Little staircase in

I won't even try to deal with the Christchurch earthquake.  I'll just say that thankfully my family is okay, and it appears that all of our friends are okay too.

The new stairs

On a more mundane note, our work has continued.  The little staircase that steps up the lower bedroom level to the upper bedroom level has gone in, so we don't have to balance on a plank anymore.  The stairs are made out of dark plywood, and I think that the Architect plans to have them stained a reddy/brown.

Macrocarpa wall under carport

The builder used up the last of the macrocarpa that we had to hand on the exterior of the building, putting it up under the carport (he had set aside all the better stuff to use inside).  As you can see, we were just a few planks short!  It sounds as though we've managed to source some more macrocarpa now, so hopefully it won't take too long to get that moving again.

The photograph of the exterior macrocarpa wall is taken from the north end of the house - the dining room is immediately above the carport.  The block that the front door stands in is immediately behind the macrocarpa wall that you can see.

Lounge wall

I've also added another photo of the completed lounge wall, which is at the south end of the house, ie. the opposite end of the dining room block, behind the macrocarpa block that you can see.