Membrane Day

Its all happening here. We've arranged a superb autumn morning for the roofers. They're laying the membrane on our new link roof that connects the new bedroom/studio to our existing house. It should be done in the next 1-2 days. 

Next week the new wing will be clad in plywood rigid air barrier sheeting. Moving right along..

 

                             This shot shows the grey membrane being rolled out on the plywood

Meanwhile Carolski is no longer a covid virgin - she's finally succumbed to the 'rona. She held out so long... The anti-virals will help her a lot though. The perfect weather run we're having makes the verandah a beaut spot to rest up.

   

Little borer hotel demolition

 Down she comes!

The little borer hotel is a ramshackle add-on to the borer hotel (aka the garage). We're replacing that scungy thing with a nice new shed and we won't share it with the borer.

To begin, we knocked down  the little borer hotel ourselves. 

Two sides down and the back is proving difficult. Hard hat on. At this stage we decide that we're not going into the demolition business - it's harder than it looks.

After a few days of brute force and bashing and wrenching and yanking with crowbar, wrecking bar, sledgehammer, saw etc, Paula lent us her reciprocating saw. Mish got stuck in with that and took the thing apart in an orderly and efficient manner. 

Until the very end when another good bash was needed. 

To come: a spruce up of the side of the garage and the base and we're ready for the crew to assemble the new shed. That's not us and phew.

It took a day (7 hot hours) to cart the corrugated iron to metal recycling and the borer-rotten wood to the tip. Then a swim and job done and phew!

A landscaping plan begins to solidify

 Days are pretty hot but we've been out and about watering, pruning and planting, digging and sawing, mulching and weeding, and every other thing you need to do in summer in a big garden. Sweaty stuff.

We're planning a citrus orchard in the space below. The cherry tree died so that came down; it was about where Mish is standing. She's laid out potted trees we've bought in rough locations so the help can dig up the area and get some organic matter into the sand and get the site ready for planting in April. Orchard! 

So far we have a mandarin, cumquat, lime, Seville orange, and we'll be moving one of the dwarf  oranges from another part of the garden. There will be marmalade. The camellia on the fence will get the heave ho then (grow your own mulch!) and the electronic gate will be moved down the drive about 10 metres. 

Next, looking at the front door.The plan is to have a water feature on the left,  a small tree for shade on the right, and wide platform steps in the middle going up to the front door. Wisteria is just starting to colour (nights are cool, about 10 degrees at the moment, so autumn is underway).

We're about to hire a concrete cutter and have a go at dispatching some of the acres of asphalt here. That'll be a first for us, driving a concrete cutter. Should be ok. The neighbours will be thinking: NOW what are they doing?

Will try and cut paver sized blocks so we can reuse them somewhere. We'll be using wire cage gabions again to give us a sense of enclosure and entry, but this time it'll be river rocks not rubble. 

The tree for the right side of pic is an advanced ornamental cherry. That'll arrive in autumn and be instant effect. 

Looking across the back yard, I call this: squirrel with bird bath and corn.

And right at the back western corner, tackling a rotten stump to start prettifying this area. The neighbours used to put buckets of kindling from their pohutukawa over the fence and onto the stump for the previous owners to collect and burn. But, that fire is broke and gorn, and the pellet burner is installed and ready for winter, so the helpful stump has had its day. We have chats over the fence which is nice. 

Borer update

We had the garage and shed sprayed again, and hucked out the shed (aka little borer hotel).

Filthy job. It had disintegrating pallets on the floor, so out they went. Then we shovelled up a six inch layer of rotten wood and sawdust and mummified rats and crap, into bags and bags and bags. Hired a trailer with sides for a tip run and filled it to the brim. 

Tick that job off.

Little borer shed is so much nicer! Still held together by borer, but it feels cleaner and more zen to go in there and get a shovel or whatever. We can put the ride on mower back in there now. It will do for a bit longer while we work out what's happening in the yard.

Mish in planning mode

 We're running through many ideas and options for a renovation of our 'new' house.

