Persistent Possum Poses Problems

I have been a tad distracted by socialising this weekend so did not get a lot done on the house.....however....I have a theory that this is related to my procrastination gene rather than my need for social contact. The upside of this limited reno work....I did buy some gorgeous shoes (and earrings) at my friend Cryssi's bling party....

aren't they cute!!!

I nearly finished no-more-gapping the old study/soon-to-be stairwell today. For once, I get to blame this lack of completion on the equipment! I was trying really hard to squeeze the final bit of no-more-gaps out of the tube (so i could finish the room without opening a new tube) when the damn caulking gun broke! what bad timing!

As my blog title says, my resident male possum is back.....those pesky changes to the house each day and scaffolding challenges pose no barrier to him.....he's definately persistent....this will lead to problems when putting the ceiling over the deck (which is why he is getting back in)....will be interesting to see how the builder catches him!

As for the mum and bub possums who had 2 nights respite at our place last week (while the new roof went on) ....they were crummy house guests!!! They were quiet BUT ate us out of house and home.....they had us running around the neighbourhood collecting shoots and flowers to wet their appetites....along with this native food, they were eating one small apple, a big chunk of carrot, some avocado, a pear and around 10 grapes at night + more pear and grapes whilst siesta-ing during the day. Here's a picture of mum and bub just before their release back into their neighbourhood.....it's not a good photo as they were itching to get out of their place of captivity so wouldn't stay still (bub is on mum's back - you can see his face below the black handle).

let me out!!

New roof went on this week (light grey colour, gutters/roll are dark grey as per the trims on the rest of the house)...........it took 2 days in total..... here are before and after pics for comparison.......

the new roof looks white with the sun's reflection -

but basically it is the same colour as the road surface in photo

I nearly had a heart attack when I got up on the roof to have a look (actually to track the male possum's entry and exit route)......my instant reaction was to think they'd done a crap job and put 3 different colours of roofing iron up.....then I breathed....re-engaged my brain and realised that it was to do with the angle of the sun and sheeting alignment....here's a photo I took once I calmed down.... so you can commiserate with my initial reaction.....

see...I'm not THAT much of a nutbag...yet!

And finally, here's the latest photos of the back of the house with the new roof and they've started to do the gable in now (including painting). As you can see, the roof is also in place over the new kitchen area but the kitchen flooring and also the walls are not yet done (you can see the blue framing for the kitchen in the second photo).

You won't hear from me on the blog for another week and a half as I'm away in Melbourne for 6 days starting friday.....primarily conferencing but hope to catch up with some friends as well....

Panic Stations

The speed of my renovation has now picked up and I'm starting to feel completely out of control.........yes yes yes, I'm panicking and feel like I can't breathe.....

too much to do, not enough time!

I took some photos yesterday, so rather than bore you with my long rantings and ravings (I'm sure most people who visit my blog do so for the pictures rather than than the rest...), I'm going to post the photos and THEN do a dot point summary of my weekend activities for those that are interested.

Photo time!

Photo 1: back of the house, deck on. See 30 September blog for the comparison photo. The back end of the house (upstairs, RHS) has gone. safety scaffolding has been placed on the edge of the roof trusses over the deck (and the rest of the house - which you can't see).

Photo 2: close up view of the new roof line over the back deck. This was a skillion (sorry spelling) roof before and is now a gabled roof....I think I now have enough gables on my house to call it an 'ashgrovian' (think this needs six at a minimum). The window hoods will be removed and relocated shortly.

Photo 3: I am standing in the old kitchen area looking out into my soon-to-be new kitchen (where the exposed bearers are) and the short part of the inverted L-shaped deck (you can see the hard wood decking boards). The bits of timber in the way of the 'view' include temporary support beams and a panel of several VJs (widest bit) which will be removed once they've put in a support beam above. You can see my next-door-neighbour's red tile roof and the trees in neighbouring yards out the back.

Photo 4: Standing on the new deck looking back towards where I was standing taking Photo 3. The kitchen will take up the whole area of the exposed bearers except on the far RHS will be a toilet backing onto the kitchen) and an area for where the external stairs will enter the house.

and, final photo......

