Tales From the Box

BRDAY + 20

If the neighbours were slightly confused with the banging and general wash of noise echoing from our property, this morning they were left in no doubts as to the happenings in and around The Box.

Monday saw some 10 different tradies on site doing everything from bathroom work, demo, framing, pouring concrete, rewiring power, plumbing both inside and outside the house. Thus all adjacent roads and footpaths became a parking lot in the middle of the day.

At the end of the day – all one could do was marvel at how far things had come in such a short period…and how much mess had been created in the process.

Today we introduce the two builders who have been reveling in the creation and destruction of our renovation. Bryan and Chris have been on site over the past fortnight smashing up slabs and putting up frames. As well as being a couple of great blokes, they enjoy the odd (see daily) Mc Donalds meal and a game of cricket with any and all implements from around the building site.

We at Tales from the Box salute you!

BRDAY+18

Foundations are important. They help us remain steady and upright. The back slab – the one with all of the attention last week – has some problems. Nothing dramatic – however the slushing of the concrete has yet to occur as the aforementioned slab needs to be further strengthened with some increased metal and a bit more concrete than we had thought. Poor Brian (thats Brian with a i not a y) spent half a day on Monday cutting and inserting metal bars and generally making the whole slab area ready for concrete – but due to the friendly advice from the engineer which wasn’t confident of the load bearing capabilities of the old exterior concrete brickwork.

So the whole area was dug out, brick wall removed, doubling of metal bars and tying in of the bathroom, kitchen and lounge slab pieces.

Over the next few days we should see some big changes, namely to the side walls and to the various plumbing /electrical works around the house.

BRDAY+13

We have walls! Or at least the faint wooden outlines of them. Yesterday and today, the framework for our downstairs external walls was erected. We now have a somewhat faint outline in which to start imagining our two story box (i know – two storeys is hard to get used to – ‘box on stilts‘ has a certain mountain panache).

The walls have been masterfully incorporated into the overall structure of the our existing house on stills – with special care being paid to the metal posts holding the house up. The builders (namely Bryan) is weaving the walls under beams – between bearers, around where the windows have been planned. Its just a mass of wood of the moment – but to us forms the skeletal foundation of The Box.

Plumbers/electricians will be here tomorrow for whats known in Lower Blue Mountains circles as The Great Untangling (other wise known in far off Nordic countries as the Erinomainen Emission Messias or Den Stor Mot Messina).

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If one engages with me in conversation, I can be heard describing our humble abode as a as a box on stilts (because….you know…it is!). Quite simply its a 1950’s beach house 70km from the beach (go figure…). Anyway today was a significant day – alas BRDay+7 did not feature the quiet hum of cement pouring, but more so the humble loss of one (of many) stilts. Our SE corner stilt has been replaced by a noggin support and stud wall. I assumed (in my ignorance and inept knowledge of building practices) that Ben the Builder (i.e. our builder) would build stud walls around these iron pillars. Alas I was wrong – apparently we will see the end to the metal pillars and a return to pine (so easily eaten by local termites).

Tomorrow looks more likely for cement action. The form work has been put up for the lounge slab and for the kitchen raised slab area (more about this to follow later).

BRDay+6
Our well made plans have taken into account some of the drainage issues associated with extending underneath your house. On the plans, we had a trench running across the ‘driveway’ to stop water running down the driveway and against the foundations. However the whole area underneath the current front deck poses an issue – not from the average rainfall (which has been far from average of late), but from the ripper summer storms that oft fly through (of which i am somewhat of a fan). So the decision was that a drain needs to be situated right along the front of the house, adjacent to the proposed wall.

A costly but necessary move – and while we are on costly – the plumber has informed us of our water works woes. Currently the water actually comes into the house via the laundry under the slab. While that might sound perfectly normal – the killer punch is our pipes are made from galvanized iron which are about to return to the earth (i.e. rust into the mud) which would then leak into the house. If we leave them like this, the cost to rip up the pipes with the water entry point coming in from the laundry would be huge post renovation. So we have bit the bullet and will have all out waterworks replumbed so that the water entry point is adjacent to our hot water system, directly behind where our sink will be.

However – its more cost to an already over budget project. Awesome…!

So tomorrow (BRDay+7) is Concrete Wednesday – a day for fun and frivolity as the gentle slush of liquid stone gently floods the two areas we are getting re concreted – super!!