My last post turned into a bit of a rant, so with this one I'll do a complete 180 and focus on the really good changes in the build. One of my pieces of advice for anyone starting a project like this is to plan the kitchen and the fireplace first. There are soooo many … Continue reading Week 82
Five weeks since the flood, and the optimistic expectation of drying out early has itself dried up, withered and died. The environmental guys come in to test and monitor once a week as promised, and each time they take readings, rearrange the fans and set up boxes in new areas on the floor. It's the … Continue reading Week 68
Wet on the outside; drying out on the inside. We tested the fireplace this week with the goal to check the temperature of the surrounding built-out sections of fireproof calcium silicate board. The design we've got in mind is to stick a whopping great big TV above the fireplace, but also to ensure it and … Continue reading Week 67
Welcome to Week 62 in our 36 Week project.... It's all about finishing now. Lots of pressure to Buy Things like... doorbells. Have you ever given much thought to them? The button bit can be a nice design piece, and there are many many different types to choose from. But the ringer, chime, sounder, whatever … Continue reading Week 62
Clinton celebrated a penultimately significant birthday on the weekend by going back to school: blacksmithing school. He's always happiest when he's making and building and doing. So with some stout shoes and safety glasses, off he went to the Quinnells' at Fire and Iron to get stuck in to Make Stuff. The course was about … Continue reading Week 61
Without going into too much drama about tempers flaring, lines of communication being tested, inspections on the edge and deadlines looming, ..., despite all this, it's all mostly going to plan. This week's post will be mostly pictorial as I'm struggling to write anything at all coherent in the rush to finish this project. Loose ends include … Continue reading Week 58
Ben had the drone out and it's great to finally see the roof in its glory. Here's a visual progress report from the get go. And these.... Tony had the fire on early in the week, so he kindly invited Ben and me to have a look at making balusters. Each of these is completely hand made … Continue reading Week 51
Spring is springing on the way to site. While the weather improves and we're thinking about trenches, services and meters, here are some pix of the outside of the house. The problem with glazing bar alignment across the two planes of windows in the front bay that we had back in Week 42 has been resolved. Thank … Continue reading Week 50
Goodbye scaffolding! It took three days to get all the gear down, and now we can see the whole building. No scaffolding in the way means that Terry and Josh can get on with building the roof for the garage. This is a wiggly little beast that has had Terry brushing off his thinking cap to calculate … Continue reading Week 48
We have a flue! Actually, it's a flue liner, not to be confused with the identically named but made of pumice 'flue liner' that was already installed with the chimney went up. All very technical, but for the past few weeks, Dave has been developing the plans to make this thing work. Terry and Josh … Continue reading Week 47
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Misdirected remodeling
Architecture - Design - Innovation
it's a house
