Floored! (Last post of 2017)

This week we have a final visit from the roofer to add spouting and downpipes, but the main event is the arrival of the flooring.
Shane and a large truck arrive Tuesday morning, and a load of floorboards is moved into the back courtyard by crane.
Over the next couple of days Shane lays the flooring and it looks gorgeous.
He will be back in the new year to sand it, and put a wash on to colour it a bit, followed by the finishing protective coats. We can't wait to see it so he's promised to send photos.

Note the tarps on the windows. Shane doesn't want too much sun on "his" floor before the coating is done.

Movement in the kitchen area

A generally productive week, although not a lot to show for it inside Little O'Grady Street.

Monday

• Plasterers return and finish off the cornice in the hall in no 8. It looks spiffing.
• Roofer does more flashing on 1A Little O'Grady.

Tuesday

• Nothing happens.

Wednesday

• Tony the builder comes for a check on progress. We discuss options for relocating the water meter.
• Tony waterproofs the shower area in the bathroom.
• Nick from West City cabinets comes and we get moving on finalising the design of cabinetry in bathroom, kitchen and laundry.
• Shane arrives to start on the floor in the big back room.
• We drive down to West City cabinets showroom in Hoppers Crossing to look at options for colour of door fronts and benchtops.

Thursday

• Decisions are made about colours.
• Omissions in the kitchen design discovered.
• Preparation work on the floor continues.
• Much to our annoyance, the panelling for the bathroom is not yet at Bunnings and they are now saying 7-10 days, when we were promised it was available in 3 days. It's already a week since we chose and ordered it.

Friday

• Shane covers the concrete floor in green goop.
• A skip is delivered and Tony's son Fraser clears out the backyard (again). We dispose of a couple of unwanted doors while there is spare space in the skip.
• Email exchanges with West City cabinets continue, modifying the design and quote.

Weekend

• Final (?) email sent to West City cabinets.
• We rehang the hall lights in no 8.
• Another mini-buying spree: a fan with built in light for the second bedroom (Beacon are conveniently having a fan sale), exterior lights for front and back, and a light for the storage area over the bathroom.

Meanwhile, back in the "big" house...

Years ago, in the dark ages before we renovated 8 Finlay Street, we had major water ingress in the hallway during a thunderstorm. The old, original cornice in the front hall was damaged, as was several feet of paint on the wall below. And the new cornice in the second part of the hall became loose. When we had the reno done, getting all that fixed was supposed to be part of the job, but somehow it just didn't happen.

So when the plasterers return to do 1A Little O'Grady, we ask them back to inspect the hall. The plasterer has coniptions as he is certain that the loose cornice is about to fall down any minute. I point out that it has been like that for at least four years, but he insists on coming in immediately with his mate to take it down. And we arrange to have the whole lot fixed, and this two-day job fits nicely into a gap that they have this week.

On Friday they arrive, put up a channel about 150mm lower than the original ceiling, put in new plasterboard, then redo the cornices. This is a long job as it's a large, fancy Victorian cornice, so they don't quite finish and will return Monday to do so. But even unfinished and unpainted, it looks so much better than it did.

Sledging

Today it's time for front fence demolition, part 2. Peter's son has provided us with a sledgehammer, and with that the wall comes down in no time. We both enjoy the satisfaction of wielding the hammer.

The friendly builders from the place across the lane lend us a decent-sized barrow, and with that and our small one it doesn't even take us too long to clean up the debris and barrow it all around to the back, ready for the next skip.

Decisions, decisions...

Friends kindly gave us tiles left over from their bathroom renovation project, and we have spent some time trying to work out whether we had enough, or would need to buy more. We also spend a lot of time trying to work out what colour to put on the bathroom walls, to offset the very dark grey colour of the tiles.

After much cogitation, we decide the gifted tiles are just too dark, so we head off to National Tiles in Port Melbourne to look for alternatives. After much to-ing and fro-ing we settle on a paler grey tile described as slate, and we find two boxes in the tile liquidation area which significantly reduces the overall cost, as we only need four boxes altogether.

