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We’re just back from 10 days travel on our usual loop down south, some of which probably deserve a post of their own like more mini-golf and a wedding (again, no, not ours!). In our absence quite a few things had changed on the house. Which is good!

First up, the kitchen units were all installed, where they’d been strewn all around the “lounge” when we took off. Just the bench-top, appliances and tap-ware to go.

Even the pantry had been pretty much finished, with the electricians making good use of it to store a few boxes of their bits and pieces. All of the tiles had been laid too, with just the grouting to go.

A highlight for someone seemed to be the laundry. I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t me!

Moving around a bit, the painters had pretty much finished too, so our coloured feature walls had suddenly changed colour too. And luckily they looked fine. Whew!

And lots of other bits and pieces had been added, like door handles, power sockets, waterproof shower paint, a heap of tiles etc, but I’ll save you the photos showing all the gory details!

So we’re getting closer! Not long to go now!

Or at least the beginnings of it!

Quite a few bits for them to put together. I really hope they’ve got better instructions than we normally got with flat-pack furniture. But then as they made it all, they should know what they’re doing.

The laundry cabinetry was also going in. Seeing the bench lying in the lounge made it look very, very long. We’re still not convinced it will fit.

Another bonus of the trip was seeing some colour finally going onto the Linear so the outside won’t look quite so same-y now.

And last but not least, most of the vanity units had been installed. Things have gone from horribly slow, to frenetically fast! We need some time out to recover. So we’ll take some!

We’d heard reports that our kitchen was going to be installed today (or other reports that they may have actually even started yesterday) so of course we had to race out there to find out…

And of course, it hadn’t. In fact no one was on site at all. Grrrrr!

So to make up for that disappointment we had to have a look for something else to get excited about today instead. The highlight turned out to be that the shower bases had been filled in with whatever they fill in shower bases with before they tile them.

What a highlight!

Actually, there was another highlight really. The painters had managed to get some work done over the last couple of days and so there was a bit of colour appearing around the place. As it’s a light colour it’s all a bit hard to see really, but that’s the look we were expecting (the pic is clicky for a closer look).

Maybe the kitchen will be going in tomorrow…

Finally! We got to see some painting action!

Can’t say it was really a highlight! Watching it dry might have been more interesting!

But the good news was that our project manager had managed to work out a way to get us into the house earlier. The bad news is that that was before the earthquake. So we’re not sure when the final date might be now, but from all the information we should hopefully not be too badly affected, and we shouldn’t be too far. Sigh. But as per last time, if there’s any way anyone can carry on with their work they’re giving it a go and cracking on with things.

When the guys came to install all the Gibb they decided for some reason (known only to themselves) not to cut out some little holes over two of the gang boxes we’d installed for some rear speakers. So for some reason (known only to our builder) we had to work out where they were likely to be lurking behind the Gibb, and hack away at the walls so we could drag the wires out before the painters finally got around to painting.

It was actually quite scary drilling into the walls with only blind faith that the boxes were where I thought they were. Especially with an audience that wasn’t exactly oozing confidence! Luckily it all went well, and we managed to get the locations right. Whew!

The other highlight today was seeing the “spare” bath installed on its plinthy thing that the builder had created. Seeing and trying it out, I should say!

And while we didn’t actually see any actual painting, there were at least half a dozen painters all standing around waiting for their brushes or the paint to turn up or something. So we hope by now there might be some colour somewhere!

On Sunday it was way, way, waaaaaaaay too hot to go out to the land (38 degrees C outside at some stage);
Yesterday it was way, way, waaaaaaay too wet to go out to the land (it rained for every daylight minute);
But today it was juuuuuuuust right for a trip to the land!

So we went.

First up, checking the drains that that guys had finished off once they’d helped us plonk our irrigation pipe in the trenches. And mighty fine drains they are too! These guys obviously take a lot of pride in their work.

Next job, using all the excess Batts we managed to grab to add a token level of insulation to the roof of the pump shed, hopefully making it just that little less likely that all the pipes will freeze. (Not that that’s likely right at the moment. Still beautiful weather at the moment.) Not that we’ve really got the right Batts for the job, but it’s better than nothing.

