It's like starting over

Shed Slab

While it's been quiet on the blog front things have been happening at the Croft. In particular, work has started on the workshop.  Roy from Any Type excavations dug a wonderful hole in June only to have Dieter from Spaghetti Concreting fill it in a few days later.  The dimensions are about 10m x 10m plus a 1.5m veranda on the front (right side in the photo) a mud room on the eastern side (left side in the photo).   The steel frame is scheduled to arrive in August.

 

But wait there's more....



Stairs completed

Having completed the upstairs cupboards and plastering we decided it was finally time to oil the stairs.  The change is just amazing.  The photo of the half completed Harry Potter door below shows the transformation in progress.  Actually, that door was a great find.  We purchased it for $20 from a second hand dealer in Grenfell.  He had taken it from a building in George Street and dated it circa 1900.  It's cedar and was quite beaten up having been kicked in at some point.  



Harry Potter door

We've also completed the bathroom cupboard (below).  The mirror was a Grenfell recycling centre purchase and the carcass of the cupboard was originally a chest of drawers which we found sans drawers.  It now sports drawers that we made from some old cedar skirting board while the doors are resized cedar window frames.   


Bathroom

So in July we're planning and preparing for the shed build.  The 5,000 gallon tank pad is prepared and I've been reading up on steel frame construction... what could possibly go wrong?










 

The glass has been a pain

 
It seemed a harmless idea initially - to leadlight all the windows - but that was because we didn't realise it would require 1,146 pieces of glass and over 400 hours of cutting, grinding, soldering, puttying and polishing.  But, finally job done. We've completed the bathroom, loo, kitchen and lounge windows, the front and back doors, 5 fanlights, 4 internal doors and 5 pairs of French hens doors.  


French doors in progress.



Landing completed.



Front door and windows.

 

Front door and windows from outside.
(mmm - I forgot to include the lights in the count.)

Kitchen window and back door.





 

It's official

Final certificate

It’s official, after more than 8 years of work the house is “done” and we have the final certificate from the council to prove it.

We purposely didn't keep track of our time because we reckoned it would add up to be a scary number.  However, I do know that we have:

• Moved every brick, by hand, at least 3 times. 
• Constructed around 22 square metres of leadlight.
• Hand sanded about 70 square metres of plasterboard.
• Used roughly 50 metres of copper plumbing pipe for things other than plumbing.
• Spent over $2,000 on screws, more than $500 on caulk and precisely $202 on sandpaper.

Admittedly, there are still a couple of small things to do, like strip and install 50 metres of cedar skirting board and make another four panes of leadlight - so the housewarming is yet to be scheduled. And after that? Well I think Louis L’Amour got it right when he said:

 

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning.”

 

  

Stairs (still)

Pine handrail and copper balusters

So, after a nice distraction we’re back to the main job – installing the hand rail and balusters on the staircase.  The pine hand rail we’re using came from a 100+ year old house and, would you believe, is just about the right length.  The balusters on the other hand took quite a lot of thinking.  One early idea  was to get our friends to make one baluster each and then install what was sure to be a random assortment.  But we figured we wanted to finish this decade and dismissed the idea.  We then looked around for off the rack solutions and scoured second hand building places.  But not much really grabbed us and the few that did must have been gold plated going on the price. 

 

The challenge has been to get something that:

• Fitted in with the overall “restored old house” ambience,
• Met the building regulations,
• Fell within the budget,
• Could be installed by us, and
• Had a warehouse, industrial feel.

We finally settled on 19mm copper pipe connected by brass plumbing fittings.  We’ve used the same approach to “hide” the electrical wiring and also, not surprisingly, for the actual plumbing.  Putting the pieces together is slow but giving me ample time to consider a few other outstanding problems.  Firstly, I need to find some non-slip nosing for the stairs that meets the regs but doesn’t look like it came from the Jetsons. There’s also an awkward bit on the landing that I’m not sure how a rail will work and, unfortunately, I’m in need of one more stair newel. 

Apart from that…. we’re close.

A nice distraction

Farm house and 2 storey garage

We got a little distracted recently when the opportunity popped up to remove some bits from my father-in-law’s child hood home.  The building, which is over a hundred years old, has seen several decades pass since it was someone’s home.  The avant-garde lean on the two storey garage provides a visual queue as to what will probably happen next.

Front veranda



One of the treasures we picked up was the original front door, with glass intact.  The plan is to ultimately incorporate it into our home.  But in the meantime it’s safely ensconced in the shed with the other treasures; 30 metres of skirting, 8 metres of pine handrail, 2 mantle pieces, 10 square metres of pressed tin ceiling (didn't I say I'd never do old tin again?) and a couple of light switches.

 

Front door

It was sad to see what had once been a modest but much loved farm house looking so dilapidated. Its broken windows had let in a flock of starlings and an apparently incontinent possum, while cattle had pushed over veranda posts in the quest for the ultimate back scratch. 

 

But despite the obvious neglect there was still a nice ambiance to the place as it almost appeared to recline amongst the old trees, occasional clump of jonquils and remnants of a picketed garden fence.