More progress – yay!

I’ve taken some time off work – to spend with the kids during school holidays and work around the building site again.  It’s actually a bit scary how much I have enjoyed getting back into it…

I’ve had fun in the mud:

 

Because we have started the infilling – yep, building is still about digging holes and filling them back in again – and dang, this is a big hole!  And being on the end of a shovel is hard work!  And one should remember, one is of a certain age, where the joints protest the next day!   But it sure is a great step in the right direction J:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we had the young-un help us – he’s not scared of a spade, that is for sure J:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But before the digging, I tiled the laundry floor on Wednesday J - no not perfect, but I still loved the process. (Not quite sure Michael enjoyed the cutting - there were a few exclamations at tiles breaking where it wasn’t wanted!).  Most of the ‘character’ tiles will be hidden by cupboards so no prob in the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we lucked out and found the exact same wall tiles as we had bought for the bathroom, at the salvage yard yesterday, so we have enough to tile the wall behind the washing machine and trough, and a border (skirting) all around – and all for $30.  Gotta love that!

So, it has been a fortnight and a bit since I last wrote on this blog.  That’s not too bad – it included a trip to Perth for Mother’s day weekend, so we could be with the biggest girl – and a lovely time that was.

The rest of the time has been somewhat more difficult – and it got a lot more difficult for me with one thing and another, and there have been tears - I had a bit of a meltdown last Thursday and Friday L.

I therefore took some time over that weekend to examine how I was really feeling about the house – how the house was feeling to me – and if all my angst could go away.

Well of course all my angst can go away, that is just a matter of choice of reaction – so I needed to take the time over the weekend to examine my reaction and work out how to make it calmer. 

There is always a positive to angst though isn’t there?  There is always a lesson.

And the positive is that I have learned *a lot* about how your tiles might look different to what you had envisaged, different even than what you had planned when speaking about them – and that plenty of that comes down to circumstances and the decisions of others, way back in the build.  In the grand scheme of things, despite my massive feelings, I had to let the angst go.

But here’s the scoop – you might not be told otherwise! – it is perfectly normal for your tiles to have cupped edges and therefore never be able to be level when laid – I now know this from our building supervisor, our tiler and the tiling retailer.  Just wish they had told me before ‘seeing was believing’ L.  And I know now I would have (and you might be!) been better off planning the tile layout before the plumbing was installed – that way the potentials might pop up then when it is a bit easier to change plans…

Now before I got to the stage of letting go of my angst…(actually I am still getting there…) I got all in a tizz about so many things – big things, deep!! Like – what right did I have to get upset over tiles when everything else is so good?  What right did I have to get upset over tiles when there are people in my own ‘backyard’ who have so many bigger problems?  What right did I have when that is so a ‘first world’ problem?  What right did I have to even be building such a reasonably big, reasonably expensive house when there are people in the world starving and without any shelter at all?

Far out, I really did have to see if I could find a way to justify to myself why we are building this house at all – with such an investment of our time, energy and money – when perhaps we could/should have been putting all that into helping solve a world problem! 

So, is there an answer?  The only way I can justify it, is to remember why we are building in the first place.  We are building this home as a way to show our love for our family and for our world.  We are building to help the world be a better place by this home being around for a long time – for our children and our grandchildren and their children.  We are building this home to share it with visitors.  Does all this justify our time, effort and money?  It only does because I believe that to show love to people in the world, we first need to show love to those closest to us.  So, if we are building this 'environmentally friendly' home for our family, then it is a step to healing the world.  And that is just.

Too simplistic??  That would be too hard for me to decide…

And it wouldn’t matter anyway – this is my feeling and that’s ok by me.

I know that my going back to paid work full-time 5 weeks ago has led to a lot of these feelings for our home – I have lost my connection to it L.  Part of my feelings is grief - I had got to thinking I would always be part of building this house and that is no longer the case.   Who would have thought that going back to a job I absolutely love would have made such a difference?

I am, and I will continue, working hard to get the connection to our home back.

And Richard, I tried to be normal once – worst two minutes of my life ;-)!

