314 days and now ..

I have a kitchen!

Yes on January 30, 2010, I officially lost my kitchen - well I knew where i left it, jsut moved out of that house, let tennants move in and use. Crosie and I moved into the Portacom aka Love Shack, and began our adventure.

On Saturday 11th December, i finally got to use an oven in my own house - you have no idea how excited I was, though a little scared as the first thing i made was a Red Velvet Cake for lunch with the girls. Have now used the stove top to poach eggs (which on any given day i am rubbish at, but that is a WHOLE other story!).

Appliances - soon my pretties you will be in your new home!

Below are pics of the kitchen being moved in - the island bench is 3.2 m long with 2m clear either side of it - yes seems huge, yet i do not think that the bench has been clear yet! Bear with me with the pics as i am still moving the kitchen over from the workshop (where it was shared space with the quad bike, man tools etc).

My pantry is soooo cool and filling fast. Crosie was amazed at how fast i am actually filling it up - he wanted to know where all the food had been in the workshop - umm those steel drawers were jammed pack full of food. Though i do think that i am fast running out of space. Have not found a dinnerset, several boxes of glasses and other crockery, then there is all the crystal that is actually sitting in a friend's garage (promise it will be collected this week Trish!).

Have spent two nights in the new place - we do have a functioning toilet inside, but still have to go across to the manspace for a shower. But the bath is up and running in the other end of the house.

Some of the lights in the kitchen / living room

This week sees Crosie laying the kitchen and entrance flooring and then starting on the waterproofing for the showers, so i can tile over the break. As well paint the outside, start landscaping, finish the other third of the house in time for Waitangi weekend family get-together! So only a wee bit left!

Oh and look after the sheep, do the normal chores ...

What can i say - we are loving it and loving the space! Think of living for near on a year in your bedroom at home - which is what we have done - and then move into a space that is bigger than your current house! We are loving it! And loving opening all the boxes and finding things that "we" didn't know "we" had!

The painting has begun ...

Yes the painting has begun and what was the first room to be done? Why the scullery was - am on countdown sleeps until i get my kitchen, sans bench-tops, but they will come soon. Concrete takes a little while to cure, but we need to make them and decide on what colours we want in the concrete!

If one takes a day's leave from work, what does one do? paint skirting that's what!
30 x 12m lengths were done in two colours - no not on the same skirting, but for the skirting and the bits that go around the windows inside.

Two-thirds of the house now have selant paint on and dear Crosie is busy doing another sand, then we will start putting the paint on the walls - yippee!

Rooms with a View

Check out the rooms with views!

We are incredibly lucky that we get some amazing views from our house - see below!

The Spare bedroom view

Our bedroom view


the view from the lounge


The view while cooking (once the kitchen goes in!)

The long awaited gib stopping pics

Our Bedroom The lounge



The living room - check out the height of the ceiling


The hall from our room to the living room

is it time to stop?

Yes it is, gib stop that is!

Yes dear Crosie has finished all the contstruction and now its onto the gib-stopping. A job that he doesn't like, but from what is on the walls, looks pretty good to me!

We are concentrating on getting the lounge, living, study, entrance and our bedroom done first, so we can move in. Plus we have to ge the living area done so Mr Kitchen man can come and install our kitchen - how cool is that going to be!!!

We now have both power and gas on to the house now, not just an extension cord running between the buildings - a little more secure methinks.

This also means we can have a lovely bath in our wonderful bathroom - though the cats are a little curoius as to why we want to sit in water.

A quick cat story: after spraying a mound of dirt with weedkiller, little white fluffy and the ginja ninja were playing in it, which meant that the little white fluffy was rolling around in weedkiller. Long story short Crosie turned on the shower and he and the little white fluffy had a shower together! Poor wee fluffy was like a drowned rat, oddly though he was quite relaxed about the whole affair and has since got back into the shower, albeit it wasn't on, but he got in voluntarily!

Gib stopping pics will be loaded in the next day or so!

A-gibbing we will go ...

With the batts done, there is the next job to get on with - putting up the gib!

Though with 2.7m stud's it's not as easy as it sounds. But while I thought those ceilings were high, i wasn't prepared for the knee-knocking that would happen in the lounge and living areas!


Crosie and i managed the lounge gib by ourselves. Something like 4.8m sheets that we had to get to a height of over 3 metres. However, that wasn't the worst of it .. we had to get sheets over 5.3 m to a height of 4.5m for the living room ceiling! See below:

Thankfully we had help for all but the last sheet and a half. How Crosie and i managed to get a full-size sheet up i am not sure, but my shoulders are incredibly sore!


All but the garage ceiling to do now, then it's gib-stopping and then painting and then installing all the electrics.


