My Cmas present

The Christmas present to myself is a completed carport roof, and thanks to my supplier it did happen before the 25th, I did not expect they would be able to get the roofing delivered at this time of year and felt cheeky asking but was told it would be there in store on the 23rd mid day and having my sons help we had 2/3 fixed on by the end of the day leaving me to fix the 2 clear sheets and 3 sheets of tin on the 24th next year I will need to get some cappings for the ends and think about how to close in some of the side.
By having the clear lite over the garage window I now get more
light on to the work bench in the garage that has been much needed.
I think I was snapped doing a celebratory dance and the other one was laughing at me as he is unaccustomed to seeing me dance or was it my fancy dress?
I would have liked more head room, I did manage to lift the high side about 70mm, I didn't want an internal gutter or to have the side too open so without lifting the garage roof this is what we have to have.

Rather than put a 75mm X 45mm over the top of the rafters I have put 140mm X 45mm between them these came from the old roof and are still good timber by doing it this way I have gained 45mm more head room and while that is not much in this case every little helps and I was able to use the timber that we pulled out of the old construction and at the same time cut out a lot of the bad parts.
The view from the kitchen window is now much more pleasing.
Have a enjoyable Cmas, and best wishes for 2016.

Carport roof

It was a dirty rotten mess that has been added to over many years much of it using second hand materials, the roof had holes in it and leaked I had covered it up with tin from the garage when I roofed that and it still leaked it was a sore sight from our kitchen window.
I have lifted the high side of the roof as much as I could and the low side is the same as much as I would have liked it higher, the steel posts at the front part are still good and strong and one post at the back there is an area that I will fill in and as I write this I think steel posts may be an option, for the side I am thinking I will use the tin that came from the garage roof and house roof there is a few good sheets and I will only go two thirds high and leave the top open on the front area, there is new tin coming for the roof today and it will have 2 sheets of clear plastic towards the back that will let some light into the garage window.
The steel post that were set in concrete many years ago are not in line and look as if they moved as the concrete was poured I have tried to pull the top of the post straight so the beam looks right, there will be no gutter as the ground is so porous the rain off the garage just soaks away and we hope it soaks towards the vege garden the passion fruit is too far away to feel the effect but as can be seen is doing very nicely with the water we give it, some are not as green as they were but eating days are a way off yet, we are getting a strawberry each most days and I have had 2 tomatoes the courgettes have been a bumper harvest to many to eat and there is a lot of pumpkin swelling up out there.  

Red better than Blue

We have changed the blue curtain for red ones that slide so nicely, the blue one is neatly folded away ready for the next mission, the lounge is finished and a pleasure to use, the carpet will one day be a pale grey or something, I still have some painting to do outside around the new door, the wall with the portrait needs painting and there is some skirting missing, why dose this sound like its not finished another job not finished, but then more finished than it was before and clean and usable for the day I intend to have off on Cmas day.

My son looked as if he wanted a project I only had scraps of jobs to do we are having fine warm weather and the carport looks ugly and dirty the roof is rotten and leaks some of the wood is rotten it has been a good carport and it could be better, we started late in the day but by the end of the second day it has all gone into a pile on the lawn and the side of the garage has 3 new sheets of ply on it, I am told I can have new roofing iron in 5 days time that I hope is about all I need to get some new woodwork up to fix the new iron to,
5 days and that will be just before everything closes for the Cmas holidays so here is hoping it is sitting here waiting for me and that I am not sitting here waiting for it to arrive, looking at how the carport has been constructed tells me it has grown over the years until it is as long as the garage the back portion being used as a wood shed for the house fire, the ground around here is very soft and porous allowing water to soak away very quickly and the idea of the pebble path is that we won't have any gutter to the roof.
It is very nice having a helping hand. 

The good the bad and the beautiful

 Two look alike windows now grace the front of the house leaving only the far corner one to change. 
When the old sliding door was installed someone put a strip of particle board under it, over the last few years it had been wet and fallen apart I decides to take out a few floorboards and put a piece of tanalised ply down that went under the new door and would one day have tiles on top of it, the sub floor timber is rimu and can be very hard the nail gun often has difficulty driving a nail into such hard wood and will rebound off the timber as the nail refuses to go in, I am very aware of this but with a moments lack of attention I had my finger behind the nail gun and as it rebounded my finger was trapped on the next timber joist the blood was instant as the finger end split and the colour of strawberry and the nail is now the colour of the background and looking bad.
The strawberry's are today's crop and while its not desert for 3 it is one each and beautifully tasty they are, the passion fruit and tomato's have a bigger crop but are a while from being ready. 
Inside those windows I have been busy fixing new gib board mudding the joints, fixing coving, sealing the gib and hopefully will start with some paint tomorrow we have been living with most of the lounge curtained off to stop the spread of dust and I am aiming to have the lounge livable for Christmas and a few days break from my 9 to 5 working days. 

In the kitchen

Whilst waiting for windows to be made I attacked the bedroom ceiling and that was easy now I am so familiar with what to expect and how to go about it, then I had time to consider what will happen to kitchen cupboard doors, I have had a large sheet of blonded oak ply for a long time and thought it would be nice as a panel in kitchen doors, I had gained all this rimu, nice old well dried rimu with plenty of colour it is mostly 100mm X 75mm and nail holes about every 450mm the nails have been cut off and are still in the wood about half way through, so my quandary was will the two look right together and making a sample door was on the cards, the space above the fridge needed filling the ceiling needed sorting before I can proceed with the kitchen ceiling, I figured I had time to build the cupboard
and make the doors before the windows arrived, the blonded oak ply is  only 2mm thick and had to be glued to a thicker ply I chose 3mm so the doors are light weight given that the rimu is a heavy wood, I chose the round top rail for some relief from the squareness the doors are 22mm thick enabling me to have 2 biscuits in each corner creating I hope a strong joint.
I would like to have them sprayed with a lacquer but in the photo it is bare wood, you will need to look closely to see the grain in the oak as the photos do not do it justice.