22/11/2004 - Well, today was the day that the front door and entrance windows were removed, the ensuite walls were put in and the floor was leveled.
As you can see below, the front door and window which did make up the two outside walls of our original entranceway are now gone and have been framed up ready for the weatherboards which should arrive on Wednesday.

Amanda made another trip to Tile New Zealand and picked up some new tiles, including some really nice ones for around the bath and to border the vanity units.
We've ordered the kauri for the new areas of flooring, there's a tiler coming around tomorrow night and the hot water storage unit is scheduled for installation on Wednesday.
With the hotwater unit on it's way, it meant that we had to get the wall outside the boys room stripped and painted in just 2 days, and the weather reports weren't looking too good either! I came home at lunch to dig out the heat guns, tungsten scrapers and a couple of masks for Amanda and, with the knowledge of how much fun I didn't have when stripping the other 3 faces of the house, I left her to it and headed back to work. She went great guns for the afternoon as you can see from the first pic below and, after we'd got the boys in bed, we both went out and continued scraping until it got dark, late and we started worrying about if the neighbors were going to start throwing things at us to make us shut up! :) There were only a few boards left at the end of that session which Amanda was to attack the next morning before giving things a quick sanding, a priming and then the top coats...

Our sparky Gerald was due to turn up to walk through the electrical plan but unfortunately had a family emergency meant he needed to defer until the next day (which worked well in hindsight, as it allowed more focus on the paint stripping!).

23/11/2004 - The office wall was framed up today and we determined the spaces needed for the cupboard which will contain the server rack (and the back end of the central heating air intake). I ordered two 3m³ Skips from Albany Bin Hire - one for general waste (like the Gib and wood off-cuts and stuff) and the other for the rubble from the chimney demolition (tomorrow!). They should arrive sometime in the morning after the rush-hour.
Amanda had to finish stripping the wall she started yesterday, sand and then paint.

Unfortunatly, the weather turned nasty in the afternoon and the first top coat got rained off. During the downpour, the BBQ we bought on the weekend to replace our cooking facilities while we demolish the kitchen and dining room arrived. While the delivery guys were waiting for the downpour to stop, we had a vigiorous discussion about the types of GIB to use, I'm a great fan of the NoiseLine product, not only for it's acoustic properties, but also for the density of the product, which lends itself to tough wearing (it's not too far off the durability of another GIB product, ToughLine). Fortunatly for the project budget, Amanda won me over and we've agreed to use 13mm NoiseLine and acoustic batts on the front exterior walls and standard 13mm GIB for internal walls. I hope my predictions of easily dented walls don't come to fruition, and on further reading, the thicker GIB (13mm vs the more common 10mm 'standard' product) is actually fairly durable.
The guy that dropped off the BBQ was a really enthusiastic chap and promised to come back and give us a demonstration of all the features and how to look after the unit. He restores BBQs for a job/hobby (haven't figured which yet) so he's offered to look at the old 3 burner 'Captain Cook' I bought from the BBQ Factory some 6-7 years ago. Anyway, I'll be back to drop in his details should he prove to be a worthy chap to use for future BBQ repairs and stuff.

Gerald made it around tonight and we discussed the job ahead and, from the sounds of things we may well be able to get everything sorted out BY THE WEEKEND! (BIG yay!!)

I'd also been assigned the fun job of removing the gate and post next to the house where the water heater was to go the next morning. Apparently, the regulations won't allow for any structures within 500mm of the unit once installed, so I was out in the rain and the dirt in the dark digging and sawing out the post after unbolting the gate </woeful violin music>
Anyway, after removing the post I came back inside and started organising all my tools which had been sitting in the front room so they could be put out the back in the space that Amanda had spent her night re-organising. Chimney guy arrives tomorrow, I gave him a call soon after the weather report on the news and he was still keen as to get around and make a start. (Turns out to have been a good call as the dodgy weather predicted for the next day never eventuated).

Here's the chimney before removal (note, my tools are still lying around, but hey - the photo was taken a week ago!)

24/11/2004 - Amanda is a legend, I'll go tell her this after I've updated the page as I'm sure I'm not expressing my gratitude to her enough for all the work she's doing to organise and co-ordinate the project. Anyway, today she decided that there was just too much going on to go to class so she stayed home, to oversee the chimney guy (I keep calling him this as I've forgotten his name, but, given the impressions of Brian and Amanda, I'd not be keen to recommend his services to anyone). He had no insurance, his work practices were very unsafe, and he made a bit of a mess of the roof, which you can see in the pics which I'll load in the next few days.

