Week 13, day sixty-three

Thursday, 21 April 2011

First panels going on

Fine people, you ain't gonna believe the difference since I last posted. In less than two days, (one and a half, really, since the first panel went on) we have an almost complete coverage of roof, insulation and ceiling – it's an easter miracle, praise the lord!

That's a lounge room done, sunshine!

After a bit of anxious pacing (by me) while other little jobs were being finished (by the fellas), by late morning on Wednesday the first roofing panel was finally hoisted into place by our team of four. Mat's mum and dad were coming up for lunch, so they arrived in time for a site visit and inspection of a fully roofed lounge room at about 1pm. Bryan (a former builder and roofer) seemed suitably impressed by house, site and roof, thank goodness, and no squeaks were heard from him as the boys tolerated the annoying clients tromping around with visitors for the second time that week. I'm sure there's a clause in the contract about this kinda stuff....

By the end of Wednesday, some of the very long (130kg) sections had been somehow hauled into place over the dining room and bathroom sections as well – and if I must be drawn on the subject, they look bloody awesome!

Dining room roofed, and the adjoining posts for the terrace (lovely work, Ivan)

Some of the scaffolding required for the really big panels

End of first roofing day: lounge, dining and bathroom covered

Once the boys got the hang of things, they cracked on like nobody's business today – by lunchtime, all the bedrooms were roofed and they were moving onto the trickier kitchen areas.

Bedrooms done

From the entrance looking down to bedrooms

Lovely little overlap...

Charlie, if you're out there somewhere, we LOVE it! It is just SO exciting to see this part come together, and so quickly. We can really visualise how it's going to feel to be in this house, and how generous and lovely the spaces are, despite the whole only being 140 square metres.

Terrace roof adjoins main house in a very gorgeous way

Speeding off to drop Rosie to the movies at 3pm (Diary of a Wimpy Kid II, for those who need to know), I saw Ivan packing up for the day and stopped to pass on my spluttering excitement. He said it had all gone a bit faster than they thought and they only had about two more panels still to go onto the main house – 'but I'm a bit sore'. And Ivan's not a small man, poor guys. Hope the Easter Bunny rewards you as you all deserve!