Bits and Bobs

When we found the replacement blocks for our house, I was able to have a walk-through of the house which was being demolished. Never one to let an opportunity pass, I talked the foreman into removing a few bits and bobs to be recycled at our place. It is totally crazy, but houses are generally being demolished with all fittings and hardware intact. Such a waste.

So, I scored a few bronze doorstops (our ones are the spring type and are all wonky so we have at least two doorknob sized holes in our walls) and a pair of window latches. Our main bedroom window had fake ones painted dark brown. We got our builder to fit the new ones this week.

They are old and filthy, and didn't clean up well with Brasso.  We have been using the word 'patina' a lot around here lately...

Blockwork, done. Roof, done.

As of last week, our house is watertight for the first time since February 22 2011. Not a moment too soon either. The blockwork was finished and replacement tiles placed along the edges where they flew off in the earthquake. The replacement tiles are below. They are exactly the same. But were red at some point in their history.

And you can kind of tell.

So, I quickly looked into the possibility of painting the whole roof in order to cover it up....but...turns out our roof is unpaintable. And I don't mean in a there's-not-enough-time-and-it's-too-short-notice kind of way or a the-weather's-not-good-enough kind of way. I mean, no-one is willing to paint our tiles, ever.  Because the roof is too steep. Apparently, it would be far too tricky to paint them well and balance on the roof at the same time.

So we either remove all the tiles, paint them individually then re-lay them, or we leave them as they are to weather so that they will one day look the same. We are going to do the latter.

The remaining mortar/concrete has been filled in, and the outside is now ready to be prepped for painting. Hoorah!

A halt in proceedings.

Just like in an episode of Grand Designs, we woke this week to record-breaking torrential rain. So work has temporarily stopped.

Our bank has started moving a little though:

And the good old river of clay is trying hard to make a come-back:

And we have had the pleasure of discovering just how our skylights have suffered with the aftershocks:

A tidy round the edges..

The grout that forms the perimeter of our floor has degraded considerably with time and earthquakes - large chunks have been regularly popping out, and gouges of grout-less-ness (yes, that is a word, thank you) have been left in their wake. 

Last week, one of the 'men' spent the day indoors slowly chipping out the remaining grout bit by bit.

And when we came back from a night away, we found the seam had been all filled in with lovely new grout.

 

I was a bit concerned that the new stuff wouldn't fit in very well with the original, but we are both very happy with the result. 

In fact, we are pretty happy overall with all of the work so far -  things seem to be going suspiciously well.  Sadly, as I am a pessimist, I can't help but think things are going to take a turn for the worse sometime soon.