Despite the incredible lack of posting on the site we have been doing loads of work. Also because we’re completely insane and obviously don’t have enough to do in Mahakirau we bought a house in the city that needs renovating so we’ve been successfully keeping ourselves out of trouble. For the most part.

Since my last post in August (how embarrassing) we have completed all of the major work. The water is running and I can confirm that the bathtub fits two people comfortably. :-) We have electricity now although I keep forgetting this and keep working until it’s dark before I remember that I can turn the lights on. Old habits die hard. The kitchen sink, bench-top and cabinets are finished. The bedrooms are pretty much done and Seb even attempted to grow grass.We’ve had a short list of friends who have visited now and we already have a short list of friends who are visiting us next year.

So what’s left? Well there is still painting to do on the windows outside. The floor needs to be sealed although we’re debating leaving it as is because we like the look. We need to plant some things and insulate under the house. After that (I’m sure I’m missing something on that list as it looks way too short) we’ll start doing tracks in the bush so that we can easily get down to the creek.

We’ll be in Mahakirau to start off the new year (and to celebrate our anniversary) and we’re looking forward to entertaining more friends and family there this year!

Happy New Year from Seb and Karen!!!

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…