Armed with the tile we then go a-Bunning to select the polymer wall panels for the shower sides. We've been in contact with the manufacturers, who tell us that we can get the sheets at Bunnings and also that we can have any Dulux colour as a custom colour. Peter is given to understand that there is a three-day turnaround between the order and receiving the sheets. In Bunnings we spend about an hour with our tile looking at various colour chips, and sample panels. When we finally settle and go to order, we discover that we can't be guaranteed to receive a custom coloured panel this side of Christmas. Three days it appears, was only for standard colours. So we start looking at standard panels and find a splash-back sized panel in a colour called called Silver Ghost, that we think will do, but it turns out not to be in any of the lists of standard colours and no one is sure whether we can get it in bathroom wall sizes. Finally we give up and settle on a metallic silver called Platinum, because at least that is available and will come early next week. We just hope it looks OK. Neither of us liked the idea of a metallic finish much, but perhaps a bit of shiny reflection in a small dark room will be a Good Thing.

Plastered!

House is transformed as the plaster is now all in place.

We are fascinated to find that the plasterers use stilts to put up ceilings and work high up the walls...

They all went home, leaving their stilts behind them.

Weekend work for us

Once the first part of the plastering is done, the room that is the remainder of the second bedroom looks much too small to have a fireplace, so we decide to pull it out and remove the mantelpiece.
Filthy job, but someone has to do it.

And we want it done before the plasterers returned so that they can sheet over the hole, so that is our first Sunday afternoon activity.

In addition to demolishing the fireplace , we start on the low brick fence at the front of the house.
Why you ask?

The fence is a 50s addition that is not at all in keeping with the house, and although the original red-brick and terracotta capping has been painted the same colour as the house, it still looks pretty ugly.

At some point in a previous renovation, the original galvanised iron water pipe was replaced with copper, but instead of running it through the house where the old pipe was, they took the pipe along the inside of the front fence from the water meter to the side of the house, right down the side of the house and round to the back, making it vulnerable to vandals. Our neighbour had his similarly placed copper pipe cut and stolen from the side of his house.

The plumber has now brought the water pipe back to where it was when the house was first built, which is running down the hall under the floorboards. But the mains connection, which is a very messy collection of pipes, is still behind the front fence. We hope to be able to relocate it to the other side of the gateway, so that the pipe can go under the tiled veranda without having to wreck the mosaic tiles, which are original.

Some of the existing piping is actually embedded in the wall, so to find out what goes where, we decide to at least knock down the gatepost. Lacking a more appropriate tool, we bash it with the back of the axe. Hard work as the bricks and mortar are relatively modern, but by the end of the afternoon we have exposed most of the pipes, ready for the plumber to advise on whether the meter can be moved.

It's all happening...

Monday
Electrician, plasterers, builders
Tuesday
Builders
Wednesday
Aircon man
Thursday
Plumber, roofer, plasterboard delivered

And we have not been idle. Things on order came in - we went a-Bunning to pick up the laundry trough and buy more taps for the washing machine, and to Bentons to collect our shower rail. And we're making progress on choosing the colour for the bathroom acrylic panels.

The house now looks like this, pipes and wires everywhere.

We'll have one of these, and one of those, and...

Friday we go to Altona Bunnings and return with a toilet suite, a vanity basin, and 3 taps. While we're there we finally make a decision on both the kitchen sink tap and the shower rail, but, you guessed it, neither are in stock. We pick up the kitchen tap back at our "home" Bunnings in Port Melbourne, having ordered it while at Altona.
Saturday it's off to the Good Guys, who are having a Black Friday sale. Not only do we get a good deal on a Bosch gas cooktop and dishwasher, but they source the Panasonic oven that we want for a good price, even though they don't actually stock it. Really are Good Guys. And because the oven isn't in stock there will be a wait before any of this is delivered, and since we probably don't need any of it before Christmas we don't have to find somewhere to store it immediately.
At a local bathroom showroom we also find a shower rail that we both really like, and like better than the one we had previously decided on at Bunnings. Now we're looking to find the quickest way of getting hold of one. The laundry trough we want is also playing hard to get - but we have the specs which is probably enough for now, and it's on order.
Plasterers due Monday, plumber Thursday - it's all go this week.

