Peter and Natasha

Written by Natasha, on 13-09-2009

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We have met the most amazing and generous people whilst on this house building quest. Today we had visits from our beautiful friend Sharon, and the always dependable Nicole (Nic) along with her two gorgeous daughters. These two were a power house and were fabulous wall stuffers (and Sharon, thank you so much for all the goodies your brought for us to eat!).

Then we had a lovely visit from Peter's kiwi friend Polly, and her friend Zoe. It seems that this wall stuffing thing is contagious, as they too were donning the gloves in no time, keen to get into some straw action. Thanks guys! 

It makes such a huge difference when we have people over to visit and help - obviously we get more done, and our visitors have fun and learn stuff at the same time, but we also get to spend time with our friends, meet new people, and the company of others is invaluable - it does wonders for our morale, our sense of accomplishment, and it's way more fun!

So last night Peter and I made a bit of a plan and are letting people know what is coming up over the next 6 weeks or so, our aim being to create some really great teams to get some big jobs done, with the maximum of fun. So next weekend we will hopefully get the bulk of the walls done, and then the next weekend, get into the long awaited rendering!

We have been doing some rough soil testing to see if our soil is suitable (given it's silty-clay type soil) to include in our earthen render. The render we will be applying is a combination of sand, clay and water. We need to do quite a bit of render testing before we come up with our A1 mix.

Added 14th Sept: The jars have soil from the property, with water added - then we shake it vigorously and wait for things to settle. The heavier material (sand) stays at the bottom, and then there is the silt and then the clay. We need at least 15% clay content for our soil to be viable to use in the render.

We were planning to apply our 3 coats of render (inside and out) by pump (way quicker than hand-rendering) but due to Brad our fabbo spray renderer being booked out, we will be doing our first coat by hand. This isn't a big problem, as the first coat is about getting a good connection with the walls, not about getting the shape of the walls right etc, which lends itself to a big rendering party! I have had a go myself, about 3.5 years ago now, and I remember that it was fun, and quite creative. Getting the render and sticking it into the walls is quite therapeutic, and anyone can do it, so it's a good opportunity to have lots of people participate (dates and details in the Getting Involved section). 

So the plan from here on is:

- Get rest of internal walls stuffed
- Shape rest of walls (for eg above windows, alcoves we want for candles, shelves etc)
- Trim rest of walls (to the shape we want)
- First, second and third coats of render
- Get windows installed
- Get Nth and Sth decking done
- Get internal fittings in
- Get final plumbing and electricals done
- Obtain Certificate of Occupancy
- MOVE IN!

There are lots of other things in between, but this is a summary of the home stretch. All assistance welcome!

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Posted by Katrina, on 12-09-2009, 1. sounds like a plan but is that render in the jars?   » Report this comment to administrator » Reply to this comment... » See all 1 replie(s)