Measurements and Complications

I think I'm going to have to give up predicting what the next day will bring when I sign off on my posts. The plan was to construct the kitchen extension today. Not going to happen.

Again with a house-that-jack-built scenario, we needed to get nice strong hardwood beams to attach to the two walls in the kitchen that we've now cut bits out of, to brace everything so it stays sturdy and straight. I'll demonstrate...

This is the room as it is at the moment (sorry it's a bit dark, it won't stop raining!). As you can see, we have chopped the VJ boards a bit below the ceiling along the West wall (the dark one which is being extended) and the wall that used to separate the kitchen from the dining room (where the doorway is still in place).

Since both those walls used to have solid boards running from floor to ceiling (which helped to secure the walls properly, we need to run hardwood beams below them, like so...

Sound simple, right? Of course not!! Since we have very little experience in carpentry, my desire to make both those horizontal areas look like this...

...makes things very complicated.

This resulted in a two-hour argument/discussion, diagrams on the floor, diagrams on the wall, and many many many measurements!

Once we finally came to an agreement about what should go where and how long it should be, we were finally able to actually purchase the hardwood to achieve our aim!

In the same trip to Bunnings, we also needed to get something to put on the floor of the bathroom to replace the boards we removed yesterday. Because the floorboards are quite deep, we actually ended up getting two large boards to place one on top of the other, to fill the gap. They then needed to be cut to size, and then chiselled to fit the space perfectly.

Daniel writing down measurements of the space to fill

 

Tom sawing the boards, clamped together



The final cut

How very Australian... a random thong in the mud

The first board almost in place

Tom chiselling the edges to make the boards fit

Tom now fitting the second board in place

Just as well we're tiling over it! It's not very pretty.

Add to that drama the fact that an unidentified neighbour keeps complaining to the Council about the noise we're making, and we're having a fantastic time!

Here's to a better week next week.

Love,

Bec