When I posted my last blog, on 3 March, it had been raining. Heavily, for two weeks. Well, here we are four weeks on and it’s still raining. We have had over a metre of rain just this month. The wettest March on record. On 6 March we had a series of rain bombs, as they are now called, for good reason. I’m sure you have all experienced these recently, where the rain just bombs down incessantly for short periods, and then eases off to a heavy pour. Cherrie and I were shocked to learn of a landslide behind our treasured previous home, Quamby
Before
After
Oh, and Wattamolla Road was washed away
And will clearly be impassable for months.
We feel very sorry for the new(ish) owners but very grateful that we are now living in town, without that mountain to remediate.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch the rain continues. The team work inside as much as they can. Except when they have Covid (the two Ps this round – plumber and painter). But, it’s taking shape.
And, speaking of colour, we’ve had some fun with the bathroom splashbacks too
And the terrace is taking shape
Which meant the outdoor kitchen could go in
But, that’s all under cover. In the great outdoors the rain continues. We now have a feasible water storage facility
What this means is that no outdoor work can be done. No trenches dug, so no power connected. No completion of storm water (if you’ll pardon the pun) catchment, no form work so no concrete pour so no driveway, no hope of hard landscaping. No vehicle access.
What this means is……we don’t move in next week as planned. Removalist now booked for 20 April. If it doesn’t stop raining, we won’t be moving then either. The good news is that the rental house we are currently living in has gone on the market so the landlord is not seeking new tenants. He seems happy enough for us to stay here until we can move. Or until he sells. Whichever comes first. I’m not making bets on that one.
Every day we remind ourselves that we are not in Lismore or Ukraine.
I have been under pressure recently from 50% of my readership to lift my game with regard to my Berry Grand Design blog. I’m not sure what the other 50% think – I’ve not heard from her for a while.
So, my research tells me that the last blog posted was on 31 August. My total reverse shoulder replacement (Google it) was three weeks old and I was still in a sling. We were waiting for the roof to go on.
But, of course, before the roof goes on, the scaffolding must go up. It only took 2 days. Once it arrived.
Now the scaffolding is up, the roof can go on. But it doesn’t. There is some delay. There is always some delay.
But, hey, another week later the roof arrives. On the longest truck permissible without an escort. There is 5mm to spare!
Effortlessly they are lifted into position
Looking good from down here
And looking good from next door. Meaning that we are slowly building them out
And all on a safe site
Two weeks later, and out of the sling, Cherrie and I took the dog for a walk. Out of the blue, with no warning, I fell flat on my face. Again. And on my new shoulder. Again. With blood pouring from the face, but not the shoulder, we had to call a friend to come and get us. Between them they eventually stemmed the blood and a subsequent x-ray of the new shoulder mercifully showed no damage.
The roofing people move much more slowly than me, even in a sling with black eyes and bloodied nose. That’s me, but they are the ones who deserve those eyes and noses. A premonition. Our greatest stress on this build has been Parrish Roofing. Not that I want to mention them by name, for fear of causing offence. They, that is Parrish Roofing, are the most ineffectual and inefficient contractors in the Shoalhaven. And that’s saying something. Not that I would name them, for fear of offending.
But I digress….
When, eventually, the roof is on Christo visits.
And now it’s a wrap (don’t we wish) the wall insulation can go in
It’s not like us to drop names, but when we shared a meal with Peter Garrett recently, we didn’t mention the pink batts.
And then the external wall cladding commences. This is also the job of Parrish. They started on site in August. They have still not completed the job. I can’t show you the photos of this progress because the snails have been chasing the cladders (from Parrish Roofing by the way) down the road.
We are building a low maintenance house and all the exterior will be this Colorbond metal. Just hose it down occasionally. Or at least climate change will do that for us. But not before it’s finished, by which time there might even be an effective climate change policy.
