A Whole New Bed Room

This is the new wall from the bedroom side where the fire place was, now the ceiling has been removed too, it was fibrous plaster a product I think is better than gib board but it was sagging, acrylic paint had been used over an oil based paint and it was peeling off, there was all the awful insulation from a bygone age up there that is good to be rid of and I wanted the opportunity to anchor the roof better so it has gone and will be replaced with gib board.
The ceiling joists are awfully bent so I will be using the Rondo system of steel to straighten the whole ceiling up, here you see all the new insulation that has been added in recent years.
This is the wall at the other side of the bedroom, I have replaced this wall too so only the exterior wall will remain original, I am looking forward to seeing some gib board on the ceiling and think I will have to place some of the insulation as I place each sheet as the roof is very low and no crawl space.
The best part of renewing everything is knowing I am not painting over old paint and hoping for a good finish.
I am thinking a new window in the room but once the ceiling is up I will need a week to do something with the floor, fill the holes, sand and seal then put some gib on the walls.
Onwards and upwards. 

A little painting

This is the wall that once upon a time had a fire place, now its clean fresh and straight the holes that different obsolete wires came from are all gone and we have one more power point, I also took the light from the ceiling and put in two wall lights, there are now only two walls in the lounge that are still the blue painted wall paper one is the wall with the window and the wall with a sliding door both of which I hope one day to replace but not this winter and the bedroom behind this wall needs a lot of my attention.
I painted doors in the garage when doing the pantry, laundry and

hot water cupboard and each time had difficulties with either wind blown dust or insects getting their feet in the paint and leaving trails as they struggled to escape, so while I have an empty room and a ceiling I am going to replace I can hang doors and paint both sides at once, having them flat results in no runs in the paint and I am able to paint the top and bottom of the door to my mind a good idea as I have seen many doors suffer from not being painted top and bottom.
The wall behind the doors is the next one to be replaced I have

already removed 2 studs they were the straight ones all the others are bent I will put them over a planer and straighten them then glue them together in pairs this will keep them straighter so I can thickness them and cut them before gluing on a third piece to bring them back to 90 X 45, here I show those that came from the last wall, nails removed straightened and glued up there is much to do but I don't want to chop them up for fire wood as I no longer have a fire, they become very stiff when laminated and I hope there is little chance of them bending so I am going to get the best finish on the gib board that I can, it is a good feeling knowing that I am able to do it all myself  and get a reasonable finish, the walls are good practice before I start on ceilings.   

New Walls

The fire place has gone and there is a gap in the wall, some of the wall studs are bent and twisted and not going to give a good finish to new gib board so it has to be a new wall, I temporarily prop the ceiling and take out the old wall before building a new one as shown, here you can see some of the bedroom wardrobe wall still in place as I thought it was holding up that ceiling and the roof, this wall is a brace wall so will be lined with a bracing gib board, the 2  panels are to take the wall lights we had thought picture lights and
hang a picture underneath but changed that idea so may now hang a picture between the lights, there is the problem of covering up the hole in the floor and decided that we will always carpet this room so a bit of tanalised ply will fill the hole.
The wall of the bedroom wardrobe was built from rough sawn 75 X 50mm and while some was bent some was quite straight but all full of big knots I decided to try straighten it and glue up new studs with the hope of getting 90 X 45mm I was successful and managed to make 12 studs over 2 days which is not economical when I could buy a 3m length or LVL for $17 but the satisfaction was in using it and not burning it, so here we have a new bedroom / hall wall again a brace wall so sheeted with gib brace, I now have all the bent twisted studs from this wall and the other so again I will glue up some laminated straight ones and replace the wall on the right of the photo, then there will be only one internal wall in the whole house I have not replaced, the exterior walls are bent but I cannot see myself replacing any of them.
The floor in this room is Tawa and we think worth exposing so we will put effort into making it look good and varnish it then enjoy its honey golden glow that I have come to enjoy whenever I use the bathroom.
Ceilings are looming on the horizon, bedroom and hallway are due for replacing soon.   

Fun pulling it all down

I was not sure what was involved with pulling out a fireplace, I knew there is a concrete pad down onto the ground and we had taken out the top of the chimney when the new roof went on so what I had to remove was below ceiling height but a lot of brick and concrete to break up and remove that will be used as a base for paths in the garden most of the concrete was a light weight pumice mix that made it easy to move outside.
View from the bedroom side that will become an open wardrobe as we find doors on wardrobes an inconvenience that sucks up floor space, I think we will have a hanging space at each end with space in the middle for a chest of draws, the room is the old 12ft wide or in my language 3.660 making it difficult for sheet sizes.
The gib board is very weak the core is crumbly and the paper has no holding power in those days nothing was glued so the gib was  easy to remove but messy so lots of clean ups, the stud work is very bent and uneven varying in width so it is going to be an entire new wall and as there is a bracing member there I will line it with gib bracing, at the top the ceiling is a mess a result of hot fires and leaks so the ceiling could face a similar future.
I have an idea of some wall lights on the lounge side probably the type that would be mounted over a picture, there is also a lot of work to fix up the floor which could involve some concrete cutting work, it is also a good opportunity to place the insulation in the right places.
Up and onwards with the fun.
 
