Mark's Stuff

After much talk, and further proscratination disguised as “finalising the design”, I finally convinced myself to take a couple of weeks off work to build a deck out the back of our house.

Armed with a truckload of treated pine and merbau, a few hundred galvanised framing nails, a box of 2000 stainless steel screws, a power drill, two cordless drills, a circular saw, a jigsaw, a drop saw, two saw horses, framing gun, chalk line, laser level, sprit levels, line level, tape measure, two shovels, a pick, one hired post hole digger (broken), one hired post hole digger (working) and a 4m² skip, my dad I got to work.

Day One was marking out all 19 post holes, digging them cleaning them out and setting up string line stakes for when the posts got put in.

Day Two had us waiting around for the concrete to be delivered. It was scheduled for midday, and by 10:30 we had double checked as much as we could, so got to demolishing the front brick fence while we waited. The concrete turned up around 12:30, and we had 20 minutes to barrow almost one cubic metre from the truck around the back and fill up the holes. String lines went up, the posts stuck down into their holes, and we called it a day while waiting for the concrete to set.

Day Three was Framing Day. Five bearers, and eighteen joists later and we had a (pretty much) perfectly level footing to work with.

Day Four was a lazy start waiting for the merbau to arrive. It turned up just after lunch, and we only managed to lay 5 rows of decking before the umpire called stumps due to bad light.

Days Five to Eight had as doing the same over and over. Choose a “random” length of merbau so that the joins were well spaced out, bevel the end, find a suitable matching piece, bevel the end. Lay them down, measure against a chalk line, adjust spacing, drill and screw. Repeat for 63 rows of decking, to lay a total of 390 linear meters. With a rest day in between.

The last day of deck laying also included making a frame for the BBQ to sit on, and finishing up the base boards making up the edge of the deck. A plumber was enlisted to hook up the barbie to natural, then a couple of coats of Cabot’s Aquadeck for protection, a quick trip to Ray’s Outdoors for some furnishing, and we’re ready for entertaining!

The only outanding thing now is to find a suitable sink to install next to the BBQ. Hot and cold water and waste are ready to be hooked up, there’s nothing to hook them up to yet

Oh, and I suppose it would be nice to get some nice real grass out there instead of the rollout plastic stuff covering up the dirt at the moment!!

Over the last two weekends my dad and I have been hard at it with shovel and barrow attempting a Backyard Blitz in our backyard. We got half way there; the cleanup is pretty much done, now it just needs a deck and some landscaping. I should have taken some before shots, at the very least to see what a difference all our hard work made!

Last weekend we pulled up a heap of bricks that were laid as pavers, and also broke up the concrete slab from the old laundry/shed. We also took off about 150mm of dirt where the deck is going to be, to allow enough clearance for the bearers. The deck will be the full width of the yard and will come out to around where the bike is.

Our efforts last weekend filled the first 3 cubic metre bin in the space of two hours. The next one lasted a bit longer as the day wore on, and the wheel barrow seemed to get heavier and heavier. On Sunday we hired a jackhammer to break up the foundations of the slab, and that finished up the bin.

This weekend I gave up on the 3m bin, and went straight for a 6m one. More bricks to lift up and shift into the bin, but we gave ourselves a little break every now and then by shifting a few barrows of tan bar. Much lighter than bricks. The tan bark was a good idea when we first moved back in, with the aim of keeping the mud and dust down. But the stuff sticks to Connie (our King Charles Cavalier) like glue, and end up all through the house.

We also demolished the temporary lean-to shelter that I built for the boat about three (maybe four) years ago. That lone tree in the middle of the yard will go soon, but I first wanted to wait until we’ve got at least a little greenery in the form of those trees along the wall. It was rather satisfying to make that planter box – actually doing something constructive after two weekends straight of shovelling bricks, dirt and rubble! The mound of dirt around the tree at least shows how much dirt we took out of the backyard – the whole yard used to be level with the top of the mound.

Time for a quick update on the progress of our house. We’re about six weeks away from moving in and can’t wait! Here’s some photos I took a couple of weeks ago, and never got round to uploading, as well as some from today.

