I think the blockies might have read my blog and got scared – really scared.  I might be short but i’m really strong and quite scary – just as the man in my house.  (He says he’s terrified of me  – not) hahaha.

Right – so after a slow start to the week things have got a little crazy out in trailer park land.  When I left for work yesterday there were vehicles and people (blokes) everywhere.  So far  (apart from me) I haven’t seen any workers on site of the female species.   They must be a very rare, some might say endangered, breed.   But the good thing is that Hamish one of our builders keeps leaving his tool belt behind at night for me to put on and muck around with.  Actually – once he knows I’ve been wearing his tool belt and playing with the hammers and measuring tape I suspect it will go back under lock and key.  I’m planning to smuggle in some pink tools for him just in case the whole process of working with blokes day in day out is supressing his inner girlie side.   Poor guys – I actually think that they must drive up on to the site in the morning and go “Damn – she’s still here!!”   Because I usually also always have questions – “When is this happening?  , “What is this for?”,   “Where are the blockies”?

So here’s where we are up to with the blocks as at yesterday:    (they have a half way inspection tomorrow morning then the race will be on to get to the top)

 

But then wait – there’s more!!

I got home on Friday last week to find this:

You would think that living with a former policeman and having a father as a policeman and a large group of  friends with who are either in the job or retired from it would mean that I would have been able to sort this problem out – but no.

The elusive blockies were supposed to start about 2 1/2 weeks ago  however apart from a half day covert appearance one day this week they haven’t been seen since.    There are supposed to be 5 or 6 of them so you might assume that they’d be fairly easy to locate and frighten into getting their blockie butts down to our place pronto, but seeing as I haven’t actually met them yet, this has proved somewhat problematic.  I did contemplate stalking various building sites in the greater Hawkes Bay area to see if I could find some that might fit the extremely vague description and stuff them all into my car and drive them out there.  However, apparently this is an activity that can invoke too much attention from others and then lead me to have to “call a friend” from a little room with a locked door.

So again – here comes that patience virtue again.  Thankfully I have been at Mum & Dad’s all this week (not thankfully for them i’m sure) due to having no water because of the excessive rain. (That doesn’t seem to make sense really does it??)  No water because of too much rain  you say?  What is she on about?  (However those avid readers amongst you will recall that because we are still drawing from the river, every time we have a big rain that floods the river the pump silts up and has to be turned off until the water level drops again).

I’m told (but not getting excited just in case) that the blockies will be back next week – they bloody better be, and then we’ll be underway again.  Once they are half way up the wall there will be a mid-point inspection and then they’ll race to the top so that the insulation guys can get started.  It’s all rather exciting because once the insulation goes in we’ll get a huge change in the way the internal space feels again and how the light plays out because there’ll be no more walking through walls.  Think this might take a bit of adjustment for Kia who currently walks through all the walls as if they didn’t exist.

 

On another front, the electrical and plumbing internal work is basically complete.  There are so many wires going everywhere it looks as if we are going to be lit up like the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise.  However I don’t think we have gone overboard although there was quite a bit of excitement amongst all the boys on site (including mine) at the suggestion for some more LED strip lighting to give it some wow!   80’s disco anyone?? lol

Anyway – had better get some work done as we need to pay for all this new fancy lighting.   Here’s some pic’s of the evidence we have had blockies for at least part of a day…

 

And then it rained – and rained and then was sunny for a little bit just to tease me, – and then it rained again!!!! ARRGGHGHHHH   (sigh).

Ok. So it started raining on Saturday night and then all of Sunday and then Monday, then Tuesday bit fine, then more rain Wednesday and fine again yesterday.  Crikey.

Here’s a picture after the first lot of rain on Sunday…

 

anyway – the mud and the new water features kept the builders away on Monday as they really couldn’t do a lot and can’t do much more inside until the exterior cladding it almost completed.  – more of that patience thing required by me.

Because our roof is a mono-pitch with the slope to the back, all the rain just rain off the roof and into the area at the back of the house (which of course is the bit that gets the least sun as it’s more sheltered and south facing)…  Haven’t got a picture of the pool out there but I think you will all be able to easily visualise that.        Just a shame that we haven’t got the spouting on as all of that precious precipitation could have been filling our water tanks!  Damn.  You all know that once the spouting goes on, we’ll have a lengthy dry spell that will continue through the remainder of winter and on to summer.

