A Slow, Agonising Road....

The closer the house comes to completion, the slower the progress seems to get. We are up to the pointy end of the process now, with painting, joinery etc. The pain is increased by the fact that it is bitterly cold, and our current house is akin to living in a damp cardboard box in a siberian summer. Even before the new house was weathertight (and it's still not..) on a sunny day it is warm and pleasant inside despite the cold out. In the midst of the chaos of our daily lives we have lost the camera battery, so we have had to make do with mobile phone images.

Choosing paint colours...

The hallway cupboard (sans doors)

Tim's crazy pump manifold for the house water supply and fire fighting setup. It connects the diesel fire pump and house electric pump to inside taps, sprinklers on the house, on the ground and to the fire hose reels at either end of the house.

Our beautiful spotted gum front door with it's handle installed- this door weighs a ton, but we love the simplicity of the design and the rustic appearance of the timber.

The most significant improvement has been outside, Tim hired a dude with a bobcat to level out around the house and then spread out and compact 50 t of quarry rubble- so you can now access it without rubber boots. It was only a matter of days before one of the tradies had to dig yet another trench through it- returning part of it to mud, because someone forgot that the septic thingy needed an alarm. The builder suggested that, instead of putting the alarm in the house, where it should have gone, he could put a flashing light on the top of a tall pole, about 20 metres from the house, rigged up to the alarm so we could see it if it was going off? We didn't think that was such a good idea.

The exterior of the house has been sitting for a long time without cladding. With the wind and the rain the sisalation has now blown off in several places, with insulation coming out, and rain going in. Meanwhile the cladding still sits patiently waiting in the living room for carpenters to put it up! At least it's dry.