And the Batts Go On ... And the Batts Go On

Another lightning trip over to Fossils Retreat after work on Wednesday 16 December to drop off more de-clutter from Avalon, check on and water the feijoas and tend to potatoes and view more progress ...

The framing of the wall on the left near the tractor had to be completely rebuilt with sound timber after Jacob discovered most of it was not sound. All enclosed with building paper now. Our resalvage/kindling/bonfire stacks are getting bigger ...

Denise stands where the pantry will be in the new kitchen. Batts have been installed on the newly rebuilt wall (window from Trade Me - 2 panes to be repaired). Jacob has had to put down new flooring on the left wall corner. The opening into the living room has been cut. We have a hall door in place

Repaired ceiling in the living room. This is the rebuilt corner where the original diagonal fireplace was situated. This room and the hall will retain their original 12 ft studs. The 3 bedrooms will have ceilings reduced to normal height as we don't have enough of this original paling to replace all the ceilings.

Looking from the dining room through to the living room, and Denise tries out the new hall door

Jennifer practising lounging at the dining room table in the late afternoon sun. Those lovely french doors which Jacob has made open outwards were $300 on Trade Me. Window from The Renovators, Masterton (sod wouldn't haggle the price so it has been our most expensive window)

A raptured Denise picturing her new laundry/utility room (both these windows were existing in the house - just rearranged)

We are absolutely chuffed that things are ticking along so smoothly and so fast. We really have been lucky with all our tradespeople - Jacob, our builder and his team, Kevin the Sparky and Robin our plumber.

We have accepted a quote from Pete's Kitchens & Joinery in Greytown for our kitchen, which we thought was modest (the kitchen a modest design, that is, not the quote) but what the heck! It will be exactly what we want in the space we have, so we're going for it.

In the meantime, our potatoes in old tyres fed on old horse manure are thriving far better than the remainder of the bag we planted back at Avalon; the feijoas (to date) have not been demolished by hares and are flourishing well. We take up 2 x 20 litre containers of water each time we go up, to water. We also found out that we have about 25cm of water in our water tank collected from the garage roof. Still waiting to hear from blokes who put up house guttering so we can collect rainwater from the house roof too. Doom and gloom if we have missed out on all the best rain and we are in for another Wairarapa drought.

Strange Things Have Popped Up

We popped up to Fossils Retreat again on Saturday 28 November. Disappointedly and true to the forecast, it was pissing down. We got very wet indeed traipsing in and out of the garage finding things that were OK to get wet on the back of the ute, and tying down with our wonderfully complicatedly joined neverending bungee cords. The weather was equally miserable over there. It appears out septic system is in. There are little groups of capped pipes away yonder out there, and also, a few puzzling newer ones closer to home ...

I guess we'll have to find the funds to build a little porch at the front door pretty soon, as the down pipes from the guttering will apparently connect to here and go into the water tank. If not the whole porch, bare framework so we can have a vertical post to connect the downpipe to.

We didn't hang around too long. Jacob has managed to frame up the new roof addition and exterior before the weather closed in.

As you can see, pretty sodden. The piles of scrap wood and rubbish are getting bigger. We'll have plenty of kindling for a few years. Jacob is reusing every possible bit he can