Anyway – another post shortly on the tale of the missing blockies.

 

On the upside, our lovely neighbours who own the farm in front and to the left of us have started their build now too which is very exciting. We have been swapping ideas, stories and comparing samples for months now so it’s great that they are finally underway.

So – we finally now have all our glazing in!  It took just on a week for it all to be installed because some was sent because the builder andf the glazing company (Toops -:) ) weren’t happy with the powder coating finish on some windows/ doors.  It’s really lovely when other people are as fussy about your house as you are.   Ken at Toops Aluminium in Omahu Road has been awesome.  He was ever so patient with my indecisiveness and million questions about how this would look and what if we did that…   The other tradies are now just starting the pleasure of the KM (too many options) indecisiveness.    So here’s a little snapshot of what has gone on over the last week:

Friday 4th July – Some windows in but no doors.  Very cold for roof shout but that didn’t deter us hardy souls who donned beanies and gloves and jackets.   My habit of acquiring yet another ski jacket came in very handy with some being handed out for people to wear so they didn’t freeze to death. lol.  We also had a 2 1/2 hour walk through with the electrician.  all sorts of tricky questions like which lights do you want dual switches on, where do you want the light switches, and a debate about where to situate the (now changed to a pendulum) light in the entranceway (I lost that one…).

Fri/ Sat – Very windy – Made the lad accompany me to our flash outdoor ablution facilities at 4:30am as I was worried the toilet might blow over with me in it.  As a result we both then ended up with a hammer and nail and a torch reattaching some of the building paper that the boys had tacked up (at my request) to cut down the draft on Friday night that was whistling through the opening in our ensuite bathroom.    Re-attached it again on Saturday at abou 8:30am and then returned from Waipukurau just after lunch to find the whole lot wrapped around the internal framing – Oh well – at least it did the trick on Friday night.

Sunday – another meeting with our every patient Builder (Terry from Peak Homes).  The guy really is awesome.  He does ever so well to mediate the stylist differences between the lad and I to the point I think he might be actually keeping score to as to ensure it’s even.

We were hoping that the blockies were to start on Monday just been but every night I returned home showed no movement there.  I am now told that they will be starting tomorrow (Monday) so keep your fingers and toes crossed for us.

Thurs – 10th – The final pieces of glazing installed.  I therefore spent quite some time on Thursday (after they had all gone home – didn’t want to completely embarrass myself) going “open close, open close, open close” – evidence attached…)

Really happy with how all the glazing has turned out.  Was really worried about how the big front windows would look in the end as we had had our hearts set on them both being big picture windows but due to our site being rated “Very High  Wind Zone” we would have had to go to commercial glass and that also involved a big spacer between the two panes of glass (hence could have had some distortion in the view).   So we opted to follow Ken’s advice and do a narrow casement window at each end and I’m really happy with the result.   However, my favourite window in the whole house would have to be the big single pane one in the western wall in our bedroom.  It is such a stunning view and being one whole sheet of glass just makes it like a big picture.

This week I was also tasked with choosing a colour for the soffits.   The builder gave me a suggestion, but no – I had to go and look at the colour charts didn’t I!  Why o why???    After much angst and much patience from the colour consultant at Resene’s in Hastings (including holding up A4 samples outside), we settled on Double Alabaster.    whew. (only took me about 45 minutes hahahaha).  Have decided to have a go at using a colour consultant inside the house as I think we risk me getting completely out of control there otherwise and I’d never get anything else done.

Finally, I did my first lot of housework inside on Thursday night.  BEcause we had a lot of rain last week the house had lots of dirt, mud, sawdust and wood chips (from all the holes for the wiring). So being the person I am, I got to on Thursday night with their broom.  The boys are very good about tidying up but it had been a shocker of a week.  Goodness knows what they thought when they arrived on Friday and saw all these neat little piles of sweepings.   They’ll get used to me eventually and if they don’t, well they’ll just work faster to get it all done to get away from me then.     Mum and Dad then helped finish off the ‘housework’ on Saturday afternoon when they came to do their inspection of the progress.

So, here in photo’s is a summary of it all.”