Well, never mind… it’s over your head.

While you are getting over that wildly dodgy roofing joke, you’ll find us happily staring at the new ‘Cooldek’ flyover that has made such a difference to the back deck.  Thanks to Sam and James for sweating it out at the hazardous job of lifting the sheets up wearing gloves to protect against the razor sharp edges. I loved watching their team work.  Still need to finish off the flashing and gutters.

The next stage will be the installation of the verandah rails and balustrades.  Also relocating the swimming pool fencing across the backyard to work in with the new stairs planned to come down from the deck.

And if you check out the photo of Sam on the roof you’ll catch sight of the beginning of the first coat of paint on the bricks.  Confucius say, ‘The man that moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones‘.  Well that was a bucket load today – thanks to Megan and Paul for your help.

I’m trying to resist titling this one ’50 shades of grey’, but I’ve spent the past weeks looking at more than that many shades of grey trying to decide on our exterior colour. Thankfully it only took 2 sample pots to decide on the grey for the exterior brick work. We didn’t want too much contrast between the exterior walls and trims as then our ‘Coastal’ style would move into the trendy ‘Hampton’s’ style.  Our focus is to create a relaxed beach home that will not date.

What it all means on a practical level is that there’s no excuse to not be painting.

Cast your discerning eye on the image above and you may notice the subtle difference in the two colours – Newlook ‘Mighty Spark’ or Dulux ‘Salinger’.  We are going for the ‘Salinger’ grey on the left of the image with a crisp white for gutters, fascia and barge boards etc.

Off to pick up a plank and some trestles to set myself off for the slow but transforming work…  also to find my headphones for some unplugged karaoke to keep me going (poor Peter).

There’s not a lot of visual progress at the moment. Lots of working out how things go together and considering the challenges of working with everything connecting to the existing house.  The planning seems to be taking just as much time as the building. And then there’s the other half of life which is as busy as always.  Looking forward to seeing some physical progress.

We’re using a ‘flying roof’ over the rear verandah and the first step is connecting the ‘Extendaroof’ brackets to the existing rafters. Fiddly work and had to drill holes in the sparkling new roof to get the brackets up!!!

The new verandah roof has arrived and is sitting on the road side. We’re using a product that sandwiches foam insulation between Colorbond roof sheets and a white gloss ceiling panel. Lots of metalwork ahead which might be a steep learning curve. Still this way turned out to be a lower cost than building a timber framed roof with insulation and ply ceiling. Interesting to see how much time assembly will take.

Lucky to have a second set of hands at a critical moment… there is no easy way to lift a 7.2 m length of fascia on your own and then nail it… thanks Dan.

Looks like the good weather is going to continue so no excuse for not getting the verandah up next!

Ode to a hammer

A man relies upon his tools, when working hard and fast,

So when the faithful hammer breaks, he wonders how it didn’t last

Reflecting on the hammers life, a shock to his face appears,

“What’s wrong with modern hammers, that they only last 27 years!”

R.I.P.