WOW, Even I'm Amazed at The Progress!

Autumn has been and gone, then decided it wasn't quite finished with us yet...so it popped back again for a few weeks!

Lovely days, interspersed with a rainy day or a cloudy day, but basically, lovely outside working weather.

Imre and Dirk have completed the floor in the old Summer Kitchen and co-joined goat pens AKA, now the soon to be the Honeymoon Cottage.

The delivery truck brought the materials on Friday, for the temporary roof we'll put on it, so Imre can work inside it over winter.
The 2 boys will erect the temp roof this or next week, then Imre will start underpinning the walls a bit where needed, then build the bathroom wall, coat all the walls inside with his magic goop and you'll be very surprised just how good it will look! ...(says she, holding her breath in anticipation!). 

Am planning something like the pic below for the big deck over there outside the honeymoon cottage, so all is proceeding on that plan. 

A bit blurry, but you can get the general idea of the pavilion area idea I'd like on the big deck!

Am very excited to get the floor in the reno as that means all the plumbing is down now and the worst part, for me, is over!

That was planning where everything would go, knocking down the goat pen shed walls, the remaining fire chimney in the original summer kitchen part of the little building, measuring, drawing out, imagining and hoping things fitted as and where I wanted them to go.

This was the summer kitchen...with 2 goat rooms in the white end with no windows. The entry doors for them were on the right hand end wall.

This was the summer kitchen cooking room...The chimney fell in through the roof in Feb after winter and I had the roof propped up like this for 3 years as the front corner pillar broke and then the gophers ate the bricks under it and suddenly...no support under that left hand corner!

The 2 goat pen doors, also used as chook pens...

Roof off...

Rafters and beams off...

Ceilings coming down and out...

Middle wall coming down...Wall between summer kitchen and 2 goat pens...

Almost all down now, only a bit to do on the corners, then a clean up and some digging for new footings where there are no walls now!

Starting the rebuild, after new footings put down...

More bricks, sand, cement and gravel arriving...

Window holes set, lintels in and ready for the top cement beam pour...

Starting on the other side now...

All done and ready to pour the top beam...

Underpinning parts of the back outside wall...

All ready to put in the pipes before the floor goes down...

Imre on track to complete the floor on Monday, 6th Nov 2017!

Talk about painting yourself into a corner! This is cementing yourself in! He finished it on Monday morning...

Ran out of cement and gravel on the 8-10 inch thick cement floor he put in, so had to order more on the weekend!

Peter McLean...check out your gate...sitting perfectly as the truck goes in and out!

About to cement in some posts for a retaining wall at the back of the deck...

Oops, got the pics around the wrong way...Digging the post holes...

The poor old big deck...was a massive weed catchment area this year! I left it alone as the guys would have ruined it while working on the honeymoon cottage next to it. You can just see it in the right of the pic...We got in one day last week and cleaned it all up and only have to cut back the elderberry bushes and complete the retaining wall at the back and that should do us until March when planting begins all over again.

House finally painted. It dried out fully white about 30 mins after this shot was taken. The girls pulled out all the tomatoes from the garden this afternoon too, so now the place will look nice and tidy again after being hidden by the jungle of tomatoes!

Got in and started clearing up the tomatoes...they just keep on bearing fruit. Amazing! But they had to go...unfortunately, as they'll freeze up and die off in a few weeks I guess anyways.

Zipped into town quickly and this was coming home in the bus at 10 mins to 4pm with the sun setting! hahaha...crazy days!

We all have been working on the big deck outside the rebuild area and I've planted a few conifers in the terraces, but need heaps more plants yet.

Dirk is digging out the back of the big deck this week to put in some retaining walls, so we can use up the big old timbers that we pulled out of the roof of the summer kitchen here a few months back. We cut up a lot of roofing timbers for firewood and saved some of the OK poles for retaining walls.

That will save buying cement bricks as I was going to have to do.

It will be hidden at the back and will only be an access back path for mowing and keeping the fence clear between me and my neighbour's property, so I think the back-filling with old timbers retaining walls will be great.

Imre completed the undercoating of the exterior of the house today, so we'll be able to paint it easily in April, trims and all.

And apart from that, we have been busy inside, painting everything with the 2nd full coat of paint over the blue which has been a bit hard to cover with the white.

Am leaving it now for the final quick coat in April, after winter smoke from the wood fire has been cleaned off everything and it will be super-duper!

It looks amazing inside with every thing in view now painted white and is nice and clean looking. We also did another coat of varnish to all the wooden furniture and it looks simply stunning. The extra coat just gave everything a special glow it didn't have before.

Imre put in 8 power points in the girls bedroom and the end room now even has a light with a real switch in the wall! So many small things done these past few weeks, it is amazing to see what we all have accomplished.

The girls are great and one is a 5 star cook, in my opinion. The delicious smells all day, every day, emanating from her cooking pots and pans is awesome. They are both vegetarians, so imagine how much more delicious smelling those aromas would be with meat thrown in amongst it all!

Brittany, tidying up all our past efforts...and she's smiling???. Imre, Dirk and I all had a go at these blessed windows and walked away from them! What a task...Anyways, the girls seemed to be able to whip through it all in 2 days...until we ran out of paint...again! Amazing...I can't seem to judge the amt of paint needed here...and bought another 2 tins the other day and they're now empty too! Those big nails in the wall were from me experimenting with curtain colours etc. Blue velvet does NOT suit here at all.

Brit and Sharee...master painters and Sharee is the super cook! Traveling the world for a year, hoping to settle over here in Europe somewhere next year. They are off to Morocco in a few weeks time, for 3 months of Schengen.

After Xmas the floors are going down, the kitchen will go in and that should be it for the big stuff.

Imre will do all the remaining power points, put in 2 way light switches where necessary, outside power points and lights and some solar security lights.

Then the cement paths have to be fixed, and others made for around all the buildings etc, the tool shed rendered...forgot that one...hahaha...and a bunch of those sorts of finishing off things...plus he has to work on the honeymoon cottage all over winter too.

My sister wanted a pic for the lovely DVD's she makes for me, so this is a poser pic!

Well, that's it for a round up of the past few weeks of work.
Actually, I didn't realise we'd done so much!

So, until next time, love to all and take care,
Love you,
M
xxx