Stairway to...not quite heaven yet

After the hard slog getting our house poles concreted in, we were so exhausted that for hours afterward we couldn't comprehend any more physical labour. We eventually made our way outside again to consider our next task, attaching what had been the front stairs on the house to the back door. We almost got there, and then had to rest on the nearest available flat surface... for Tom, this was the bucket of our loaned digger.

Once we had got our heads around the task, Tom began attempts to remove the old (and bent) stair rail from the staircase with a ratchet.

That proved to be difficult, so he moved to a more appropriate tool.

Which was very effective.

And then he fired up the digger to drag the staircase to where we needed it to be.

He eventually managed to hook the very front of the bucket around the steel bracing under the top step, which made it much easier to drag around.

Then came the difficult task of manouvering the awkward thing around all of the obstacles we've created for ourselves in the backyard. This included about a seven point turn into the garage.

Allie of course had to immediately investigate the space where the stairs had been sitting.

Here is Tom encountering his first obstacle - a pile of pavers and the original concrete stumps from the house.

He had to move the pavers, but he got through, and made his way towards the house.

He had to be extra careful not to let the digger fall into one of our freshly concreted post holes.

And then the stairs were raised majestically into the air!

Still raising...

Requiring a little human intervention...

Nearly there...

And then, less majestically, we jammed a hunk of wood under the top step to nicely sandwich it above the steel beam (the black thing in the pictures). And strapped it in.

It's certainly no masterpiece, and it's not going to win any safety awards, but it's safe enough for us at the moment, and it's definitely nicer than having to climb a ladder to get in and out of the house!

Sorting out the Nuts and Bolts

A project that has kept me busy for the last few quiet Sundays whenever I've had a few moments was sorting this giant bucket of nuts, bolts and anything else hardware-related that you can think of (the results of an accidental spillage of a few containers in the garage at our last house).

I laid out an old sheet in the third bedroom (what will become the bathroom), dumped the entire contents on it, and got to work.

The early stages of the sorting process.

All of the bits and pieces I wanted to organise were combined with a generous serving of dirt and random things, so I actually developed a useful trick when I discovered a magnet in the rubbish, which I then used to pick up the smaller objects (without their surrounding dirt). That sped things up considerably, and really helped with the tiny pin-like nails.

Still going. As much as I wanted to lay everything out neatly on the sheet to admire my handiwork before putting things away in the various containers, I started to run out of clear space very quickly. So I had to start sorting a few things into the containers as I went.

Voila! The pile of rubble is gone, replaced with nice neat rows. I put the lines on the sheet to good use.

A better view of my beautiful rows. Note that about half of the quantity is laid out, the other half is already in the various containers.

A close up. I lined everything up in categories. Bolts, nuts, wood screws (flat tops and rounded tops in separate lines), washers, nails, and all other random things in height order.

Some of the random items.

And then the most satisfying part of all - organising it into the containers. Because I'm so proud of my effort (and because it satisfies the most obsessively organised part of my being), I'm going to show you every single painstakingly organised tray (don't worry, there aren't THAT many!).

The odds and ends.

 

The washers and nuts.

The nails.

The flat-topped wood screws (my nickname for them, not the official name).

The round-topped wood screws.

And then the entire drawer unit was devoted to bolts. The largest ones at the bottom...

 

Slightly smaller bolts...

Smaller again (kind of - well thinner at least)...

You guessed it... smaller again.

Bored yet? Bear with me, second last drawer!

And the last drawer for the smallest!

All of the discards (including all of the packets that had been previously unopened) went back in the bucket.

Our beautiful tower of fabulously organised hardware. Now stop groaning at my obsessive compulsive need for organisation and admire how easy it will now be to find exactly the right nail/bolt/screw for each task! Heaven!

No seriously, it's really important to your sanity to have all of your bits and pieces in some semblance of order. Every task happens quicker (because there's less frantic searching), and there's much fewer needless (and irritating when you're mid-job) purchases if you can tell easily exactly what you do and don't have at first glance. So be prepared for some seriously efficient nailing/screwing/bolting in our future!

Set in Concrete

Well the concrete's still setting, but there's no going back now!

At almost exactly 10:30 on Saturday morning, our concrete truck arrived after a mad dash for us to get all of our steel posts level. We had exactly half an hour to wheelbarrow the concrete from the truck into each of our metre-deep holes, because they would charge us $4.40 extra per minute after that.

We could have got a concrete pump which would have been a lot less effort, but they cost about $500 to hire, so of course we went for the more difficult, cheaper option. Tom, his brother Phil and I loaded, ran (and balanced) the wheelbarrows, tipped them into the holes and ran back for reloading constantly for the full half hour, finishing almost exactly on the dot.

Unfortunately it was so crazy that I didn't get to take any action shots. I tried at one point and Tom practically snatched the camera out of my hands and threw it away (not really, but he was emphatic to say the least). So, you just get to see the relatively calm aftermath.

Let me just say that if you want a REALLY hardcore workout, run around with full wheelbarrows of concrete for half an hour. We were all so exhausted we sat around like zombies for hours afterward. And remember, that's us. On the only day of the weekend that we're allowed to make noise. Pretty serious, huh!

And don't even talk to me about the state of my biceps now.

Tom and Phil washing out the wheelbarrows.

Doesn't that look forlorn?

We can hardly believe that we've actually got the concrete in the holes. That light at the end of the get-the-house-to-liveable-standard-again tunnel is burning brighter!

 

So what happens next? The concrete needs three days to set, so we'll leave it until Wednesday to get the house lifting guys to come and remove the timber stacks and drop the house onto the steel poles. They're hanging (although not really hanging so much anymore but sitting in their concrete) from loosely done up bolts that we tightened or loosened during the levelling process to get them at just the right height. So, there's a bit of a drop from the house's current position to the actual top of the posts.

When the stacks get taken away we'll need to prop up the house temporarily with acrow props near the places where we still have to dig a few more holes (and hang posts, and pour more concrete), but that brings us so much closer to being able to connect up the water and electricity! We're nearly there! Stay tuned. The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty full on.