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!