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…

We built a shed!

Well, sorta kinda. Almost.

We had a three day weekend (happy birthday to the Queen) and so we skipped out of work early on Friday, spent two hours packing up the truck and trailer, and then headed off to the Coromandel. The traffic wasn’t horrendous thankfully and we arrived in time to make dinner in the dark and then head off to bed. The next morning we woke early to begin our task. A couple of weekends ago we had set the posts for the shed in concrete so they were well set by now and we began our morning with hot bowls of porridge and humming and hawing around the posts. It was all very exciting. Then after the last drop of coffee was drunk we got to work.

We cut and measured and attached beams all around, then across, then filling in the spots that needed more beams. There were a lot of beams. After the beaming was done we started on the roof. Seb bought loads of corrugated iron for the roof and this came in handy right about now. We had two perfectly sized pieces and the rest were too short. Awesome. So while the first two went on quickly, the remaining 854 pieces (actually it was more like 20) had to have little pieces cut up for them to fit properly. By the end of the day (just in time for an apero) we had finished the roof. We celebrated with a delicious bowl of scrambled frittata (don’t ask) and beer.

The next morning we woke to a glorious day which was great because the weather forecast was less than favourable. We spent the day doing framing and on this day we managed to get our first window into the shed (no thanks to my horrendous measuring skills which meant having to re-do some framing…it was a mistake!!!). Anyway, after that incident I refrained from measuring anymore. Damn metric system. With the first window done we were one a roll and we put the plywood on the wall to make it look all homey. The neighbors had come to visit us the previous day and invited us to dinner and hot shower (oh yeah baby!) and so we packed it up early and set off to their place. We had an awesomely hot shower and a delicious dinner with a couple of the neighbors and then crawled back to our place with a little too much wine making our heads spin.

Needless to say we both woke up with headaches the following day. Headaches and power tools are not a good combination and Seb made it half way through the day of hammering and drilling before I sent him back to the neighbors for head-ache fixer. After that we were back on track. We managed to get the second window in and cover the back and side wall with corrugated iron before the sun set on us again. We were disappointed that we couldn’t finish the work but pretty thrilled that we had managed to get so much done in three days! The shed looks amazing and slightly unfinished but we’ll fix it right up next weekend. That’s what weekends are for!

Check out the shed building photos…now!

If you don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest, there is the ‘kitset home’ option. Many providers out there have catalogues and can even customize the plans to your requirements. It is a fun process going through all shapes and styles and debating what kitset could provide a good base to our dream. We played with the American Barn, the Polynesian cabin, the typical cottage and more to eventually find the one. A business in the Wairarapa was making settler’s cottages in 4 different sizes and after we saw them we decided that’s what we would build.

On a business trip to Wellington, we escaped by train to Masterton where we visited the cottages at different stages. Their shape was close to what we wanted but there would have been too much work on their plans to make it to our requirements. But the most essential aspect to consider was the building consent process. The plans they provided were council ready in the Wairarapa, but not in the Coromandel! What seemed a cheaper option at first could end up being a more expensive one if things went wrong there. So in the end we decided to use the kitsets for inspiration and go for a local drafter, who was familiar with the Coromandel Council and would straight away know what to do and what not to do.

At an early stage, after we decided on a design, we then started our hunt for windows and doors. It has been an exciting – yet sometimes painful – process. We visited demolition yards, spent a lot of time on trademe searching for the quaint windows and doors that would achieve our goal. One after the other, we bought doors and windows, some very cheap, some not. We found out the hard way that an untidy window would eventually require hours or days of work to be restored. We then spent week-ends sawing, drilling, sanding, scraping and painting. Overall, the result is amazing! On some, we have recovered and exposed beautiful kauri timber, which will be fantastic when installed. Now safely stored in a storage unit, they are impatient to have a second life!

Silly enough, we started this process even before we had bought the land, were sure our design could be done on the land, or found a drafter! We were convinced that we knew what we wanted to do that, here or anywhere. We were also lucky not to do that at the end of the year… As it seems a new law will require double glazing on all new building – which will be fatal to any recycling project in a near future (very sad).

Lucky enough, and after some research on the Internet, we identified a builder living in Whitianga, who seemed available at the projected building period, and he referred us to a local drafter, who was also available. All seemed to fit in nicely. We met the next week-end with the drafter, Trevor, on the land – amidst the clearing of our land, knee deep in clay and power cables – and went through our detailed plans Seb had meticulously drawn on millimeter paper. He seemed fine with our ideas and was able to start the following week. After we gave him all the dimensions of our doors and windows and three weeks later we were delighted to have the first draft and really see our dream finally unveiling.