So, this is today…and it started with a falling star in the east when I woke up at 4.45sm – that has got to be a good omen, eh?

Since this is mostly a building blog, I had better get some building photos on here too:

Our bath is bricked in, the floor screeded and tiling has progressed! 

 

So happy to see that, because as soon as we have grouted tiles in the kitchen area we are moving in our second-hand jarrah kitchen cupboards – and that will be a big relief, because it has been quite a lot of ferrying them around under the verandah to escape the few rain showers we have had so far - and they are just a tad massively heavy!

Can’t wait for them to be in J.

So, this might be mostly a building blog, but be warned - it will slowly turn into a gardening blog, because that will be our biggest ongoing adventure when we are actually living in sunny strawbales.

And you wouldn’t want to miss out on seeing Michael being a hamster, would you now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is how he moved our fifth water tank garden bed into place – worked quite well. 

Then I got on with painting it with the water-proofing gunk (still so much happier that it is ‘nicer’ than the smelly stuff we had first off) – and today we filled it quarter full with rubbish sand (just to save on how much good stuff we need to fit in), then a quarter of cardboard (we’ve been saving all our recycling paper and cardboard for over a year), then it had a good layer of straw (what else?!) with some chook poop, and now it is sitting for a bit until I get the urge to add a six-inch layer of Mumby Magic mixed with some good sand, another thin layer of straw(!), another layer of Magic and sand, and then….a good layer of straw to mulch the top!!

It sure does take quite a bit of stuff to fill them up – but the benefit to my back and knees will be well worth it – and it is good to use up some of what we have around the block.

We will still have too much straw (this is just the loose stuff!):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 but hey, the garden is young, so this won’t’ go astray in the next year or so.

And we actually need a sixth water tank garden bed – to complete the mandala – so if you know of one (about 6’ wide – that is 1.8m-ish), let us know please J.

And after the gardening, we painted – and still plenty more to go…only two walls in the whole house that have their second coat – and they look like they need a third, so I guess that means everything will get a third coat :-/

We will need to be progressing soon from gardening and painting to plumbing – because without the plumbing, we won’t be able to move in!  And that is kinda the whole point!!

Another week – where did it go?  Something to do with work, work and more work – and a lovely trip away for the Easter weekend J!

What a lot of progress too – these short weeks don’t seem to slow anyone down much.

We’ve had plenty of painting:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We’ve been fortunate to be able to borrow some great painting gear from our neighbour down by the lake, Wes – and it has made all the difference in being able to get through it much quicker.

Still plenty to go though!  You really don’t know how much wall space you have until you have to go over every square centimetre of it!  (And by you, I don’t mean me! ;-)  This is all Michael and Andy’s handiwork.  And we (someone) will have to keep on going over it too – this is only the undercoat! 

We’ve had tantalising tiling too:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Which I am sure would look even better if blogger would insert this photo without the rotation!) 

And hot bath hobbing:

 

 

 

 

 

(Tiling is at a bit of a stand-still until we can get the bath in – plumber is very, very busy – so we are waiting…).

And while we are waiting, we’ve had excellent excavating:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 That’s my sister, Sharon, having a go! 

And, then Michael dug plenty more holes around the house – to get our water pipes to the tank and back:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And lookie – he has found some big rocks – we mean BIG ROCKS! – so we are also now waiting on the bigger excavator to come dig them out – next week hopefully!

But while we wait, there’s plenty to do – or we can just gaze at this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Because when a day starts with 3 mixers flat out:

 

 

 

 

 And ends with 3 barrows all in a row:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 You know your renderers have been J. 

And they have done most of the third and final coat and it looks just stunning and you are seriously in love with it and just want to stare at it day and night and why not, because it *is* mighty, mighty fine…swoon…(go on, scroll back up and look at it again –it’s gorgeous!)

And as much as I truly love that rendering, our Easter visit to Michael’s sister gave pretty photos too:

Like Lake Yearlering:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And sunset over Corrigin:

  

Pretty, darn special views, aren’t they? 

How blessed are we?  Gorgeous home coming along and wonderful family that we can visit and who visit us too.  Life is good.