In late October, investigations commence as to the cause of the numerous falls I’ve been having. It only takes a couple of days and a brain scan followed by a targeted MRI to find the brain tumour. Surgery a week later
This is a bit of a set back but I am incredibly blessed that the tumour is benign and all of it was excised. Recovery is a little slow but full.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the important plumbing commences
A visit from the air conditioning man
And the start of the plastering
Not all phone calls are so uplifting
The fireplace reveals itself
Finds it’s home
And settles in
The bespoke, oversized (my middle name is not moderation), recycled hardwood pivot front door is hung
And then the piece de resistance. These little spotted gum soldiers
Step up
And voila
The Christmas spirit is entering the site. The building gang accept an invitation to the certifiers’ Christmas party in Wollongong and all go up by bus. The next day they are informed that one of the guests on said bus had tested positive for Covid. So they are all isolated for a week and our site goes into lockdown.
But the tiler didn’t go to the Christmas party. He got his Covid somewhere else.
The cladders, that is Parrish Roofing, could work. They just don’t.
Back from isolation, the week before Christmas the floor goes down
The tiler gets his second bout of Covid
And everyone goes home for Christmas.
Cherrie and I spend the first two weeks of January cleaning up the site, clearing rubbish, painting the one existing boundary fence. We can only do between 6am and 10am because of the unrelenting heat and humidity
On 11 January the team returns. Except the tiler. No prizes for guessing why.
The builder’s mother in law gave her family 10 days on the Gold Coast for Christmas. To be taken mid-January. Predictably he returned with Covid. Another week off.
But the house is taking shape
And on January 21 the pool is dug
And before we know it, it’s full
The following Monday they pump the uninvited water out and the next day they deliver the real pool
But, hang on. That’s too low. Who measured wrong? Never mind. Let’s just get the crane back tomorrow and take it out again
Mollie briefly gets a pool while they correct things
Back again
That’s better
Builder Tim returns to work looking terrible and says he has never been so sick in his life. Covid hit him really badly. But he slowly gets back into the swing.
The house we are renting is on the market. Removalists booked for 8 April.
The kitchen is almost in.
Inside will be finished by the end of the month, but we have a weather event. It’s not Lismore, but it’s wet and has been for 2 weeks
Fortunately the painter can continue to work inside.
The builders can’t do any more inside until the painting is finished. They can’t work outside because of the weather. We can’t move in until outside is finished. And because I insisted on a completely level house there is a lot of hard landscaping (aka shoving soil and road base around) to do to bring the ground up to house level. Who knows when that can happen?
Kevin would love this. We are over budget, behind schedule and there’s a major weather event.
Could it get any worse? Yes, of course it could. We could be in the Ukraine.
The more observant amongst you may have noticed that I haven’t posted for a while. Partly to do with Covid, and how it has slowed everything down, including supplies. Partly to do with me having a shoulder which has prevented me from typing for a while. But, that’s another story. Related to a fall I had back in the early noughties, on a dark and stormy night at Quamby when we still ran a B&B, and the guests were late and as they were bringing a dog with them we went out with our dogs when we heard their car. My dog pulled hard on her lead, I slipped in the mud and went under the car wheels. Fortunately the car was stationery at the time but the driver thought he had run over me. In order to relieve his anxiety, I got up straight away and put on a brave face, which is infinitely more attractive than my usual face. But I knew immediately that I had injured my knee, and indeed I had torn the meniscus. A bit of day surgery helped but not for long enough and in 2012 I had a total knee replacement. Which failed. I had a revision in 2014. Which failed. I had another revision in 2016. Which was not fully successful. It’s me. Not the surgeon. He is the best knee surgeon in Australia. I know that because he told me so. It seems my body only likes 24 carat gold, which they don’t use for prostheses, even though they charge for it. By now, my balance was completely compromised, even before the ingestion of any shiraz. And just to prove it I fell in a caravan park in Swan Hill in 2018 and broke both my ankles. Ankles are now pretty much repaired and 18 months of Pilates has helped the balance somewhat. But not enough. In October last I fell at home. It seems I might have tripped on a piece of cotton on the floor. Certainly nothing as challenging as a matchstick. It was morning time, so please don’t question my sobriety. Anyway, I tore the rotator cuff – a massive tear they call it. “You’ll need surgery” they said. I refused. I’ve had enough. I refused for 9 months. Eventually it was evident they were right and I was wrong. That is not a position I am generally accustomed to. After auditioning three orthopods, all of whom agreed that the rotator cuff was irreparable and a total replacement was the go, I chose a nice young man who has a PhD as well as an MBBS. I was impressed by that, especially as his doctorate had something to do with shoulders. Anyway, just over three weeks ago he gave me a total reverse shoulder replacement with associated bone grafts. Now I’m completely magnetic, but only on the right side and I’m not talking politics. But, as I say, that’s another story.
