It's hard to believe that it's 2013! You know, I still remember the Y2K New Years and what a big hoohah that was! It's hard to believe that it's been 13 years since then! But alas, I am getting old...a proper grown up with lots of responsibilities.
Anyways, enough of that...our Christmas/New Years holiday was pretty laid back with regards to celebrating. We do have really awesome friends, so we had a great Christmas day and New Years Eve celebration, but the rest of the break was pretty chilled out...well, maybe "chilled" isn't the right word. As is standard for Christmas in Perth, it was 40degC from about the 23rd all the way to the 2nd January. So, our great plans to get loads of stuff done around the house didn't actually happen because it was just too freakin' hot to do anything! It was a good break, though. We spent some time at the beach relaxing and having fun instead.
We still did manage to get some work done over the holidays, though. Although the electrician has been in and wired up the cooktop, fridge, and ovens, unfortunately, they don't do the installation of the vent hood (extraction fan). With our island cooktop, the vent hood has to be mounted to the main ceiling support beams in the roof cavity. So, one hot day, we decided that we'd take a couple of hours to get the vent hood installed before going outside to do some real work...because at least that way we get to work in the air conditioning, right? WRONG! 6 hours & 5 trips in the sweltering heat of the roof space later, we finally managed to get the vent hood installed. It looks quite nice, if I must say so myself, but geez was it hard work!
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| Climbing into the roof space with my head torch, safety goggles, and mask. Of course, in hindsight, pants and long sleeve probably would have been a lot smarter as well...that insulation is really itchy! |
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| Emerging from the attic cave... |
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| Andy mounting the main supports for the vent hood. |
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| The finished product! Tada! |
The other main bit of work we did over the holidays involved painting the eaves on the east side of the house (opposite the driveway). We went to a hiring place to get prices for hiring scaffolding to get us access to paint the eaves and wall of the house. After hearing the price, we thought...why not use all of the extra scaffolding that Summit has left at our house over the holidays? :) So, we did! We only had to hire adjustable feet for the legs to allow us to level everything out in the sand. Of course, we still didn't know how this job would actually go...it could be ok, or like a lot of the jobs we start on, it could end up being absolute hell! Well, after hiring the legs for one week starting on the Saturday morning before we decided to do the vent hood installation, we went on a wine tour on the Sunday. With Monday being New Years Eve, and New Years Day obviously being a write-off for heavy labour, we got up early New Years Eve morning and spent 4 hours in the sweltering heat putting up scaffolding. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and we managed to get it finished....
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| Scaffolding finished...ready for sanding and painting the eaves. |
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| Andy hard at work putting up handrails...a massive sandpit isn't the easiest place to put up scaffolding! |
So, we managed to get the eaves cleaned up and painted...it's amazing the difference it makes to the house just to have that much done! We also decided on a colour for painting the actual brick as well since the existing colour is just a bit to peachy for our taste. So, not only did we get the eaves painted, the walls are painted and the scaffolding has been torn down and put back where it was...Summit will never know :)
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| Freshly painted eaves and walls... |
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| Most of the scaffolding removed... |
So, now we just have to finish painting that wall and then wait for the rendering on the rest of the house to be completed so we can paint the rest of the house! Joy o' joy! Well, tomorrow is officially the end of the holidays, i.e. the date when Summit is open for business again and a lot of the tradies are back to work as well. Unfortunately, the rumour is that January is a pretty slow month with regards to building and progress in that area, so we'll see what happens over the next couple weeks. After all...February is supposed to be our completion "month"! :)...don't hold your breath!
Catch up soon!