Photo 5: the 6m x 6m part of the L-shaped back deck. where the temporary sheeting (covering the bearers) joins the deck is where the bi-fold door is going.

Weekend work update:

• carpet grippers, more carpet grippers and staples + dust, dirt, cockroach droppings and moth poo....this is what I removed this weekend. carpet grippers are those pesky plywood strips that are tacked onto the floorboards with the smaller tacks poking up to 'grip' the carpet laid over the top.
• Of course, this job took a long time as, instead of coming out in one go, the bloody things splintered when pulling them up so I basically had to do the staples, then the carpet grippers, then the tacks still in the floor, then remove all the dirt and other crap.
• This happened, despite various attempts to alter my technique as well as my tools.
• The only floorboards I didn't finish doing were along one wall in the lounge room.
• Hmm, this is not technically correct. As the back of my house has disappeared, I couldn't access the dining space. However, these floor boards are being removed so I don't really have to remove the crap from them EXCEPT I may need to reuse the boards in some patch-up jobs.
• I started to remove the lino tiles in the bathroom, but only as a break from the rest as my back was killing me! It's all relative as this killed my back also...I have to remove the tiles off the floor one-by-one with a chisel and hammer.

my bifold window (kitchen), bifold doors (deck upstairs and also downstairs) and my FABULOUS front door arrive tomorrow. I'll take a photo of the front door as it was my big splurge!

Have a great week peoples. I'm going to enjoy listening to the music vibes I purchased in a moment of weakness (I know, I know....I'm broke from renovating.....but they were on sale and it was just after my birthday!)... I purchased the following CDs (so you can critique my music choice!):

Ben Lee (Awake is the New Sleep)

Little Birdy (Big Big Love)

Gorillaz (Demon Days)

KissChasy (United Paper People)

Augie March (Moo, You Bloody Choir)...........these guys are awesome live....i saw them in a divey bar in canberra about 10 years ago......they are only starting to get air play and are now being tagged the 'new' thing....

ps. I have 3 possums in my ceiling rather than 1 - a mum and bub and another possum. god knows how they are going to get them out of the roof space as they're in a place we we can't reach them. I'm delivering another cat carry box to the builder tomorrow.

Possum Magic - the tale of the Pissed-Off Possum

Forgot to take my camera up to the house so no photos as yet (don't worry......mum's already given me a hard time over this).

Just in the last day, the roof has been taken off the back half of the house and they have put all the gables over the 6x6m back deck (see last posting for the 'pre' photo).

The current resident possum was sleeping over the front of the house this morning (above the ceiling in the roof cavity).....so was disturbed a little by the roof coming off out the back....but not enough to move out.

actually this possum could be called the most persistent of possums as I had 3 living 'upstairs'...... the other 2 moved out when the house was raised (they moved into 2 possum boxes I put up in my mango tree out the back)

This arvo, I took a cat carry box (and numerous towels) up to the house as a back up...in case the builder et al may have to 'move him/her out' when the front of the roof goes. They can catch the possum (which can be a little difficult), put it in the carry box in a cool quiet spot for the day and then I can release it at night time.....this saves the poor thing running out of the roof in the middle of the day and getting pecked to death by birds, especially those packs of noisy minors (non-native vicious birds that most Qlders hate).

Don't worry, about a month ago I put a 3rd possum box in the mango tree so, unless another possum has already moved in, the possum should have a safe place to sleep in future.

My roofer (at a family 21st b'day party recently) said to me that things really move along when the roof goes on............well, the roof starts going on this week so very exciting!

Won't blog again this week as I have a busy few days ahead of me before my work 'swap' to the new 'acting' higher level job on Monday.

This weekend I'm going to start to remove the carpet staples from the floor boards and pull up all the carpet stays (they are so old that they are crumbling when i remove them so have to take the tacks that are left behind out one-by-one) I also should try to finish gutting the bathroom, including pulling up those crappy sticky lino-type tiles.

If time (I'm dreaming), then I have another job planned. Guess what?...not a hard one.... no-more-gapping! Another job I have to start is to punch in the nails in the floor boards and putty the holes - will have to talk to the floor sander first re putty colour to use.