Here be Monsters

I love the huge fish at the bottom of the fountain. They look like something from Captain Pugwash

Fountain

The peacock fountain at the entrance to the park has just had a very nice paint job. I love the colours in this photo, the low winter sun really brings them alive.

Leaves

With leaves all over the ground this piece of sculpture looks very seasonal.

Cheers Liz!

Today is the Queens birthday (her New Zealand one that is). That doesn't mean much to a staunch republican like myself but it is a public holiday so I guess 'happy birthday ma'am! Anyway it is a good excuse to say hang the DIY and have a family day so Tracy and I took James for a swim and then a stroll round the botannic gardens. It was a cool, bright winters day but the temperature in the glasshouse was nice and warm (see picture). There are some very strange plants in there, palms pitcher plants etc. The giant leaf in the centre of the picture is from a banana tree.

Plastered

This weekend we stated plastering. Actually I should not say we since Grandad did most of the work. I have never plastered before but luckily James Snr is a past master at it. It's quite tricky and most of (my) plaster ended up on the floor.

Coming Together

With the window fixed and two of the walls covered, the room is starting to look less like a building site and more like a bedroom.

Just Like New

Gareth has finished fixing up the windows and has done a fantastic job. He has made a new casement from cedar, replaced the bottom of the mullions and made a new sill from heart rimu.

Batts in the Walls

To make the room nice and warm we are installing Pink Batts insulation in the walls. First we stapled building paper to the weatherboards and then put the batts between the studs. Finally we screwed gib plasterboard over the lot.

Walls

This weekend Tracy's dad and I are putting the walls back up.

Bye Bye Rot

Gareth, the joiner routed out the rot on the windowledge. I treated the exposed timer with Metalex tanalising compund. This is a powerful fungicide and wood preservative which should kill any remaining rot.

Rot

Unfortunately stripping the bay window revealed some pretty bad rot. It was caused by condenstation running down the window. This is tricky to fix so I have hired a joiner to machine some replacement pieces and install them. Looks like he has his work cut out.

All Done

I finally finshed stripping the bay window. Took about two days from start to finish.

New Brighton Pier

It was a cold crisp autumn day at New Brighton. James loves it when I take him for a walk along the pier. Its high up so he can look at the waves and the seagulls. We had a good time watching the surfers and the fishermen at the end of the pier.

Kite Surfer

I took James to the beach and we watched the kite surfers.

More Stripping

The outside of the door frame has been painted with modern water based paint. This does not respond well to heat. Luckily the coopers paint stripper just eats through it. I just sprayed it on, waited a couple of minutes and the paint just fell away in strips. I didn't even have to scrape. Note the rubber gloves though. The stuff is pretty corrosive and hurts if you get it on bare skin.

When I'm Stripping Windows

Stripping the windows is a big job. I use an iStrip (pictured) which is the fastest method I have found. I stripped the whole bay window in a day. The iStrip is also very safe. Old houses were painted with lead based paints. Sanding scatters lead dust everywhere. A blowtorch would burn the paint and release lead fumes. The iStrip uses a lower heat applied for longer and allows large areas of paint to be scraped off in strips which can be easily disposed of. The low heat stops lead fumes from being released.

Just one question, it is a great gadget but why on earth is it called an iStrip? It can't play MP3s or connect to the internet.

Paint Stripping

Over the past year I have become something of an expert at paint stripping. The picture shows the window architraves from James's room at different stages of paint removal. I start with an i-Strip heat lamp (top) which heats the paint allowing it to be scraped off. This leaves a thin residue (middle) which I remove with steel wool and meths. Finally I use coopers paint stripper to remove the last stubborn bits of paint. This is a great product which lifts the paint right out of the grain (bottom).

More DIY

The DIY on James's new room continues, today James Snr and I dug out the remains of the old fireplace and replaced it with some old rimu floorboards that I found at a reclamation yard. When the floor is sanded and polished they will blend in with the existing ones.

A day at the Zoo

Today is Anzac day, a public holiday in New Zealand so we took James to the zoo where he met some very friendly giraffes.

Dig Dug

When we ripped up the carpet we found a patch of concrete against the wall where a fireplace once stood. This has to be removed and replaced by floorboards. We used a sledgehammer and a cold chisel to break the concrete up. Luckily, Tracy's dad is a hard worker, he tore through the job.

Boys Toys

The sheets of plasterboard are the width of the room so they are too big to lift by hand. We used a 'gib-lifter' to move them into place and hold them while we used the screw gun to fix them. It took about 3 hours to put up the ceiling. Using large sheets of plasterboard means fewer joins and hopefully a better finish.

Say hello to my leetle frien'

We are lining the wall and ceiling with gib plasterboard. This is quite a big job so it is important to use the right tools. This is a screw gun, it takes magazines of screws and speeds things up dramatically. Just beware, if you are using one and it jams, don't try to unjam it with your hand over the business end. It hurts like hell. Fortunately I had turned the power off but the spring loaded mechanism still managed to shoot a screw deep into my palm.

A clean slate

Well the destruction is done, now its time to start the construction. Today Tracy's dad and I are going to put up a new ceiling.

Bringing down the house

Down comes the ceiling - no going back now. The walls and ceiling are lath and plaster construction and knocking them out was pretty easy. I started in the loft with an axe and then finished from below with a claw hammer. It only took a day but it was filthy work. I was black from head to toe by the end. I dumped 960 Kg of rubble at the tip.

Very satisfying work.

DIY Project

We have decided to move James into a bigger room but first it needs decorating. We have hardwood windows made from New Zealand rimu so they are going to be stripped back to bare wood. The wallpaper is horrible so that has to go and the crummy built-in wardrobe needs tearing down. The carpet is a vile light grey so we will rip that out and polish the rimu floorboards.

Unfortunately this room is a DIY can of worms. The window has a rotten sill caused by condensation, the wooden floor has a big patch of concrete where a fireplace used to be, the walls are cracked and when the wardrobe came out there was no wall lining behind it! This is going to be a big job.

The condensation was fixed by installing a moisture master ventilation system. This has changed the whole feel of our house. We have no condensation and the house is warmer and smells fresher. Highly recommended. However the damage to the window is done and it is going to need a lot of work to repair it.

The photo shows the room after we stripped the wall paper. That turned out to be a waste of time as the walls are in such a bad state of repair that they have to come out, along with the ceiling.

Gore Bay

On our way home, we stopped off at Gore Bay, a beautiful isolated surfers paradise.