It's all Chim-chim-Cher-ree at our place

  We've now got these poking out the top:

Here is the roof plumber doing his happy chimney dance:

Meanwhile, around the back this has been going on:

Finials, barge boards, eave brackets, cricket bats - done. To the rear, anyway. The front is pretty close too. But how nice is the back looking?! And yes, those are the painters up there doing their thing. As the blue sky will attest, they have magically brought the good weather with them again, right on cue. 

The colour scheme is going to be very pretty, just as it should be for a house with lovely external decorative elements.

We are in for a rather nice stretch of temps in the twenties. What could be nicer for the team working there this week?

Weatherboarding is coming along nicely, but there are still some fiddly bits (those lovely external decorative elements) that will perhaps take a bit more time to get just so.

Later in the week other stuff will start to happen INSIDE the house - can you believe it? Here is a reminder of where we were at only a few months ago:

And we thought THAT was pretty darn exciting. The autumnal tree is barely starting to show a few green shoots now, and here we are with an actual house well into existence. 

Feeling Board?

The final breaths of Winter are blowing bitterly over the Homemade House site (real-world, not virtual), with rain and wind and plague in about equal proportions. Your correspondent has been laid low with the latter, accompanied into the Vale of Illness by her loyal Homemade Kids.

You might wonder how the project could possibly continue without me being actually vertical, and yet it has. The secret weapon? A robot carpenter of course.

Ok, so he is not really a robot - he actually a very well-regarded and highly recommended professional with laser focus who apparently does not let a little weather get in the way of the task at hand. He is there at all times. Starts early, works seemingly without pause, and works late too. Weekends? Yes he is there then too. In fact, I am yet to figure out if he ever does go home. His only discernible fault is an unwillingness to be bribed with food rewards but I will keep working on that.

Here is a sample of his handiwork:

Those boards are at the front, back and sides now. Gradually creeping towards the eaves we have a real glimpse of the "vision". Sure, there are still verandahs, finials, fretwork, doors and leadlight to go in but the general style is no longer in question for the casual passerby. So thrilled that the primed weatherboards are not the same murky yellow the doors etc came in. I know the exterior will be painted soon anyway, but that relatively unobstrusive grey is easier on the eye in the meantime.

What else? The roof seems to be 98% done, with a dodgy weather leave pass handed out to the roof plumber. Termimesh has been installed. I had never heard of such a thing before this project but, as we live in a termite-prone area, it is important to get that in. We went for a stainless steel mesh product that slips in between the weatherboards and the slab edge. Then it appears to be sort of rendered over to keep it in place. If I was buying a house, it would (has?) never occurred to me to check on this but then I guess it is just another one of those many, many things I have learnt this year.

What else? Well, in another mini-milestone a little bit of work began on the interior fit out. The ducted vacuum system pipework was roughed-in, consisting of lots of white pipework tucked up into the frame ready for future whisking away of the grit of family life.

Lots of undercoating and painting of bits and pieces is going on - the Special Ops painters arrive by stealth on any given day, ducking and weaving around everyone else, biding their time for the full-on assault known as the exterior painting.

Next Monday our heating supplier will come along to have his turn at contributing to the veins and arteries of the Homemade House. I suspect the air con installer is keen to get in on that next week too. Stuff that makes the house function - I've said it before and I'll say it again, if we are not careful we will end up with an actual house before we know it.

It is making us realise that it is about time we got serious about selling the current principle place of residence. And that's a whole other project!

It's turning into a real house

All is slowly being revealed as the stark outline of the Homemade House starts to gain form, body, and substance. The roof is close to complete, although not meeting with the approval of the Homemade Kids who do not like the "crinkles" and have also requested that we paint it. 

We have bravely ignored their pleas and pressed on with our quest. This week heralded the arrival of our new best friends, the carpenters (subcategory: external and internal). We need to be friends because I sense this is one area where we have the potential to be really annoying clients who keep wanting a new variation on a daily basis. That's what happens when you have a couple of experienced tradies at the mercy of a couple of, well, NON-tradies.

So far so good though - they have been on the site for only two days and look!:

If that doesn't say "hello,I am a house, please come in"  then I don't know what does. External walls!

That is one-quarter of the exterior walls done, including sisalation, flashing, and frame straightening (in case you were concerned).

Every addition amazes us and puts a smile on our faces - partly because we like where this is headed, and partly out of a degree of incredulousness that we have made this "appear" where only a couple of months ago there was nothing.

It's excellent.

Tile style

Found another category of tile to go on about: fireplace insert tiles this time.

We bought an antique Victorian fire insert to go into the dining room "fireplace" (CAUTION: do not light a fire in our fireplace. It will end in tears). It's a lovely insert but we did not care for its tiles:

So we just bought these:

which I love very much! Well done Jason!

Tomorrow I am off to check out a deal on the mantelpiece and by the time we are done the room should look like this:

Roof roof!

Dear Reader, you may have wondered what has become of the Homemade House this week, and frankly so did I. While roofing materials arrived at the start of the week, alas our roofer did not. He had succumbed to illness, informing me gravely that it may indeed have been the dreaded "man flu" - always painful, never fatal.

It seemed that progress was at a standstill. I glumly drove by each day, no longer thrilled by the sight of a mere house frame, fickle as I am. I wanted a good roofing, people, and would settle for nothing less.

Oh sure, the Ampersand stair company came and did their check measure, leaving a calling card on the front fence. And yes, I was flattered by the kitchen company and the plasterers who admired my fine frame. But it was the roof I pined for.

Finally, by Friday, that roof was commenced. Amidst high winds and the threat of rain it's steely self finally began to emerge. Tentative at first, as the picture below shows. But be assured, nothing will hold it back now - not illness, not storms, not even the weekend. This roof was meant to be.