Sooooo – our floors could get laid over the top of that weird waterproofing membraney stuff:

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

But it was obviously better to get some waterproofing layer that did the job properly (you can see the nice shiny smoothness in the background):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sooooo - 4 and a half rooms all lovely wood floors to look at and love J in the first week.  Half a room…mmm, the jarrah floorboards we picked up (from the Salvage yard even though they are brand new – seconds, that is) had some character and we knew we would be lucky to get away with the tight square metreage amount that was available.  We took all the 72m² available at the salvage yard - for the 68 m² flooring we needed – so only 4m² to ‘play with’ and we ended up about 5m² short now.  We were so lucky to find enough locally to finish off, and Michael got to install them too (I helped a little, it was hard work!)

Soooooo – 39mm of rain one night last week – plenty to water in the septic tanks and leach drains - again – but dang, one of the septic tanks developed a lean – so it needed to be levelled out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So much work that doesn’t really seem to be a step forward!  Oh well, there *is* always good isn’t there?  Our lovely neighbour, Terry, leant us his brand new sump pump and Michael was able to rig up the block and tackle on some planks suspended across from the tractor to the far bank, and he managed to get it all straightened back up again, after 3 days of work.... but yay! 

And Michael had already had the leach drain all beautifully levelled too:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And had got onto the pick to take out some more of the clay wall so they could sit in a straight row:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 But we still had to call in the big digger – again (this is Jo, our neighbour's, dad):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The leach drains were about 1m too short (only because we changed over to the plastic ones and you need 14.7m compared to 12 m for concrete) – we knew we were close – and even though Michael is certainly no stranger to hard, digging work, there was no way he could dig through another metre of mud and rock hard gravel.

Best news though – Kent, the plumber could come back yesterday, so all the plumbing is connected and the shire will do their inspection on Friday morning so we can get this all buried and stop the pits flooding!  We sure will be happy with that!!!

Sooooo – still plenty of rainy days lately and still very high humidity in the house.  The doors were being kept open of course as wood flooring got cut etc – but Desmond has Kenny to help now – so the humidity drops right down to ~55% overnight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope that is enough to encourage the lice to live outside instead!!  With a life cycle of 21 days we need to keep the humidity down for about 3 weeks to see if they really are dying off – it’s a lesson in patience for me :-/!  It does look like there are much, much fewer bodies on the tiles over the last couple of days – but I am needing to see zero to believe they are gone!

More framing completed inside – nearly all done now and it is lovely to really be able to walk through our home – hallways and all.

I was away a couple of days this week retrieving the eldest from school, and spent some time at Homebase checking out bits and pieces.  It was time well spent to confirm and narrow down some of my choices for internal finishes – yay!

Yesterday, the guys worked on getting some of the ply up that will be our northern internal wall finish.

 











That is our loungroom window on the left (window seat height) and our kitchen door and window to the right.  I always thought we would paint it (and probably still will) but it sure does look pretty in this pink, don’t you think? 

And as you might notice, that dang ceiling still leaks ;-) – so we are having a rain day today.  Next Monday we will go pick up our bush poles and the adventure of building the verandah will start for those who need to make them fit! 

(Oh, and if you can read through the lines, you will know that I have succeeded in being very patient – the first estimate for bush poles was over a week ago – and I only stressed a tiny bit.  There was plenty of other work to be getting on with though, wasn’t there?)

When it rains, it ponds!

Wally is not happy with the pools of water that have formed from the overflow of our spoon drain to the north (uphill) – so tomorrow he will lengthen the spoon drain to get the flow around the outside of the house pad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 One more day of earthworks and we should be all done J. 

Next steps – engineer compaction test and house plan set-out so we can – guess! – you’ll never guess!! – dig holes – (for footings, plumbing, electrics) – yay, more digging!!! 

Might even add another spoon drain or two - or some ag pipe along the north eh?