   

One thing leads to another

Here is the photo that should have been in the last post, that daunting block
of concrete under the toilet that I took about 80mm off I then put some timber around the waste pipe to eventually fix the flooring to I then put some mastic that will remain flexible around the pipe to protect it, the flooring will all be cleaned and look like that on the right, most of that problem has now gone away.
The problem of what to do with the bricks and concrete around the fire place was often on my mind but as I got on with the garden project it became clear what I should do with it, the raised garden to the left is always in shade during the winter so putting a foot path along the side was an obvious choice, our soil is very deep and at about 500mm becomes sand

so a thick course of bricks and concrete will be covered with pebbles, the small middle path may be the same, I still need more soil so digging out more of the path to the end of the carport is on the cards.
I have been reasonably free of back ache these last few days so felt able to swim 40 lengths of the pool yesterday and felt the effects all day the result was an early night in bed, today we started with a 40 minuet walk before breakfast but then the back started to complain, I do find it best to keep moving about if I can when this happens with the hope that I can work the back right that is with rest, sheeting off part of the house and pulling down some gib board seemed manageable so here we are creating a footpath, those concrete blocks behind the stud work look heavy, the wardrobes on the other side of that wall are going to be demolished so the blocks may be coming out via the bedroom, there had been a few roof leaks prior to the new roof the ceiling is effected and will be another job once this wall is rebuilt and the bedroom brought back to use, I can see a few weeks work here given that I try not to put too much strain on my back by not doing too much at a time.
Keep watching. 

Windows and Garden

The windows arrived then it was my turn, I wanted to avoid painting the liners so I had them delivered loose and spent a while gluing formica to the face and edge, I used PVA or epoxy both work very well, then I used biscuits and epoxy to glue up the miters as it is the miters that often part as water gets into them and look tatty after a few years.
This photo is of the completed laundry wall, I used some of the old floorboards to edge the ply around the window creating a look I an so pleased with, the white liner behind the washing machine is 4.5mm
thick glued to 7mm ply, I used a H jointer between the 12mm ply and the white board below giving a very neat finish, at the window I cut off the legs of the plastic jointer.

All three windows are in now and the wall is lined with gib board unfortunately the supplier is out of the tile looking board I want to use on the walls in the bathroom so this room is going to look like this for some time now, I did install a new toilet, the project daunted me as there is a great lump of concrete below that the pipe comes through and used to show around the toilet, once I started demolition and saw how it had been assembled many years ago my concerns were not what I thought though I did dash off to the hire shop for a kango hammer which made the job easier on the arms, the mess at the top of the wall is my attempt to create a straight line for a scotia to fix to at a later date, the floor will all be tawa tounge and groove but not till the new shower base is installed, the shower will be in front of the toilet.
I had to find somewhere to plant 3 Blueberry trees that arrived home so I decided to have a break from house alterations, the bottom of the garden has for years been a dumping ground for grass clippings piling up the fence higher and higher, the Feijoa tree is now much smaller than it was so a plan was hatched to create a raised garden I am not sure how it is going to be used but it is stamping my mark on the back garden, a change in colour of the back fence could be in line.   
   

Time off

The laundry is finished, I need a break, so we are off to explore the road through to Gisborne State Highway 2 and have a look at Eastwoodhill Arboretum, its 200km and through a gorge following a river, its the end of May and a cold snap is over the country as we travel the road there is still frost on the grass at midday, we have a brief look at Gisborne then find accommodation for the night its boutique so one stand alone unit next to a house amongst the avocado trees there is a spa pool so I soak a while before we head out to eat.
Eastwoodhill is good but cold amongst those big trees, we had seen some dog trials so headed back to warm in the sun and enjoy the dogs and owners competing, a very competent pair I had watched seemed willing to divulge that the dog had been in training for 5 years it was 6 years old (sorry no photos), this road State Highway 2 is such a pleasant road to travel being a mixture of citrus orchards grape vines and sheep farming for the first few flat klms then its into the hills and following the river and the river got bigger and the hills higher we had the time so letting those past who just wanted to get to a destination I enjoyed the views we stopped at this relic of a bridge that in years long ago took 3 families to their farms, its the Tauranga Bridge and when I look it up on Google Earth there is no wonder farming was not possible in those hills, it must have been disheartening to travel past all that flat land from Opotiki then try and farm in those hills.
We had a good couple of days, the paint on the door frames I painted before we left is now well dry and I feel safe closing the doors on the laundry and hot water cupboard, that's 2 rooms finished.