down.  The laundry door has had to be pulled out and remanufactured as it was measured wrong and The Architect did not like the remedial measures offered.  That might put the lock-up stage back a bit too.

Carpet samples - red, brown, green...

First plywood cladding

The north face and east face (east = back)

The first lot of cladding has started going on the back of the house.  It is plywood, and will be stained black.  We've also had the Great Cladding Debate concerning the non-plywood faces.  The bank manager won.  Macrocarpa it is!  I think we're leaving it untreated so that it will weather silver.

I've spent some quality time looking through the paint swatches and have presented The Architect with 9 shades of white to choose from.

The plumbers/roofers have continued their work on the flashings, and you can see that they've put the big flashings on the back of the house as well as most of the front.Two big boxes of lights have arrived, but they were all the small boring ones.  Hoping for the big, exciting ones!  Not all of the glass arrived on Friday for some reason, so the glass hasn't gone in yet.

The electrical engineer (Regan's dad) and electrician's apprentice #1 (Regan) went down on Saturday and started putting in the flush boxes that the electrical plugs will go into.  But the freezing winds that blew up soon put a stop to that!  It was snowing up where we live now.

Some floating flush boxes.

Doors in

South west end, lounge & main bedroom

All of the doors and windows (bar two) are now in.  It is amazing what a change this has made to the way the place feels.  I suppose adding the building wrap has helped too.  You can now tell what is solid and what will stay open, rather than guessing based on the myriad of frames lying around.  The glass should arrive this coming week, so we are not too far away from being weathertight (as the building wrap does give some weathertightness).

The concrete floors have also all been ground.  They've cut a couple of holes through the floor in the kitchen for the sinks, so you can now look straight down a storey!

North west end, dining/kitchen above car port

North east, dining/kitchen

It turns out that our shopping trip to Christchurch was ill-conceived.  We were fine (though shaken and stirred) and miraculously Mom & Dad suffered no damage at all.  However of course all the shops closed.   Thankfully we had taken Friday off work, so the trip wasn't completely wasted - going up on Friday night and turning around again would have been a killer!  We found some beautiful lights, and they weren't destroyed in the earthquake.  However the lighting shop found that its ceiling panels weren't properly fixed, so they lost pendants that they shouldn't have lost.  (Lights should arrive this week too!)  We did see some cool taps which were on sale, and we were going to go back on Saturday and buy them...  We didn't get to look (much) at extractor fans or curtains - there is just so much more choice in CHCH!  We were so fortunate though with the timing of the quake - the areas where we had been shopping on Friday were covered with fallen masonry.

Now we need to put some serious time into deciding Which Shade of White Paint [it is a question that necessitates capital letters].  And of course debating the Great Cladding Issue.

South east, back of en-suite and bedrooms

Roof on

Main bedroom on the right, with the lounge on the left.

Looking on to the dining/kitchen/courtyard area & bed3

The roof is on!  Regan has carried out his duties and held a roof shout while I was away (ably supported by Dan).  It seems that the roof shout does not involve standing and pointing at the roof while yelling "Roof!  Roof!".

So you can now get a proper idea of what it will look like!  A capping still has to go on each corner where the roof "folds" down onto the cladding.  For some obscure reason, it's called a Canterbury Prickle.  They're also busy putting the flashings on.


The bits of the walls that don't have roofing material on will be clad with a different material.  Exactly what is still the subject of debate...  You'd think we'd know by now.

The doors are all on site now, and apparently the door in our bedroom is on, as is the bathroom door and the dining room doors.  Hopefully the glass will arrive next week.

We're off to CHCH this week-end for a buying spree before the GST increase hits!  Nothing like a snap decision.