Deck the halls with hardwood timbers...fah la la la la....la la la la

The picture below is how the front of the house currently looks with the gable over the garage and the crappy rusty roof that drastically needs replacing...I think it's going to disappear each time we get windy weather.
Some of the piles of materials (wrapped in white plastic in the photo) have now been used which is a plus. In the picture is my lovely blue holden astra.

Well, the picture below is from last weekend so is old already as things have moved on again since then. However, you can see the new deck bearers and joists.....this week they have put on the decking boards and also took out the windows on the right hand side and the louvres ready to extend the back (the new kitchen and toilet). The roof trusses for over the LHS of the deck are also now at the back of the house ready to go up.


On a personal front, since I last blogged I've had a few things happen:

1. my 36th birthday - celebrated on the day with my lovely friend Sal and her family (as my mum skived off on a trip to Tasmania) and then the subsequent weekend with several girlfriends for a night-in of photos (Adilia's trip OS) as well as some Owen Wilson DVDs on the big screen ......we watched Starskey and Hutch and the Wedding Crashers. Was a fun evening of party food, great company and laughs and losing track of time....I was home well after 2am.

2. a move up to a temporary acting position at work at a higher level which will be advertised after my 3 months 'acting'......will at least give me a good feel for the job and whether I'd like to apply for it permanently.

3. major problem with my lower limbs and feet.....I've got bad shin splints (inflammation of the insertion of muscles onto the bones in my lower leg) and plantar fasciatis (inflammation of the connective tissue of the soles of your feet). The feet are bloody painful - several different types of pain and basically all the time. The intense pain (which happens more often than the dull aching type) really gets me down as it feels like the stinging of a local anaesthetic injection, and it can go on for hours.....not good especially when I get up in the morning and for several hours after I get into work or after I walk for any period longer than 5 minutes.

Basically the solution for my feet and lower leg is to do no walking.....which is a nightmare for me as i normally walk my dog Gemma for 1h every morning and then walk a 1/2h each way to/from work. I've cut back her walk to 20-30minutes and I've had to resort to catching the bus (yuck). The other part to the solution is to completely change my walking gait and 'style'. This is the hard one as I'm having to retrain my brain and my neural networks. Very slow going. I suspect i stuffed up my ankle joints from the massive amount of high level netball I played through my 20s...and I'm paying for it now (as well as with a knee reconstruction a few years ago). My physio said that if I get an addition 10 degrees of movement in my ankle joints after 6months of treatment and exercises, I'll be lucky. Something to look forward to :o)

Hmmm, forgot some renovation things.....

Since I last blogged, I have been busy gutting the kitchen - the finished 'product' is in the photo below - ready for cleaning and no more gapping. Despite being some hard yakka - it was really fun and cathartic.....enjoyed using my chisel and hammer. On a bummer - I did put a hole in my aesbestos ceiling so will have to do a bit of a patch on that one... bugger.

Today I started to gut the bathroom but the glued-on lino-type tiles (from god knows when) will be a MAJOR challenge to get off one by one. Very sticky, crumbly and flexible.

I managed to damage my nail bed of my thumb today and also some skin from a few knuckles is missing as the result of falling-timber-with-exposed-rusty-nails exfoliation special......I'm so so thinking I need to get a tetanus injection. I'll take some more photos tomorrow.

My renovation job for tomorrow is to borrow my friends ute and do numerous trips to the tip. I'm going to finish gutting the bathroom as well as try and rip up as much of the carpet i can from inside to take to the tip. If I get time, i'm also going to take out a load or two of green waste and try and remove the tree that is near my new sewerage pipes in the back right of my yard. Just a few things to keep me out of mischief!

must go to bed since I have to do a mammoth amount of work tomorrow and I need my beauty sleep. I hope I get it all done...I tend to be a little ambitious with expectations of time. One thing is guaranteed, I'll be completely stuffed by the end of the day.

Was 30oC in Brisvegas today and same is predicted for tomorrow....hot for the end of September....looking towards a stinking hot summer!

Wish I could afford to put air conditioning in the house and a plunge pool.....that would be bliss!

Rain + Pneumonia + More Rain = More Delays

Yes, Yes, I know, I know, it's been a while since I've blogged.

I have been working on the renovation - removing the old hessian wallpaper off my walls in the 'soon to be' stairwell - this also involved removing the dowel in the corners and then sanding the dowel and the walls down and then nailing the dowel back in.......was slow work.....not to mention the amount of cockroach droppings that fell out from behind the cornices when I removed the hessian.....very yuck. Looks good now.

All the old wallpaper is gone now in the 'soon-to-be' stairwell - walls are sanded back and cleaned - ready for no-more-gapping. Yes, guess what was under the hessian wallpaper.........more VJs!\
I also have to start to sand the archway overlooking the stairwell...... it's darkened varnish that has to be stripped back and redone as a feature.

Oh, I also removed the old lino in the house.....all gone now, very dusty and very stiff. I managed to save quite a few of the old 1940-1950s newspapers that were under the lino layers.

Now, you may be curious about the title of this blog so I'll fill you in...

Well, despite Brisbane heading into stage 4 water restrictions in a few weeks (aka no watering unless you're under attack by a life and death bush fire at close range) we've had rain in SE Qld. Not enough to create any decent run off for our catchment areas.....but enough to make a big boggy mess at my house.

Anyway, this means that, despite the structure timber being delivered about a month ago, the builders have only managed to place one beam for the extension upstairs (including the back deck and larger kitchen) before tools down. The beams are too heavy to carry and need a bobcat to lift them and the rain has made it too boggy for the bobcat to work....so another week delay.

The rain and mud also means that I destroyed a pair of ASICS sandshoes over the weekend while I was bailing water out of the cemented post holes and onto my sickly looking plants.

So that explains the first 'rain' in the title....here's the rest of the equation:

My builder works as a primary team of two with his son. As I've mentioned in the past, they've had another job they've been working on in Coorparoo.......as it is at lockup and inside, with the rain they finished this job off....however, it also finished off my builder's son - the dust that is - he was admitted to hospital last sunday night with pneumonia - think the dust etc flared up the asthma which lead to the pneumonia. Got a phone call last monday from the builder and haven't heard from him since. So, about a month delay, all in all. Going to have to give them a call to get the wriggle on again or, at this rate, I won't be in before Christmas!

Anyway, I thought they'd be back this week to restart the extension......but more rain over the weekend and all day yesterday (monday).....still no one on site today.

As for me, I came down with a cold on Sunday night so feel a bit crap - coughing, sneezing and sniffling and my eyes are watering like crazy.....think it's off to bed for me now as I can't see the computer screen properly.

I'll have to tell the story of my shin splints and planter fasciatis and my need for a new walking gait at another time :o)