After too many months of writing about what is going on with our gorgeous little cottage in the bush I am happy to say we are finally at the stage of painting. Let the fun begin! The weather has started to change finally and we are seeing slightly warmer days and a little less rain. We expect more rain going into spring but at least it won’t be freezing cold (hopefully).

So we employed our fabulous builder, Peter, to help us with the gib board and it was a good thing we did. It was a hell of a lot of work and it took four days to do it. One day he and one of his builders did the hard part of the vaulted ceiling then Peter and Seb worked together the next day to do one bedroom and part of the living room. Then it was just me and Seb to do the rest. We managed to break one board trying to fit it into the bedroom…what a disaster. Thankfully we had a few extra boards. When the gib was done it took us a while to get used to the new look of the house. All of a sudden it looked new…far from the old cottage look we were hoping to achieve. It will come with time.

We employed a stopping company (stopping is the plastering over the gib joints) to finish up the work on the gib. We would have done it ourselves but after a few people including our builder told us how difficult it was we thought it wise to employ professionals. These guys were done in two days. They were messy as hell but I’m sure they were less messy than we would have been and they saved us days of work.

So now we’re onto the painting. Seb did a beautiful job of installing some wood panelling in the bathroom and finished it with a delicate curved edge. We painted the wood panelling a light beige and painted the wall above a light cream colour. I painted the bathtub a shiny green apple shade so it  will stand out as the feature of the bathroom. We’re going to leave the feet of the tub blue for some fun contrast.

I painted the bedrooms a very light cream colour and each room will have a bright contrasting wall. In the main bedroom it will be a medium greenish yellow and the second bedroom will be orange. I’m not sure we would have really gone for orange but Seb wanted dark red and I wanted bright yellow because it’s a small dark bedroom so you can see how we arrived at orange.

We’re still deciding what to do about the kitchen. I would like to tile the countertops so I’m wary of not choosing colours before we find the right tile, which is like finding a needle in a haystack here at the bottom of the world. But that’s another story.

We’ll probably take a bit of a break from our lovely cottage because we just bought a house in the city (YAY!) and it needs some work as well. We’re gluttons for punishment.

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…