Raising the Roof in Gundaroo
The roof, guttering and fascia are finally on and so far, with these winds we've been having, they're holding on. It has been a rather interesting time putting the roof on because at the time we did it, Mother Nature decided it was time to turn the fan up. Trying to lift and screw down 5m lengths of colourbond onto roof trusses is a challenge in windy weather!! Quite a few times we had to put our bodies on the line just to hold the sheets down for a couple of minutes until the wind died down enough to do what we had to do.
The ridge capping still has to go on but it's a bit difficult to work on the roof when the condensation doesn't lift until about 2o'clock in the afternoon. We think that this time of the year is the hardest to work on the outside of the house because it all depends on the weather. And you know Murphy's law - the weather's so beautiful when James is away at work and it's so crappy on his days at home when he's actually able to work on the house.
The external doors and windows arrived a couple of weeks ago and are all wrapped up to protect them from the elements. The frames and trusses for the garage arrived this week as have our internal doors and doorframes. Our next step though is to finish off the roof (ie put the ridge capping on) and then we'll be starting on the verandah. We want to put the verandah on before we put in the external windows and doors as they are timber and the verandah will give them that little bit of extra protection.
The blocklayer is coming this Friday to look at when he can start on the stables again. The blocks arrived a couple of months ago but unfortunately, he managed to get a couple of jobs while we were waiting on the blocks so now he can start. We'll be labouring for him so maybe the stables might just be up before the house is.
The weather is starting to turn cold. We've had a couple of nights where it's been down to -3. We're just so thankful that we're not going through another winter in the caravan. Now that we have electricity we can use the electric heaters and have the electric blanket on. We do have a gas patio heater that we can use now as well. Because of the height of the shed, it is harder to heat it, but we're not complaining - it's way better than being in the caravan!!
On the horse front, we finally brought our new horse, Chad (aka Stop N Paws) home at the beginning of June. It's taking him a while to settle in but he's won over the mares by bringing them into season - hussies! Tracey found him this morning on a neighbouring property - how he got there we're still not sure as the fences and gates were intact but we figure he thought he'd try a bit of cross country jumping. Of course, the owners of the property don't live there and even though there is nothing on the property (as in, no house) they have their gates padlocked - go figure. Tracey ended up having to actually take one of the gates off the strainer post in order to get Chad back.
We've had the all clear from the vet to start riding Smudge again after he fractured his shoulder about 20 months ago and he says it is likely that he will make a full recovery. Betty is also broken in now as is JD so we have four rideable horses after going so long with none.
So no excuses to not come and visit people!
The ridge capping still has to go on but it's a bit difficult to work on the roof when the condensation doesn't lift until about 2o'clock in the afternoon. We think that this time of the year is the hardest to work on the outside of the house because it all depends on the weather. And you know Murphy's law - the weather's so beautiful when James is away at work and it's so crappy on his days at home when he's actually able to work on the house.
The external doors and windows arrived a couple of weeks ago and are all wrapped up to protect them from the elements. The frames and trusses for the garage arrived this week as have our internal doors and doorframes. Our next step though is to finish off the roof (ie put the ridge capping on) and then we'll be starting on the verandah. We want to put the verandah on before we put in the external windows and doors as they are timber and the verandah will give them that little bit of extra protection.
The blocklayer is coming this Friday to look at when he can start on the stables again. The blocks arrived a couple of months ago but unfortunately, he managed to get a couple of jobs while we were waiting on the blocks so now he can start. We'll be labouring for him so maybe the stables might just be up before the house is.
The weather is starting to turn cold. We've had a couple of nights where it's been down to -3. We're just so thankful that we're not going through another winter in the caravan. Now that we have electricity we can use the electric heaters and have the electric blanket on. We do have a gas patio heater that we can use now as well. Because of the height of the shed, it is harder to heat it, but we're not complaining - it's way better than being in the caravan!!
On the horse front, we finally brought our new horse, Chad (aka Stop N Paws) home at the beginning of June. It's taking him a while to settle in but he's won over the mares by bringing them into season - hussies! Tracey found him this morning on a neighbouring property - how he got there we're still not sure as the fences and gates were intact but we figure he thought he'd try a bit of cross country jumping. Of course, the owners of the property don't live there and even though there is nothing on the property (as in, no house) they have their gates padlocked - go figure. Tracey ended up having to actually take one of the gates off the strainer post in order to get Chad back.
We've had the all clear from the vet to start riding Smudge again after he fractured his shoulder about 20 months ago and he says it is likely that he will make a full recovery. Betty is also broken in now as is JD so we have four rideable horses after going so long with none.
So no excuses to not come and visit people!
posted by Tracey and James | 4:46 pm
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