Tales From the Box

The box in 70′s goodness

After many a restart we have finally fixed this silly blog. All the links should be working and hey we have updated the front graphic. Here are some funky pics of the finished house.

You might have missed us and we have missed you. The Kookas have been
at us too – so in spite of extreme laziness here are some updates of
the box. For now – the Kookas rule!

Posted via email from dann’s posterous

Well after nearly a year of non updates, we are back here to share more tales. Though we haven’t blogged our tales, they still have happened. So over the next few weeks I will relay some the tales. We freshly painted the house mid year, but didn’t finish it completely until the week before Christmas where we finally moved into our bedroom (the room that was our living/kitchen) Anyway these pics highlight a few of our gatherings over the past few months.

While we were gone some things have happened around here.

The reasons for our lengthy absence are numerous and complicated. In part they can be blamed upon our somewhat incompetent hosting company(mt), and our somewhat incompetent author (me).

The good news is that due to our thoroughly caffeinated but brilliant sysadmin (myles) we are back resuming usual transmission.

We have had rain. Lots of rain. During May and June we had a series of east coast low pressure systems that dumped nigh on 250mms of rain. That rain filled our tanks good. SO much so that one Saturday morning in June, I awoke to what sounded like a bursting pipe. It was our tank overflowing for the first time (filled from nearly empty to full in a few days). The front lawn (i.e. patch) was flooded too.

We have in the interim done lots. Dodging the rain, I have oiled our new deck about 4 times. Though it has been a thankless job, my piece of advise has been to NOT oil your deck imediately. I started and and oil just sat on top. Going contrary to the directions, the best thing was to let the decking board (our choice was merbau) weather for a few weeks then oil away. The oil then is sucked right up and gives the wood a lovely red colour.

Care of my wonderful mother and brother we completed the downstairs painting. After the primer and then three coats of paint, we were over painting white surfaces, ceiling and all. Now we have our directions pointed to the outside of the house. For the record, we have painted Dulux Whisper White on the interior (low sheen for walls and enamel for skirting/door).

Yes – we are back – more on that later…..

One of the problems with a reno that isn’t discussed (publically at least) is the casualties that stack up for every day of the reno.

For us it started with the usual. Our blinds were broken when we took them off the wall. We broke three glasses packing away the kitchen (what can i say – the wife is clumsy…) and numerous things were damaged from the bucket loads of rain that fell when all of our stuff was sitting wrapped in tarp on our front deck.

Fast forward five months of reno. The wife and I are enjoying are first morning in our new house, and I, being the model husband, rise early to make the wife some breaky. The breakfast would include toast with a smattering of butter and a milky coffee, experted brewed by yours truly. I approached the machine, turned it on and….nothing. Again, turned it on….and nothing. The constant pressing of buttons did nothing to alleviate the situation…

Yes the coffee machine is dead….the reno claims another one…

Now its personal..

For slideshow -click on image

When we moved into The Box some 39 months ago, we were beset from would be vandals who decided that our newly purchase abode would be the best place to scribble their poorly spelled thoughts and feelings. So we purchased some rather crude lightning to light up underneath and around the house to stop this; and it worked. No graffiti or vandlism since.

Fastforward 35 months to renovation when the builders had to remove the lighting to continue the renovation. Almost as soon as it was down the odd little thing started happening (bottles in the front garden, graffiti on the neighbouring lightpole). So that made us think seriously about lights and lighting our house. Its something that isn’t always thought about when doing a reno but a considered lighting scheme can really lift the nightime appearance of a house. So we went for some funky lights at the front door (up and down lights 240v) and some regular downlights under the deck upstairs. The upstairs lights really lift the colorbond which we have added on the front facade and spill out to light up the front yeard quite nicely. However its still too dark to play night cricket. Maybe some flooodlights are in order….

For slideshow -click on image

We are definitely in the home straight of our renovation race. We are at BRDAY +113 and we have only a few days until we are shipped back home.

The deck is the last hurrah, the final act of our stupendous production. And now the decking boards have been layed and the final form of the deck has taken shape.

My brain has officially entered some sort of shutdown procedure so much so that I cannot operate on any creative level, which includes writing my usually witty disarming prose. The only creative thing is the title – but since technically there is no tale (apart from my mush-like-brain), its a failed blog post.

But here are some pretty pictures…

We realise that in our renovation we are doing things back to front. Most start with a bottom storey and work up. Not us! Filling in beneath out current abode has caused us a few headaches. Mostly issues about access to the top storey while they are installing stairs. But one of the trickier things was ceiling clearance. When examining potential flooring options for downstairs we always came back to the sticking point that nearly all flooring adds height. And when you have a low ceiling (like we do!) that is undesirable.

After a lovely wine tasting tour through the hunter valley we stopped at Tempus Two winery. They had very similar styling intentions to our own – and had polished concrete right through the place. So we thought that was a terrific idea and followed suit. However there are a few sticking points to polished concrete – its pricey. Not comparatively pricey but considering when they build you a new floor they actually bring wood, nails etc to build something. With concrete polishing they actually grind back the concrete and then polish it up. Now that isn’t earth shattering – but that process was almost dollar for dollar the same as getting a brand new wooden floor built.

We could have had a smooth coating over the current slab to hide the aggregate that is in all concrete – or they can just polish the current slab. We went for option two – it was slightly cheaper and had a bit more character – however this usually results in a patchier finish.

The polishing has been done but we still have some minor issues of finish (newer concrete sucks in the polish far more readily than older floors) but overall its a very cool looking finish.

It is a curious notion that when we dig a deep hole – we have come up with the colloquial description that it’s so deep that we are ‘..halfway to China’, when really if we were to bore a hole so deep that it could penetrate the core of the earth (and withstand the 7000 degree temps!) and come through the other side – from Australia – we would come out somewhere in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

Anyway – we have been digging giant holes recently – for our big deck which will be the final masterstroke of this renovation. In digging the holes we have found a couple things – and back to the headline; we hit China! Literally. An old porcelain toilet buried in the ground. We have also hit what appears to be sewer systems, old storm water pipes and grease traps/pits. It appears that there are a couple of sewer lines that don’t appear on any map – awesome!

You might be asking, Why o why is there metal in your glorious new deck?. Well, we have to. We love wood and all its woody glory – but that part of our house (i.e. the bush-facing bit) is classified as a level three fire zone, thus has restrictions on the use of timbers in building. We are allowed Merbau decking and hand rail but not much else. Hence the Duragal posts. You might also notice the completed cladding around the bifold windows. That means we are all cladded and, apart from one or two little edging things, are sealed in dry and cool.

Maybe a completed deck by this time next week?