A-Bunning we will go

Peter and I now have to go shopping. Today we went to our local Bunnings and tried to buy a toilet, a vanity basin, a shower fitting, and two flickmixer taps for the basin and shower respectively. Each time we made a decision from the display on what we would like to buy, we discovered there were none in stock. For every single item. Off to Bunnings Altona in the morning, where it appears that all these things will be available.
Meanwhile we are looking at combi ovens, gas cooktops, bathroom panelling....
We will be much poorer in a week or so.

Roof back on

Despite the heat (32 degree day), the roofer put the skillion roof on, with shiny new insulation in place below.

Electric spaghetti

Chris the electrician arrives at 7am this morning, and we spend an hour going through the electrical plan with him, specifying lights, powerpoints, etc.
By about lunchtime the there are wires dangling everywhere - out of walls, down from the roof, even up through the floor. We just hope we haven't forgotten anything.
Part of this exercise revealed a potential problem - if we put in split system airconditioning  modern electrical induction hotplates, and a combination oven as we were planning, we may not have sufficient power, and it is a painful and very slow process to upgrade. So we think we are going to revisit our cooktop decision and have gas.

Window woe

The new big 3-part sliding door is now installed, wall battening is complete.
The new rafters and ceiling battens are all in place ready to go.
The double-glazed sash windows to replace the original Victorian windows arrive, but when builders Chris and Luke go to install them, they find that the hole in the outside part of the cavity brick wall is smaller than the hole in the inside, which is what Tony the boss measured. So they have a very messy day cutting bricks to widen the windows slightly, but they are in and look great.

All kinds of interesting things happen...

New sliding door for the back, just like the one at 8 Finlay Street.

The frame for the sliding door into the bathroom also arrived.


The roofer came today to work out what's needed to put up the new bit of roof and make the rest really leakproof.

And the chippies have been working away in the heat - we have more rafters, more battens.

The walls in the bathroom have been stripped back to the bricks ready for panelling.

Going on up...

More battens on the walls...














...and new rafters.

...and up, and roof comes down.

Battening of the walls now more than half done.

Back bit of roof, rusty tin and rotting beams, all comes down.

Battening goes up...

Carpentry work recommenced on Thursday, after the concrete had cured. We are putting battens on all the old brickwork in the back room to support plaster sheet, rather than trying to repair the old solid plaster. This way the walls will be straight and vertical, which will be a nice change.

Here come the concreters

Concreters make their appearance on Thursday, one day later than we hoped. This means we are not there to see the next steps as we leave to catch our flight to Hobart not long after their arrival. The slab is poured on Saturday, so it is there for admiration on Monday when we return.

Photos are courtesy of Peter's daughter Barb, who conveniently came by on Saturday to drop off a washing machine.

More progress

Plumbers come on Monday and do all the sewerage pipes in about 3 hours. Amazing stuff, poly pipe.

Luke works hard all Monday to Wednesday on framing, and you can now really see how the bathroom will work.

Hangers are in place for the new ceiling in the front part of the main room, and supports for the skylight.

Inspection of the rafters under the skillion roof shows they aren't up to much, so we will not only rip off the tin, but scrap the rafters as well and have a complete new roof there.



All goes quiet today and we enjoy not having to get out of bed at 6:30am. Looking forward to another builder-free day tomorrow.
Next week the slab!

How to fit BIG beams

Dave arrives with two big steel beams on his truck, one to hold up the roof, the other the lintel over the new doors in the back wall.

Moving these safely takes some doing. And five other blokes.

First, you take the big roof support beam off the truck.



Then you back the truck into the courtyard area, so that the lintel beam is close to the back of the house, where it is going to finish up.

Then a couple of people climb on to the truck, three more on ladders, and you shift the lintel off the roof rack (left)....
... and into place (right).

Now for the big beam.

It goes in through the old bathroom window, with a carefully placed cross strut inside to take the weight as it goes in.

First Dave briefs everyone on the plan.

Step 1: Lift one end to the window sill.

Step 2: Start lifting and shoving.

Step 3: Keep lifting and shoving!

Step 4: Keep it going...

Step 5: Getting organised on the inside - more directions from Dave

Step 6: Keep it coming...

Step 7: In and level.

Step 8: Lifting one end up...

Step 9: ...and into place on the newly prepared brickwork.

Step 10: Lift and swing the other end in on to the top of the nib wall left just for this purpose.

Job done!

Isn't it lovely watching experts at work?