Despite our good intentions of regibbing ourselves, we eventually decided to get someone in to do it for us. Totally worth the cost let me tell you! I did, however, staple waterproofing paper to ALL of the walls, interior ones too. And the dramas with the staple gunS! Yes, 3 staple guns were involved! The first one was Hubby’s, one he’d had for years. Which I managed to break in less than an hour!Needless to say it wasn’t a good start. I then bought a replacement one, it wasn’t the cheapest on offer but definitely wasn’t worth much more. Hmmm should’ve asked the Bunnings guy about staples because who knows stuff like each gun has a specific type of staple?? So I just bought the size that was on the packaging on the gun. Turns out you have to get a specific brand too! Geez, I was spitting mad when that one wouldn’t work! One last trip into town before I totally threw in the towel on the whole damn thing! Luckily there was a very helpful man on hand who pointed me in the right direction for both gun AND staples!
I even put in the insulation myself! Measuring, cutting, placing! Lets just say it was itchy work, even with gloves on!
A 2 man team took just a couple of days to get all of the gib up…it would’ve taken us weeks I’m sure!
Kitchen. Yes, that is a blurry child running across the bottom of the photo!
Lounge
Hallway
3rd bedroom
What a difference it made, it was starting to feel like real house again.
Next up were the gib stoppers (Strait-line Plastering, I highly recommend them,found on Builderscrack.co.nz). It took about 5 days for them to get the plastering done & dried enough for me to paint. And to get the gib cove up. The guy who did the gibbing measured up the amount of cove we would need so I just ordered it all through our builder. When it came to all the walls being up, the gibber asked what size cove I got…uuuuuummmmmmmm, there are different sizes?? Of course, the cove I got was too small! Due to the house being older, the walls are slightly taller than an average new-build these days. Only by a few cm’s but enough to make the standard size cove look ridiculous & not adequate to cover the gabs between wall & ceiling). So back to the builder who was, thankfully, able to return & reorder the cove in time for it to go up!
Lounge. You can see the larger cove at the top of the walls
Boys room. Plastered & cove up
Oh, let’s not forget the electrician who came in between & putting in of insulation & the walls going back in. And what a mess electricians make! A friend of a friend who was amazing, making sure he stayed within our minimal budget (who knew electricians were so pricey??). He wasn’t the messy one, but his young apprentice was a tad on the lazy side. Dropping wires etc & leaving them all over the place. Despite there being a bin/cardboard box to dispose of such crap! Hubby was quick to drop a very obvious hint about it which made a difference for about an hour! The brush & pan were never far from my hands! We still have outside lights that need to be connected, & proper fittings for all the overhead lights inside (currently just bare bulbs) but we aren’t in any rush just yet. Maybe in the new year when things have settled down after baby boy’s arrival….
Yay, painting time!!My father-in-law and one of my brothers-in-law came to help me paint while Hubby was at work. It was exciting to see the colour go up on the walls, but oh how tedious!!! I did the ceilings, I even researched the best methods! I certainly don’t envy painters their job!
We were under pressure to move out of our rental place by this stage so we were trying to get everything done so that Hubby could get the plumbing done, and the builder could come in and do the skirtings & window/door surrounds. Which then also needed painting! (Farm we were on was being leased out & included the cottage we were renting. It had been okayed that we could stay on until we were ready to move into the new COMPLETED house. But of course, the farm worker they had suddenly walked out on the job so they had to organise someone else pronto. The people they hired needed accommodation, so guess who had to move out pronto?)
Kitchen.The only photo I could find of just the painting…see, no window surrounds yet
And then Hubby made an executive decision, while talking to the landlord of our rental on the wed (11/6) that we would move out on the sat(14/6)!!! Then came home to tell his stressed out, over-it-all, pregnant wife! Let’s just say there was swearing and tantruming, and possibly some tears involved. While he could get up on Thurs morning & head off to work for 10 hours, I had to look after a 3 and 4 year old, paint, clean, pack up the rest(most) of the rental & organise to change the date for the carpet layer to come…on top of the usual day-to-day running of a family!
Geez I was spitting mad! Luckily the kindy the boys attend could take them on the Friday so I could at least attempt to get things done. Unfortunately there are only so many hours in a day and, despite there being 3 of us painting, it didn’t quite get done. The cove & skirtings could really do with another coat of paint and some of the window surrounds need a tidy up after all the gap filling I have done since. And most of the doors need doing too, but they can wait just a little while longer, until the sun becomes more reliable & Hubby can unhinge the doors for me to paint outside.
Hubby was able to organise 4 of his mates to come on the Sat morning to help move our stuff (we have only moved 2.5kms down the road). Alot of the stuff had been packed but there was still loads to do, which I thought I would easily be able to do on the Sat morning while the guys were loading/unloading. Rookie mistake! The guys arrived on time, which in itself must be a first for these very helpful men. I was still in my PJ’s, rushing around getting things organised into piles of what was to go on the trailer & what wasn’t, namely the clothes that I was going to change into once they left. Luckily I checked before they left because in all the chaos my clothes had somehow made it thrown in somewhere! Rescued in the nick of time. When they left I was still dizzy from the whirlwind they created in their wake! (Thanks to those strapping young men;-) )
I was able to get everything hoovered/cleaned while they were unloading at the new house and by 11 we were officially out of the rental. Keep in mind we still didn’t have lighting, although the electrician was able to do a quick job to get us electricity before we moved in, or carpets or a kitchen! So we put a sheet on the floor of our bedroom & put mattresses down for all of us to sleep on, camping style until the Tues when the carpets went in. We put the lounge furniture in so we could at least relax warmly for the weekend, before having to move it all into the kitchen area the night before the carpets went down.
First night in the new house. No lights, carpets or kitchen!
Lounge. Before carpets, busy hanging curtains in front of the fire
I love my curtains!Hubby was studying for an exam the next day!
Carpets, oh what a difference they make!
I, too, felt like running down the hallway on the new carpet!
And then the wait for the kitchen…because the benchtop had to be made & ordered we had to wait almost 2 weeks before we finally got our kitchen. A guy Hubby has worked with numerous times on job sites, we highly recommend him. A perfectionist! In the mean time I became the master of the gas BBQ for dinner!
Midway…
Almost done…
Completed but still a tad on the messy side…
I quickly snapped a photo just now…
Still a tad messy! Boxes of baby stuff that are awaiting a space in storage until needed! Floors will eventually be redone too
We are still not finished…will we ever be?? But those things will happen as we go along. All 3 bedrooms are complete (well, except for touch ups to skirtings etc) and that is the most important thing 🙂
If you made it to the end of this post, well done you! It didn’t start out as a long post but I got carried away. Thanks for sticking with it! I may do a photo-only post of before & after shots next…if I can be bothered
AfricanKiwi 