There's been the sandpit modelling of site contours:

Most of the block is flat, but we have a long driveway coming up our west side through trees. We're about 9mt above the street. One idea was to turn into the yard about half way up the existing driveway, but the access, steepness and the sandiness all got a bit too expensive and difficult.

The modelling idea didn't work so well as the sand wouldn't behave. But we did find a quirky table to do the 3D modelling on, and will make that do another duty of  .... something.

There have been days of immersed drawing on tracing paper.

And now we are up to site mock ups of what could be, with bits of old timber and tape and ladders and rocks and rope.

Currently, this is the new mistresses bedroom, pushing out from the southwest corner of the house. Mish in bed with a view of the island. All those veggie boxes will get moved out of the shade of that new building. (The white mesh veg cover in the background is over one swan plant that survived winter and that now has an egg on it. Monarch butterflies are warmed up and on the move.)

Looking along the south side of the house:

Wood splitter and splitting block are in the new bathroom.

In the meantime, the last wood splitting of winter is a happening thing. 

Garage works

 Banging in plywood, packing stuff away, getting organised, making it neater. 

Discovered this morning that we have condensation in the bedroom windows above the bed. Of course! There's nothing new in an old house.

Work aside, there's always time for a beach walk.

We moved to Rāumati Beach!

 

 

 

We've bought a 1952 bach-like weatherboard house at Rāumati. That's about a 30 minute drive north from our ex house on that windy hill in Newlands. Not that far as a seagull flies but it's a really  different environment. A warmer and calmer climate for starters. We can grow a bunch of things we couldn't grow in Newlands. Waaaay less wind here and a flat coast. We hear the sea.

Rāumati is the te reo (Māori language) word for summer. It's pronounced ro-mat-ee.

We're on an old sand dune so are a wee bit elevated (15 metres above sea level and prepared to host the neighbours running up the drive in a tsunami). 

We've been here a month already and still feel like we're on holiday!

Okay, let's go back to the move and work forward. It's been a while between blog posts.

'Twas a 2-day move. Movers loaded one truck on Feb 11 and then Mish and I abandoned the house and went into the city to a swanky hotel for the night. We walked out for a birthday dinner at the local yacht club on Oriental Bay. That's one birthday I won't forget.

Had to get back to the house early and we just made it before the jolly moving guys who cheerfully arrived with truck number 2. They loaded that one in a couple of hours and off we all went in convoy. Bye bye house!

At the new house, here's the front and a view from the garden the first day we saw it in October 2020.

Yep, liking it. Let's buy it!

In the same spot, five months later in March 2021. Mish is calculating what we'll see if we build something on the site and go up. She is full of, full of, full of...oh, ideas, that's it. 

Summer has been hot and dry - look at that grass, or lack of grass rather.

At the moment we have a peaceful interior green view (a lot like Robertson for those who remember that house), with western views over a huge park to the top of Kāpiti Island ... 

... and southern views to impressive hills leading into the Tararua Ranges. There will be snow over there. That's a big pohutakawa centre of image. We have trees and loads of interesting trees around us. Mish thrilled. Newlands has few trees. We had an exposed site in an exposed area and we copped the Cook Strait wind in both directions. 

There's lots of work to do on the house and in the garden. Here's a sample of house works so far, as the unpacking went on. One box to go I think.

In the kitchen, Mish draft-proofing a window and installing a UV sun blind (cause it has been blazingly bright in there).

In the washouse, we had to move the washing machine out to reveal the entry under the house the internet installers needed to crawl down into. Internet connection took nearly a month to install - hooray for wifi.

We have a mudroom! It's an add on room that will be veeeery useful. That's the house's original exterior back door steps and Mish is laying some garage carpet. We spruced up the room before that with a good dose of Wet and Forget. 

Screwing in some of the windows in anticipation of breezy winter nights.  This one had a monster gap. No more. The joys of an old timber house - we've done it before. 

Siliconing some bedroom windows shut. All original 1950s windows. The casement windows with the metal bar with holes in it you pop over a bump to hold open - they get to stay. 

