More photos of that macrocarpa wall

Dining room/kitchen windows facing east/paddock

My busy week is over, so I have a little more time to blog.  I think the pictures really tell the story now with this macrocarpa wall.  Our only current issue is that we've run out of macrocarpa!  So I don't know how long that is going to take to sort out.

Apparently The Architect has finished the kitchen design.  The Builder appeared to consider it do-able, so now we just have to wait for the price...

The bath framing has also gone in, which means that that room now looks less like a small box.

Macro wall continuing through

So, photo narrative:  The first photo is taking from the dining room looking into the kitchen area.  This is the start of the internal/external macrocarpa wall.  After the big square window, the next gap is the door for the hallway.  The macrocarpa wall continues in a straight line after that doorway (although it is a little hard to see in the photo).

The second photo was taken by opening the sliding door to the left in the first photo.  Hopefully that gives you an idea of the thickness of the wall.  It has that thickness all the way through.  Again, hopefully you can see that the line of the wall continues straight through into the lounge and out the door at the end of the lounge towards the master bedroom.

Bookshelf in library/lounge

The third photo is taken in the lounge, and you can see that the wall continues out through the door at the right of the photograph.  The big gap in the wall is because that is where our bookshelf will go.  The finishing work that the Builder has done on the corners of that bookshelf and also on the doorway in the hallway is amazing.  It is the work of a craftsman.

Hallway

The fourth photograph shows the other side of the wall (ie. opposite side to lounge), in the hallway.  The first gap in the wall will allow us to see through into the stairwell area.  The second gap is for a cupboard.  At the top of the hallway, the wall has not yet been finished.  Hence the issue with running out of macrocarpa....

Close up of doorway into hall

The fifth photograph is simply a close up photograph showing the amazing mitre (correct terminology?  No doubt I'll be told!) work that the Builder has done in places like the doorway and the library shelving.  It actually looks as though he has folded the wood rather than using two separate pieces.

Bath in situ in bathroom

Lastly there is a photograph of the bathroom with the bath all framed in.  The unpainted parts will be tiled.  The macrocarpa wall will, I think, create a good contrast to the white walls and the tiles and give it all a bit more texture.

I hope that this gives a little more context to my last photo dump!

Internal macrocarpa wall

There have been busy times at HFD over the last two weeks!  And busy times for me, hence the lack of photos.

Dining room, almost painted with macro wall

Wall going inside to outside in the lounge

Lounge

The Builder has been putting in the internal macrocarpa wall, which is looking really great.  Now that a lot of the walls are painted, it no longer feels quite so boxy as you get the juxtaposition of the white and the macrocarpa.  You can also see how the wall runs from inside to outside.  In the lounge photo, the photograph has been taken from inside the lounge, then you see the frame of the glass door and then you can see through to the outside along to the master bedroom.

Regan has also been painting like a trojan, and all of his and Ray's hard work is finally paying off as it feels like he has broken the back of the painting.  Regan has finished the lounge!  You can also see there the inside/outside flow there, with the soffit continuing on the same line as the internal wall on the outside of the house.

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.