It’s been a big time since we haven’t updated our blog with the latest works, although most of it is in our photo section. Since then the flooring has been completed, looks amazing and is already well used and abused, we have been doing many things…

Late February we started to sleep in the house, even when walls were not finished, it was fun. Since then the place has been enclosed, the verandah finished (and very much used to keep working while heavy rain was pouring in the mountain some week-ends), and a lot of furniture has found its way in already! Beds, recycled kitchen cabinets, tables and chairs, a-ton-heavy old claw foot bathtub, an old scruffy arm chair to sit in front of the wood stove that Seb picked up on the side of the road. Ah oui ! The wood stove has been in for quite a while now and is already put to use every week-end. It looks great and gives good heat especially in the loft area ;-)

So, with all this installation, it became easier to work and live up there, and progress became very apparent. With the help of my brother Julien visiting from France, we installed the old staircase our builder has extracted from one of his sheds. Julien – who is a professional cabinet maker back in France – carved a beautiful frog in the supporting pole, which is now the centrepiece of the main room!

From then, it was a fellowship of friends that contributed to the place.  David helped build a concrete pad for the gas bottles, sanded and fitted all inside doors.  Charlotte, Clement, Kristel and Simon gave 8 hands on the outside railing painting in exchange for shelter & a memorable full lamb barbecue night at a neighbour’s place.  Lizzie installed most of the plumbing work.  Kevin gave us all guidance and cables to wire the whole house…

So in less than a few week-ends, we have now finished all the electrical wiring, most of the plumbing, the inside doors, the gas fitting (water heater & stove), the outside steel railing, the deck oiling, the front door varnishing…

And last week-end, at last, all converged to be ready for our pre-lining inspection. Karen spent the week-end working furiously to fit the insulation in all exterior walls while I had to finish the millions of bits and pieces everywhere. It seems this comes at point for the freezing cold that hit us that week-end, which put the batts and the wood stove to the test.

Hopefully, inside wall linings should happen next week-end, with the help of our favourite builder, Peter. We will have inside walls like a normal house!

To be continued…

When we last wrote, the house was starting to grow up from the ground and the framing was up. At this stage, we thought everything would go fast and our builder was confident our house would be finished (shell only) before Christmas…early December. The plans were to complete the house when we were in the U.S. Yiiipeee! It was great, we were looking forward to having a surprise on our return! After, 3 weeks in the U.S. we were happy to find doors and windows in, a roof almost completed and the start of what will be our verandah. We were very happy to see this after all the effort we had put into refinishing the windows. They look great on and they work!

We originally planned to leave the external walls made of plywood and battens untreated so that they get naturally weathered. Well, naaa… this ‘new box’ looking house didn’t look right to us, and waiting for it to weather would be too long! We decided to stain it before they completed the cladding. What a great decision! The next week-end, on our late Friday arrival, we were stunned by how good it looks in this chocolate colour. It enhanced the windows and doors and gave it more character.

Since the house was not finished and we couldn’t start any work inside, we did a clean up of the tipi, finding all kinds of weird insects and slugs that made it their home. We also built the water pump box behind the tank. The following weekend we started oiling our timber ceiling. We also enjoyed a lot of good sun after the very cold Atlanta winter… And finally we had our first nights inside our new home! First with the foam mattresses, then with a better bed brought from Auckland, in the loft area under the beautiful tongue and groove timber ceiling.

Now that our builder has finished working inside, we started the flooring project.  We had been looking at options for recycled flooring all across Auckland region. We wanted either Kauri, Rimu or Matai floorboards. Most demolition yards stock such timber in various conditions. We initially made contact and agreed on a stock of 500m of recycled flooring from south Auckland, but on the day of checking the stock, we found out that the boards were in terrible shape, with loads of tongue damaged and holes. We were very disappointed (as we had organized delivery the same week). Seb rushed to another yard he had identified in Helensville (45km north, so close to 80km to were he was!). There, the friendly guy showed him what he had. “Yep, that’s our flooring there!” All their boards are made of recycled joists and beams, so they aren’t full of nail holes. Instead, they have the odd strange holes and defects that make it look very different…gives it character. Overall, a very good product, reconditioned to a good standard, and one that doesn’t initially require sanding! (saving $2000). The next day, the demolition guy and Seb had a great time sorting board by board and piling them for transport, which we managed to organize for the next day. After many phone calls and fine-tuning with Coromandel people for the last leg, the timber arrives safely on our land. Pfffiouu!

Waitangi week-end was spent laying our floorboards. Such hard work! In three days, we managed to do about half of the house, at the expense of 3 broken drill bits, a knocked finger, lots of swearing when the tongue didn’t want to go in the groove, and a 12-pack of beer under the hard sun. The result is an outstanding, and even our builder - usually unimpressed by our shenanigans - said we have done a good job. Good aye? We just another three days to go before it’s done but they then we should have our process down. Then, there are just a few more things to do…plumbing, gas fitting, wiring, bathroom, kitchen, jib, skirtings, etc, etc, etc…

In the meantime, the house will be finished outside. Before the end of February, we should have our verandah finished, waste water pipes in the ground, and the site cleared up!

To be continued…

Holy cow (Oh la vache) time flies. We’ve been a bit slack in the writing and photo uploading department lately but we’re catching up now. There are five, count them FIVE, fresh, new photo albums with loads of fabulous photos. Go check them out!

In the past month there’s been quite a lot of progress on the house. In the beginning of October we saw the piles for the house go in. Then a week later we had a large dance floor. We were nervous about how small the house seemed until the framing went up. I had Seb lay down in our bedroom to make sure our bed would fit and phew! Yes it will! We’re both thrilled with how big the living room/kitchen area is. It will be completely open with a vaulted ceiling so it’s going to be big and spacious while not being overwhelmingly huge…and with a gorgeous view.

Last week Peter (our builder) started on the veranda. It’s taken him just as much time as the house foundation due to ridiculous building regulations that require our veranda to have piles as big as our house…but more of them. Completely insane. It’s so obvious that this regulation was pushed by the timber industry. Our veranda is now stronger than our house. In case of a serious storm I think we’ll just strap ourselves to the deck.

The weather hasn’t been flash this month. We’ve had many days of rain…and even sleet two weeks ago. Spring seems to come to the mountains a little later than it does to the city. The weather systems get stuck in the hills and release their rain on us constantly. What this ultimately means is that it’s now unlikely that the house will be finished by the time Seb and I leave for the U.S. for Christmas. Damn! I’m quite sad about that but when we get back it will be like a huge Christmas surprise.

In the month of October we also had our first guest. David, our super helpful friend spent the weekend with us on the land. He helped Seb with the windows and managed to avoid the ice cold “showers” Seb enjoys in the mornings. While David was there we hiked along our stream from the mid-point down to the bottom and discovered we have a few waterfalls and swimming holes! It was a gorgeous hike and we have plans of making a path to one of the swimming holes for use in the summer. It’s going to be fabulous!