Now Mish and I have both fallen off a ladder. She hit the ground and hurt herself, and I fell backwards into a chair and didn't hurt myself. Ladders!

It's not all work of course. We've had absolutely beautiful summer days since we got here, and walks and swims and cafe strolls (walk to great cafe!) and cycles (loads of tracks and parks and wetland areas) and bbqs and deck lounging. 

We're enjoying the large number of fruit trees we've inherited. We're never buying lemons again! Feijoas and figs and oranges and limes and tangerines and grapes are coming along; peaches and plums and blackcurrants have finished for the season. This is a pear experiment. 

The meringue maker is also enjoying the bigger kitchen.

Shops at the southern end of the beach. Mish with mosaic chair and a little library.

Our path to the beach at the end of the street. High tide. South Island just visible.

From the bottom of the beach steps, looking west to Kāpiti. The island has been a bird sanctuary since 1897 and you need a permit to go there. We've been over twice and walked to the top. It's a very cool place. 

A little boogie board surf. The long sweep of coastline from Wellington is not a surf coast. It gets a bit bigger than this but not much. Water temp lovely.

A panorama as I write this at the kitchen table. It's nice to have an actual dining area again. 

Standing by for visitors post-Covid.

New roof view on a windy day

Mish went up as the roofers were finishing and shot this noisy windy video in a 360 pan, from the eastern native bush hills, past the harbour and city, and western paddocks.

Sun setting way round to the south now

Monday, looking west to Mt Kaukau from a nice wide safely opening bedroom window. Heaven.
Van and stacked chimney pieces at top of the driveway.

Warm evening, had dinner outside. But shot inside when the sun went behind the western hills. Instantly a bit chillier.

Winter, windows, shed & cockatiel

A few things have been happening in Wellington.

Shed's done!
That's #3, with a bit of shelving to go in and fine tuning. It's nice and big and dry and fits that corner nicely.

This is the long view past the front door. Am straightening a hose. Will get some deck stain onto the whole deck area one fine day soon to make it cohesive.



And across the winter veg garden (with some sad spinach, spring onions, struggling peas, and the ever perky broad beans). The whole yard is looking like a tip at the moment, half done projects all over, from Carol's driftwood paling fence on the street to stacked timber  bits EVERYWHERE and the compost we are about to move at the bottom of the yard.

And windows are in too.

New uPVC french doors being installed (unplasticised poly vinyl chloride) which sounds horrible I know, (says Mish), but which has many benefits over aluminium and looks good. The original painted timber frame (architrave) stays put and the new window or door joinery is securely screwed into the opening.

Adrian (always singing to The Breeze radio station) has taken out our old timber window. See the corner of the new window on left.

The new frames are in. Double glass panel only takes about 8 minutes to install into each frame. Super quick :)

 All new double glazed UPVC you beaut windows. They look great and we have a warmer house and a slightly quieter one too. No more air and rain leaks, yippee!



Meanwhile, outside.
We bought some wattles to fill a space and they are about to flower. Here's Mish putting them in, just...so. With a bit of river rock and mulch landscaping and a new timber retaining wall and bay to hold 'em. Go you yellow things.




Today was lovely, warm and calm. Not spring yet but it is coming. Some blossoms around too, at work in the river valley, not up here on the windy exposed heights.

Had a walk on the waterfront tonight and dinner at the old yacht club right beside a marina. Then another walk and realised it is a full moon. Here's the best I could do with the point and shoot, looking across one of the marinas to Mt Victoria, Freyberg Pool the  blue smudgey lights on the left and St Gerards up the hill.




And, the cockatiel.
Mish heard chirping - it was sitting outside and very happy to come inside. Made itself right at home for about a week, Scoffing our tamari almonds and sitting on our shoulders.

Very sociable bird - Mish made a driftwood perch which it loved.  Couldn't track the owner but we found a kid with an aviary nearby so bye bye birdie.

We were just talking about this photo - it's a moment in time. When we nursed a bird, the last days of the old windows, and Sean's potboilers that he gave us when he came to work on the shed.