First up, the view of our house from the street. The street frontage hasn’t changed at all really. Still looks pretty shabby and in desperate need of a new paint job. We’re slowly getting to that bit.

Stepping out to the side of the house, you can see the added storey. Looks much nicer all freshly painted and such. That’s what I spent a week of my life doing – patching, sealing, sanding, priming and painting the second storey weatherboards before the scaffolding got taken down.

View from the back yard. Or what’s left of it, amongst my dodgey old lean-to boat shelter, a couple of overgrown palm trees (if anyone wants a palm tree or two, bring a shovel and a trailer) and a huge pile of dirt left over from digging foundations. The doors is the entrance to my workshop, and above that is the balcony coming out from the master bedroom upstairs.

The boys from M.K. Millar Constructions laying the Tasmanian Oak floorboards, working frantically to prepare the house for plastering before the plasterers arrive. Picture taken from the courtyard, looking into the new living area through a sliding door.

Just off the study into the ceiling cavity is the data and electrics room. On the left is the mess of data and A/V cabling. Almost a kilometer of cabling including around 40 Cat6, 10 Cat5e, 12 RG6, and 24 speaker wires. Just beyond that is where the electrical switchboard will go, and to the right is the all the lighting wires along with Clipsal’s signature pink C-Bus Cat5 cable.

Smoko room. We decided Kirsty’s old couch could find a better home, but we figured we might as well leave for hte builders to use until the end of the job. Just like the palm trees, if you’re in need of a couch. Dire need. Come along with a trailer. You won’t need a shovel for this one.

Master bedroom, looking into the walk-in robe. We had to cut the upstairs ceiling height from 2700mm down to a rather low 2400mm to fit the roofline into the “building envelope” to avoid having to go to town planning to build the extension. So to add a bit more headroom in the master bedroom, the centre of the ceiling is raised back to 2700mm. It’s actually ended up looking quite good.

The kitchen got delivered today, and looks pretty good. Stone benchtops and two-pack paint finish. Aside from a couple of minor problems, and that the door contours aren’t exactly what we asked for, it looks pretty good. When the pantry door closes, another cupboard door opens itself. Might have to get them to fix that one!!

The plasterer is still hard at work. Most of the upstairs and the the whole kitchen has been plastered now, but there’s still a fair stack of plasterboards to go. Definately not a job I envy.

This is a photo from the entrance hall, looking at the stairwell. I thought about cancelling the stair order, and just leaving the ladder there. Much cheaper, but it might be a bit tough to get the furniture upstairs. By the end of tomorrow, the ladder will hopefully be replaced by a proper staircase.

The bathroom vanities also got delivered today, and the one in the ensuite upstairs has been installed already. I was pretty much over looking at cabinets and benchtops and doors and handles and things, so the bathroom vanities get the same handles as the kitchen.

I think that’s enough photos for one post to bore anyone still reading. And I’m also all out of things to caption any other photos with.

This is probably a little belated, but as they say; “Better late than never!”. Kirsty & I are doing some extensions and renovation of our humble abode. How much? Well, everyone who’s seen the plans have asked why not just pull the whole place down! The job is certainly big enough for us not to tackle ourselves, and also to force us to move out for about six months while its being done.

Work started about 10 weeks ago, and after a small delay with some badly time downpours flooding the backyard and turning it into a mudpit, the Mark from M.K. Millar Constructions and his team finally managed to get the footings in and could start working on a solid timber base instead of squelching around in the mud.

Here are some of the latest photos of where its all at. We thought that once the plans were finalised and approved the hard part was over. But that was the easy bit! It’s all the little things that are a real pain. Plumbing and light fittings, tiles, kitchen layout and cupboards, window types. The list just keeps getting longer!

The framing starting to take shape. Below is the view from the new (downsized) backyard into the kitchen window.

The last photo below is from the master bedroom upstairs, looking past where the balcony will be, and into the bricked garage and workshop area. As you can see, one of the builders has a permanent marker and a sense of humour!