I am in a sling as I type. The speed typing has slowed for a while. So has blogging. So has building.
The last reported the frame going up. We have made progress.
Finally we took delivery of enough framing timber
The wind is forecast to come up, so just to be sure the house is tied down
Any of you who were in Hong Kong with me in the early 80s with the STC’s CHICAGO might be reminded of the steel set being welded to coat hangers on the back wall of the theatre. This is about as sturdy
The frames survived the winds and the LVLs (builder speak for roofing beams) which were manufactured in WA since they are usually imported, made their way across the Nullarbor.
These are heavy beggars, so we asked our wonderful neighbour, Mollie, if we might access the rear of our block through her back garden. It’s not really a garden, just lawn. Mollie agreed so the track was laid
And the LVLs arrived and were installed
All supervised by our very compliant builder
However the truck dug up the lawn to an embarrassing extent
Given the state of the track, the decision was made to reinforce the access.
First it’s dug out a bit
Then the Geotech cloth laid
Then the gravel laid
Cripes. We’ve got Highway 23 (we are 23 Albert St)
Mollie is a treasure. We take her a bottle of wine (she likes red) and a bucket full of apologies. She appears to be sanguine about it, even suggested she might install a toll gate. Mollie says she is just happy to have good neighbours. If only she knew. We will, of course, make good at the end of the build. But that’s a way away yet.
The next step is the steel posts and beams. Is that a truck I spy, hurtling up Highway 23?
The steel posts are craned off
And all steel posts installed in a day.
Are we a pair of nuts?
The next day a bigger crane comes with the steel beams
And it fits
As do they all
Ooh look, there’s Woodhill
It’s a seriously exciting roof line. It will make sense to you when you see the house.
For now all the beams are in and we await a roof. We’ve been awaiting a roof for a week.
The past two weeks have been amongst the most frustrating for 2Cs Building UnLtd. That magnificent slab was poured, and the last blog reported that the team would return to the site, full time, on 15 June. Well, what happened? Nothing, that’s what. Not a builder, nor an apprentice, to be seen.
Once, a bricklayer visited and erected the block walls behind Cherrie’s garden shed.
And, another day the pest man came and laid the termite barrier, cunningly avoiding the windows and doors which were delivered weeks ago. On schedule.
Apparently termites don’t like green.
In fairness to the builder, uncharacteristic I know, there is a serious shortage of timber due to last year’s catastrophic fires. So many of the State Forests were burnt out and those that weren’t are largely inaccessible due to fire damage. And it’s the pine from the State Forests that provides the framing timber. Our builder had originally planned for the frames to be built off site but such is the timber shortage that the frame builder has closed his doors and laid off his staff, 12 of them. So our team is now scraping together as many sticks as possible. At a pace resembling a disabled snail, the frames are constructed on site. Occasionally.
Lazy frames that they are.
The site supervisor is unimpressed
Our usually calm and tranquil demeanour (yes, even hers) boiled over on Monday and very gently we read the riot act to our builder. Success.
Ah, the wonder of it all
We assume these frames are for the kids room
So nice to see it taking shape. Here is a view of the swimming pool
On a less exciting note, there doesn’t seem to be enough timber on site to finish the framing. What would Kevin say?
Juanita Nielsen was a journalist and a very public activist against the development of Victoria Street in Kings Cross, where she lived. In 1975 she mysteriously disappeared. Sydney gangster Abe Saffron was implicated in her disappearance and supposed murder. Her body has never been found, and there are many theories as to her final resting place. One is that she is buried under one of the runways at Sydney airport.
It has since been categorically proven beyond all reasonable, or unreasonable, doubt that she is NOT buried under any concrete at 23 Albert Street Berry.
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