Pretty horrible work really, we had to keep taking breaks to get a few breaths of clean air. We really should have rescued the Batts before they started all the plastering and sanding and stuff. Duh! Looking in at some stages it looked like we were setting the shed up for some sort of weirdly themed party. Maybe an undersea theme? But in the end we got there, and the whole roof has been covered.

A quick cough or 20 later and we were ready for the next task. Adding a bit of hare and wind protection to the larger trees before they get munched any more. We’ll see if they stand up to the first gale that whips though!

Last task for the day was to harvest some goodies! A (single) zucchini, and seven beetroot. Yum, yum! All to be eaten fresh for tea tonight. Gutted the photos of the just harvested beetroot didn’t come out (too bright to see the camera screen to check them at the time. Grrrr.) but we did manage a photo of the cooked up stuff, and it was all good!

After a bit of faffing about, we managed to get the joiners on and the pipe extended enough to get past the far end of the house. Whew!

Now we’ll just have to work out just what to do with it at the far end. I’m guessing some sort of mini shed with a line of valves in it would be ideal. But that can wait for now. A few more important things to sort first than the watering of non-existent plants and lawns.

We got a late call last night to tell us that the drainage guys would be starting their bits and pieces soon. Very soon, in fact. Like this morning soon!

Gulp!

Once again we had to organise a few things to happen in a hurry so that we could take advantage of the new trenches that they were digging. (Last time we had just about the same amount of notice to organise ourselves to get the water pipes into the power trench in case you’d forgotten (or I didn’t write about it at the time…))

This time we’re piggybacking on the drainage trenches to run one of the water pipes down past the house so we can use it for any irrigation for the back half of the land.

So the place is starting to look like we’re trying to re-enact some sort of battle from WW1!

Pity the plumber didn’t turn up when they were supposed to though so we could finish it all off today. We need them to shorten the pipe that provides water to the house so we can use the leftover bit to extend the other water pipe past the house (along with another couple of bits of pipe we have lying around).

It turns out it’s cheaper for us to buy lots of joiners to join all these little bits of pipe together than it is to buy a new longer length of pipe, as you can only buy that pipe in 50 meter plus lengths. That might be a bit more than we need right now.

Looks like we’ll have to go out again tomorrow to have all that joining up fun and games. Expect a report then unless we drown in the process!

Have to say that once again the guys out there have been fantastic so far in allowing and assisting us to make the most of their trenching. I still believe that if we tried to do anything like this in the UK we’d be told to dig a new trench instead.

We cruised back up from Alexandra, taking the Inland Scenic Route today. And yes, it was a bit more scenic than the boring drive down the semi-coastal route. Lots more trees, and some little bridges and towns etc. All quite nice on a nice day like today. But it’s still a big long drive. Next time we really have to take more in the way of CDs and drinks.

But the main reason for taking that route is that it circles around and takes us more directly to the house where we could check that they had, indeed, started the Gibbing. And we weren’t disappointed. (Though we were disappointed in the photos we took, so you might have to wait a bit longer for some good ones…)

It certainly gives the place a different feel not being able to stare through the wall skeletons. And not being able to see the hidden bits of all the sliding doors so you really see the actual size of the doors and the walls help in seeing the real shape of things.

There’s still a lot of work to be done though. All the corners and finishing, a few holey bits here and there, and a few more wires to locate behind the walls and pull through (including all the lights)… We assume they have a list, but I think we’ll need to make one ourselves, or it’s going to be far too easy to forget one until a lot later once it’s all painted.

And I have to say after 5 hours of travelling the shower space is starting to look pretty good! Pity the hot water’s not on yet!

Oh, and the plants seem to have managed to survive our inattention for a bit, even though they’ve not grown all that much. We’ll see if we can get them back up to speed again.

Have a bit of plastering action instead!

Yes, that’s right. Still no change to the internals, with no interior walls having magically appeared in the last few days. Grrrr. But I guess at least with the first coat of plaster going on there’s something happening.

A bit odd to arrive to find all the windows covered up and a team of guys crawling over the place trying to stay out of the way of the guys adding the last of the weatherboards. And a bit hard to remember what colour we’d picked for the outside, and if any of the plaster was dry enough to actually be that colour. We assume they got it right!