On the positive side, no one was killed, the only near fatality was our poor lemon tree (see the foreground of one of the brick shots) and Brian quickly threw some plywood in the ceiling near the chimney so any wayward bricks wouldn't kill my computers, and he kept a weather eye on the guys while they were here.
Amanda gets the 2 top coats of paint on in time for the hot water cylinder to be installed, managed to get out to Carters to pickup some gear for Brian and went to her job interview, and organised a paint stripper from i-strip that we'd seen at the Auckland Home Show - as I said at the top of this entry, she's been a real soldier and, I'm going to make more of an effort to ensure that she knows how appreciated her work is.
I had to drop home briefly at about 13:00 today to grab a PC for work, when I got home the last of the bricks were coming out from inside and their was a big hole in the floor where the chimney had been.

Since the weatherboards arrived kinda late today, Brian and Noa spent their time taking out the ceilings and putting in some nogs for fixing the GIB to. While the sides of the house still aren't on, they did get some nice carters building paper wrapped around them today - we're being blessed with mostly good weather (and long may it continue!) so there's no worries there, and - given that Brian has organised the council inspection for Saturday afternoon, the guys are going to swap Friday as a day off and come in on Saturday, spending tomorrow fixing the weatherboards.

This means that if the 50 sheets of GIB don't arrive tomorrow, then we'll have to rely on the large lads who will come with the truck from the factory to shift them on friday - either way, my evening was spent clearing out the garage to provide some space for 50 1200 x 3000 sheets of GIB. We sooo need more space here! :)
With the garage cleared, I came inside early to give myself a chance to catch up with the renovations diary and make a few changes to the wording from last weeks page. I'm still not feeling 100% and get my stitches out tomorrow, so hopefully the dentist can get me sorted as we've got a HUGE weekend ahead.

25/11/2004 - The weatherboards went up today around the ensuite and a HUGE delivery from Carters arrived which took awhile to unload and store away.

26/11/2004 - Brians day off evaporated today as they couldn't do the job they were planning to finish up, so they ended up rebuilding the floor where the fireplace was and getting the bracing for the beams around the chimney sorted out (dodgey former construction saw these not really able to bear the weight they should have). The downside to the bracing is that it's meant that the beams used to brace are sticking way up into the ceiling space which will make things 'interesting' to get up and over in the roof space once the ceiling panels are back on <shrug> ahh well, on with life :).

The council inspector turned up today too (he was due to arrive on the Saturday (tomorrow) but, none the less, I'm told that he's a thoroughly nice guy and he checked everything out and passed us.

27/11/2004 - Dad came up and helped dig a trench, the boys lent a hand (kinda) and Amanda did some weatherboard stripping & painting as we've recently been informed that not only should we use special nails with cedar weatherboards, we should also be pre-priming all 4 sides of them to with an acrylic based paint to stop the sap from leaking out over time and doing weird things to the paintwork.
Have a look at the size of our trench! 9 meters long, 300mm wide and, with a fall of 20mm per meter it ended up being over a 1.25 meters deep up the top end when it will go under the house! Kali wasn't too keen on our excavations in her yard, after all - she gets in trouble when she digs holes in the lawn! Blimmen human double standards...

After the ditch and weatherboards were done, we turned our attention to the pile of "stuff" behind the garage, again the boys lent a hand with this task and we're getting close to filling the two 3 meter skips that we'd ordered earlier this week. We certainly earnt our pizza tonight!

28/11/2004 - After such a full on day yesterday, we took the morning off and went into town for "Carters Kids Gone Fishing". A very well organised event so big thanks to Carters for putting on the show, thanks to Doug for inviting us along and thanks also to Graham Sinclair who was good enough to pose for a photo with the boys.

Unfortunately, we had too much to do in the afternoon to allow us the time to go to the Santa Parade in town so we took off to the Bark 'n Firewood Bin to pick up a meter of Gap 7 scoria for the trench. Unfortunately, all their trailers were out so we had to hire a 'mini-me' trailer from a close-by garage and we could only get half a meter on there, but figured it might be enough for the job. (It turns out is wasn't, see next weeks entry :) ). Anyway, we got back home (the boys fell asleep in the car on the way over the bridge from town) and I unloaded the trailer, then re-hooked it up and drove down the road a bit as Amanda needed to get out to do a spot of Christmas shopping, sort out the storage shed out in Albany and would also drop the trailer back on the way. Her first time driving my Surf, but since she used to own one herself, and the thing arrived back in one piece, I'm guessing all went well (no news is good news :) ).

While Amanda was out, the boys and I continued to remove the stuff from behind the garage, filling both the skips to their respective brims, and fortunately this included all the concrete so the next skip we get can be a general waste one which is cheaper (whew!).
After the skips were full, the boys and I took a very neglected Kali for a walk which was a nice break for all of us, and scoffed an ice block on the way back down the hill as a reward for our hard work.
I also had a bunch of data cabling to do in the office and, after Dinner, Amanda and I cracked into the Batts and completed two walls, I'll work on the balance tomorrow night while she's off at an Alpha meeting.