Speaking of electrics here is an example of all the wiring that is in the walls:

The other exciting addition so far is that i have a laundry inside where it is supposed to be - and no longer requires a hose across the driveway from the manspace - very exciting

Crosie is also now intent on putting holes in my perfectly good roof - why you ask? because he has installed our chimney for our wonderful huge Southland logburner!

We're just batts!

Yep - we are now covered in pink scratchy bits - quite revolting really, but awesome that my little house now has its wonderful pink duvet cover on, in!

The ceiling batts are nearly 20 cm thick - but hideous with all the bits that fly off them. The wall batts not as thick and far "nicer" to put into the wall - no bits flying out of them

Kitchen ordered, gib about to go on - wahoo! we will have some gib on the walls so we can show off to the Aus clan that will be out soon! Promise that we will not make you do ANY gib-stopping - though you are free to offer your services...

We are clad!

Yes folks happy to report that Crosie has finished the cladding the house - including putting up the garage door!

It's all very exciting as the house is now full of gib board and pink batts all ready to install. The end is nearing and we are hoping that in 6 - 8 weeks we will be moving on in!

In some of the photos with this post you will see the sheep - very exciting as we await the arrival of some lambs! Though as Crosie is away this week I am hoping that the girls cross their legs until he returns.

Crosie is down in Lake Hawea helping his mum celebrate a birthday - Happy birthday! he is also looking a possible new addition to our household - a puppy. but that is a wait and see

Enjoy the latest pics!

1. View from Master Bedroom side 2. View from spare room side

3. View as you drive in 4. Similar view

5. View from paddock!

A-cladding we will go, a-cladding we will go ..

hi-ho the dairy-o

a-cladding we will go!

A week of annual leave turned into a week of hard labour for me! But we did manage to clad a third of the house (why did i want a large house???).

Plus we had all the bathroom fittings - minus the tapware - delivered which was really exciting - certainly makes the building feel like its becoming a home. But then it is torture having a bath so close and yet so far - it is currently stored in its box in what will be my sewing room

The other exciting thing that happened was that the first kitchen man came and measured up our kitchen space and sent through a design that we both rather like - though am not sure we are going to like the quote when it comes through. But my dear Crosie is still ok about making my polished concrete benchtops so i am happy about that!

On a sad note for the local bird population, Rama managed to bring home a bird each day - thankfully(?!) he brings them into the studio to play with inside, that way they don't get away! On two days he bought home two birds, the rest it was just the one. However two birds did not make it and Monty helpfully "cleaned up" the mess!!! Rama has found the perfect possie down in the trees to lie in wait - so am pleased that he is such a good hunter not so on the birds though!

Crosie is looking forward to this weekend when he gets to leave the building site and go a-hunting with his brother, a mate and his cousin - so am sure the 4 of them will have fun on their quad-bikes

Roof 'n' Wrap

Finally we have the house roofed, wrapped and all but one window in - as well as the plywood on the verandah and we are hoping to put the butynol on the verandah tomorrow!

So here are the latest pics:

The entrance way From the front of the section

Mark working on the roof Side view

Yep that's me! Working onsite!

Photographic evidence at last. am scrambling around putting the tape over the plywood joins

Farewell Our Mate

Just a quick note to say that we had to say farewell to our beloved pooch, Jake, on Tuesday 8th June.

Jake will be dearly missed by Crosie, who has had him for over 14 years.

Even though i ruined him (read spoilt him) in later years, he was a wonderful puppy and even though slightly stinky, we loved him to bits

Jakey Snakey, go find those pheasants for dad, chase the possums, but leave the cats alone!!

We love you old boy - RIP

Wow! things are happening

So the house is now roofed (thanks Reece!), wrapped and all but two windows are in. These will hopefully arrive this week

Can't believe that we are getting there despite the weather! In fact we've had so much rain our 50,000 litre capacity water tanks are overflowing, which is great - and now we even have the washing machine going onsite we are fully self sufficent!

Crosie has framed the verandah and is really just waiting for a good day to start laying the plywood and then gluing on the butynol roofing. Have to say it is going to look fabulous. just awaiting all the flashings as well and then we will be water tight. (pics coming)

Some of the battons are on around the house and soon we will start cladding, getting to the time where i am going to have to choose the colours - scary, but hey it's only paint and it can be painted over if it looks hideous!

Have jsut ordered some plants as well, so that means landscaping will begin - not on a grand scale but definitely beginning to think about what i want and where

Enjoy the pics!

More pics

Crosie striding around. The installation of the garage door. The completed product!

While i would like to say no mice were harmed in the making of this ...

The high-roof enthusiast - must mention that i got stuff up on the roof the other day - too scared to come down!!!

The house frames are standing!