Tracy and her mum are making curtains for James's room. They needed some peace and quiet to get them finished so I took James for a drive to Godley Head. I took this photo while the sun was setting. I like the curve of the beach and the colour of the waves.
After 8 weekends work, things are shaping up nicely, the walls are up and plastered. Now we just need to paint, and sand the floors and install the skirting, architraves, curtains and a light.
Yesterday we put the coving up, I think it looks great. Up till now every step has taken longer than expected or we ran into snags. This was the first job where everything just worked first time. Now I can't wait to get the roller out and start painting.
Far across the sea, the mountains of Kaikoura could be seen in the setting sun.
To send James to sleep we went for a drive along the port hills. The view across the city to the alps was stunning. We have just had the warmest May on record, clear skies and warm nor'west winds most days. Lovely, but some snow for skiing would be nice.
I love the huge fish at the bottom of the fountain. They look like something from Captain Pugwash
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
