Week 12, day fifty-five

Monday, 11 April 2011

Winter has arrived, halfway through autumn – the air has a touch of snow about it, like it's falling somewhere not too far away, if not here. So the fire is on 24/7 and I sit at my desk in jumper, scarf, beanie and uggies, day or night. I love this old house, but I really can't wait to crank that underfloor heating...

Meanwhile, up on The Block, Toby hammers together the last sections of framing in a singlet. Have I mentioned they breed 'em tough up here? I felt like a complete wuss in my woolies as the kids and I delivered a container of sweet treats leftover from a nanna visit on the weekend. He glanced skywards as if wondering whether he might need to don a t-shirt soon when I mentioned his remarkable state of undress, but didn't seem too convinced.

Lounge room from NW corner

So the lounge room framing was pretty much finished today, the only problematic part (that I heard about, anyway) being the high, western raked windows, that needed to be made a bit smaller to fit the wall width. Luckily Warwick had anticipated that this would be the case, depending on how all the other sections ended up, so David the Window Man had been told not to start on these until they were framed up. Whew.

Dining and lounge windows

Amazing to walk through the whole skeleton of house now and get a real sense of how it all fits together – makes me appreciate Charlie's vision all over again and be utterly grateful that he has got us to this point. Can't wait to see some handcrafted windows filling these holes...

Skeleton from street

Next they brace and bolt the frame, then the roof goes on. With a bit (lot?) of luck the roofing panels might arrive before everyone toddles off for Easter. Starting to think about landscaping the now-safe back corner and getting a couple of apple and apricot trees in before it's too late, but that would involve going outside, I guess, and my bear tendencies have officially kicked in...