All internal doors in

Hallway

The Builder has put in all of our internal doors now, including the one from the garage into the hallway.  So the hallway is starting to look like a hallway now - at least down one side! 

In the photo, you can see that Regan has painted a bit of the hallway ceiling too.  The first piece of white wall that you can see to the left is not, in fact, wall.  It is the door to Bedroom 3.  You can also see that the hallway steps up at the end - that is to the other two bedrooms.  The white "wall" at the end of the hall is the door to the Master Bedroom.  The framing down the right hand side of the hallway will all be clad in macrocarpa - just like the exterior of the house.

The Builder has now finished all of the MDF cladding, except for the bottom part of the stairwell (which can't be done until the stairs are in).  That means that the piles of cladding in the lounge are all gone now, and they've been able to remove the propping from the garage.

Lounge, south wall

It has been fantastic to be able to see the lounge as a room again, with proper walls and a space to walk through in the middle.  As you can see in the photo of the south wall, things are handily being stored in the tv cavity!  All the gaps that you can see in the photograph are doors or windows.

In the photo of the north wall, you can see the sliding door on the left is closed but the one on the right is open, so you can see through to the kitchen/dining room.  And between the two, you can just see the back of the stairwell.  (This photo is an update of one of last week's.)

Lounge, north wall

Regan has continued to work hard, going down every day after work and spending all week-end there.  It's been a little more difficult to quantify what he's been doing, as he has been doing a lot of the fiddly preparation work, which is hugely time-consuming.  Hopefully that means he'll start ripping through the actual painting soon!

In the kitchen, the Builder has lined the little cavity that the fridge/freezer, oven, microwave, pantry etc will all be contained in.  The two benches will run perpendicular to that wall.  In the photo, you can see through into the lounge, and the sliding door on the right is closed (to stop dogs playing mad chasing games from falling down the stairwell cavity!).

Kitchen, looking into the fridge/freezer cavity

More walls & painting

Bedroom 3, lined

The Builder has been ripping through his work this week, and has lined Bedroom 3 and our bedroom.  The gib stopper has also been working like a trojan, doing all the ceilings.  He also did a level 5 finish to our en-suite, so it actually looks kind of painted now.  He has finished his work, so at least now I won't be covered in gib dust when I visit!

Painted laundry, looking into cupboard & hall

The Builder has also put in the last sliding door, in Bedroom 2.  So there's only the three hinge doors left to go in on the interior.

Regan painting the dressing room (Bed door to left)

The gib stopper's hard work means that there has been plenty for Regan to do.  He has finished the laundry, which is great.  He's done the primer in our dressing room, and has done the prep work for the walls in our dressing room, quite a few of the ceilings and also the stairwell.  Ray has also been helping us, preparing the MDF for painting by undertaking the painstaking task of filling in holes and sanding.

Shot of the two cavity sliders in the lounge (they're the white bits)

Regan has managed to spill paint on the carpet - twice!  Thank goodness once more for the work that he (and Mike) did putting down the plastic and cardboard covering. 

Painting has started

The painted bathroom

It has been a busy first week back!  Regan has managed to completely paint the bathroom (including the ceiling).  Only half of that room gets paint - the other half is tiled.  He also has the laundry and the main dining room wall ready for their final top coat.

He's using a combination of spraying for the primer and rolling for the top coats.  He has purchased a very fetching pair of white painter's overalls.  We had a minor crisis as we wondered whether the chosen shade of white was perhaps a little too cream...  We got over it.

He's been working on site this week with both the builders and the gib stopper, which has been a little different for all concerned.  They all seem to have survived, and Regan got them all a feed of fish & chips at lunchtime on Friday from the local  caf.  It was so much better than the fish & chips shop version!  Beautiful thick pieces of blue cod... I even managed to go all Martha Stewart and delivered muffins to site on Tuesday.

Bedroom 2, lined (alcove for wardrobe)

The builders have been busy installing the MDF wall linings and have made a lot of progress.  Notably, they have completed the wall linings in Bedroom 2.

The builder has been manufacturing the doors at home.  Once they're ready, The Painter has to prime each one before it can be hung.  And hanging them is definitely a two-man job!  They've hung the doors in Bedroom 3 and in the Master Bedroom.  All of our internal doors except for the bathroom and laundry are sliding doors. They are pretty awesome doors - they're HUGE!  I've included Zaha in the door photos to give some sense of the scale.

 In Bedroom 3, the door is basically the same size as the wall.  In the Master Bedroom, our door is 3.2 metres high.  It is also the same size as the small piece of wall that it lies next to.  When you close that door, it feels like you've put in another wall and blocked yourself off from the rest of the house.

Door in Bedroom 3

My sister and her husband came to visit us after getting back from living in North Carolina.  Poor Mike soon found himself painting and helping Regan to cover the floors with a thin layer of cardboard to help protect them.

I was in charge of fetching the cardboard.  It took two trips as I discovered that it only came in rolls that were 75 metres long, and that turns out to be fairly massive in diameter.  That meant that I had to turn around and go all the way home to change cars...

The gib stopper has also been working hard and now everything is covered in a fine layer of white dust.  It also turns out that Frank likes to eat the discarded bits of stopping.  And also the pink batts (which is a little more serious).

Door in Master Bedroom

HF2Ds

Frank

This was originally a House for a Dog.   Now it is a House for Two Dogs...  For Christmas, we got another puppy.  This one is named Frank (for Frank Lloyd Wright, of course).  He's a broken coat Parson Russell Terrier, whereas Zaha is a smooth coat Miniature Fox Terrier.  We're justifying it on the basis that Zaha will need a friend to get her through the day once we move into this house as she won't be looked after by Regan's parents during the day.  Makes sense, doesn't it?  Zaha does actually seem to like him (most of the time).

And, importantly, he has been to site and he appears to approve.  He also peed on the new carpet.  Thank goodness for the plastic covering that Regan put down!

Carpet down

Carpet in Bedroom 3

The carpet was laid on schedule on 22 December.  We screamed down, had a Christmas drink with the builder and his apprentice, went straight off to a party and then drove up to Christchurch straight after work on the 23rd.  Hence no photos until now.  Regan did take the photos on the 22nd, but somehow  I just never managed to get around to it while we were away...

The carpet has been laid in the bedrooms only.  The master bedroom and bedroom 2 are separate from bedroom 3, and are up half a level.  Accordingly we have also carpeted the small strip of hallway outside those two rooms.

The colour of the carpet looks fantastic, but it is difficult for us to show as we (ie Regan) have covered it with a layer of sticky plastic to protect them.  It definitely makes the roomsfeel more finished, even though you can still see the pink batts.