House progress

 I cannot believe I havent updated for nearly a month, time has gone so fast, we have been so busy and the house has progressed at amazing speed.  Our completion date is 27th November only a little over 5 weeks, yeeks, still so much to do. To save money this couple of 70 year old pensioners have decided to do all the painting and all this week we have been working our butts off to get the exterior painted while the scaffolding is still set up, and this 5ft 1inch dame has to use all her leg muscles to climb up and down about 10 times a day onto the scaffolding, the bottom ramps are about 3 feet off the ground nearest to the front going to 2 metres at the back, takes me back to my days of playing the first game of netball of the season without training, boy those thigh muscles where screaming for a couple of days, but, soldiered on.  Bit scary up on the top ramp out the back looking down, thank goodness that one has hand rails.  The first day I must of cracked my head on the rafters 20 times until I worked out to stand back a bit before standing upright.  If I did this for too long I would have a permanent stoop from bending all the time to avoid hitting my head.

 Scott the head of the building team (what a great group of boys) doing business on the top of the roof, I swear he is like a mountain goat, and there is no getting away from the phone these days.

 John surveying the workmanship, think he enjoys doing this each day, think he was impressed how quickly and efficiently things where done, went like clockwork. It was a great day seeing the decking done on the verandahs.

 You may not be able to see it but all the rafters have been painted with two coats of paint, one great thing was that with the new Solver paint you don't undercoat or seal, saves so much time.  Pete, son-in-law turned up yesterday on his day off and got up and painted the gables on the roof, we where worrying about how we where going to get them done, we where certainly not up to climbing up and painting over 6 metres above the ground at the back, or the front for that matter, we where so grateful.  We are paying another pensioner to help us with the painting of the rafters, while I painted all the walls, only one coat so far and not the front, hope to get the exterior finished by the end of next week.  Did you notice the lack of building materials on the ground, all the left over material is under the house so it can be used for studio at a later date, thought might as well as we have paid for it.

Wetting the roof with the building structure team Tom, Trent and Scott.  These three boys, seem so young to me, travelled over an hour each way each day starting at 7 am each day.  They finished up on Wednesday, miss seeing them each day.  Yes I did bribe them with cake but there favourite was the savoury bacon, cheese and onion pinwheels.

 Electrician and plumbers where in week before last laying cables and pipes and come back later to do the rest.  It has been great for us as we have been involved in each process and being country builders they are happy to see us, when we built in Perth once it was at lock up stage we couldn't get in and also we where working and could only go around when they weren't working.

 Gyprock guy started Friday week ago, we have a new appreciation for how hard these guys work, no morning or afternoon tea breaks and only stop long enough to eat their lunch before getting back to work. The plasterer didnt even stop just ate while he worked.  He has another week to go then the doors and all the fittings are done, cabinets, lights and plumbing finished.  I think we will be able to start painting inside once the gyprocking is finished. Dad would be proud of us I think.

The other evening these white cockatoo's swooped into the tree at the house we are renting, something they like up there.

It is beautiful down south in spring, blossoms all along the highway where a lot of the fruit orchards are. This lovely little tree in our orchard is a mass of white blossoms, somewhat later than the other trees.  It is a lovely prune plum and we where lucky enough to get heaps off it last season.  Its very green down south reminiscent of our homeland.