Starting the ceiling

You saw that on Monday we had a delivery of lining boards for the living room ceiling, well we now have a few of those installed. Yippee!

They have got coats of paint on them so far.

The first two coats are of Zinsser 1,2,3 primer. This is a water based primer that is meant to stop the pine knot holes showing through the paint. I saw that Jenna Sue used this for her ceiling. However I think she used the better oil based one, but our paint guy suggested not to use it because we have kids living in the house and the fumes are strong or toxic or something. So we went for the water based, and just used two coats. So we will see how that holds up.

So I could only really do 4 boards at a time due to space limitations.

I sanded them lightly after the first coat was applied, and after two coats they looked like this.

So then I did one coat of Dulux ceiling white.

This is a very matte paint with no sheen to it. Now that I see it on the boards, I am wondering if our last coat should be a low sheen or something a little glossier to make them prettier. What do you think?

I have painted another 4 ready to go today but I don't think Dave will have time to install them tonight. As you can see it will be a slow process but already I am loving the result. It will look brilliant with the big fans hanging from them.

So they still will need to have all the nail and knot holes filled, gaps filled and then sanded again and hopefully just one last coat of paint.

Cheers,
Nat

Plaster and lining boards delivery today

It was a stormy day in Old Melbourne town today and I was a bit worried that our plaster delivery would get all wet. But my clever husband had ordered it to get delivered after work so it arrived and Dave was able to help the delivery man bring it all in out of the weather.

These are them in the house safe and sound. Look at how many lining boards I have to paint!! Eek. But they will look amazing so I am happy to get stuck in.

After dinner tonight, Dave and his side kick hung some plaster over and under the staircase.

 Hopefully we can get the stair guy back in this week to do some more work. Fingers crossed.

With each little piece of plaster and small bit of work, it is feeling better and better and more like a real house again. It is motivating to feel like it is progressing.

So tomorrow I hope to get some boards undercoated, but not sure how much I will get done with a toddler in tow. Might have to put Frozen on repeat to babysit. She is so cute at the moment, pretending she is Queen Elsa and singing around the house.

Cheers,
Nat

Door no more

Today we framed up the old bathroom doorway and braced it with ply as it says in the plans.

And that is all!
Cheers,
Nat

Doory Hole

What is a doory hole???  Well it is a hole for a door of course. And that is just what we made today.

Because the staircase will block the entrance to the bathroom, we have to make a new entrance through the kids bedroom (which will become the new laundry).

So here is the obligatory before shot of the current entry to the bathroom and the wall on the left is where the new door needs to go.

  

After, it looks like this. Please excuse the kids getting ready for bed. Not sure they are very happy with their new ensuite. 

First we had to cover up the kids beds with old sheets so they didn't get dusty from the plaster cutting.

 Two out of the three kids were happy to help at the start. Excuse Heidi picking her nose.

  

After we stripped off some plaster, you could see the original lining boards that were on that old wall. Kind of a shame we plastered over them really. We could have made them a feature.

 

Adding in new studs on each side.

Here it is looking from the kids room to the bathroom.

Tomorrow we will be doing some more work on this as well as removing the old door and walling that in.

I did a bit of work this morning before it got to hot outside. I filled the nail holes on the south facig wall down the side of the house. Then I put another top coat of yellow on th back wall, but it got too hot to finish it so might try to finish that tomorrow too.

After a busy day we took the kids to the beach. It was 36 degrees in Melbourne after all.

Cheers,
Nat

Window shopping for lights

About 2 weekends ago I ducked out with my two year old daughter and had a very quick look at Beacon Lighting, Masters and Bunnings lighting departments. I am on the look out for the following:

- fans for the living room

- pendants for the kitchen bench

- a pendant for the dining area

- a pendant for the retreat upstairs

- two lights for outside the back door

- wall lights for the steps up the staircase

- and downlights

These are a selection of the lights I was looking at.

Perhaps for outside

Staircase

Beacon fans (these looked too plasticy)

Dining area?? Kids retreat??

Kitchen pendants??

Outdoor lighting

Kitchen pendants

Loved these but they were thousands of dollars

Masters fan was much nicer than Beacon

Saw this cool light at Bunnings but it had no label or boxes to go with it.

So if you guys see anything else that would interest me, please let me know on Facebook or leave a comment down below.

Cheers,
Nat

Staircase Part 2

Today, Brad the stair guy, came back to do another 1/2 days work on the staircase. Wow it is looking a lot bigger now. This time he was just working by himself but he is a great worker.

So this is the stairs now.

This bottom step is not fixed into place. In fact it is not even there now.

He wont be back now until probably late next week. He hasn't ordered the handrails or done the stringers yet. Dave may even cut out the new hole for the bathroom door on the weekend so we can seal up the old door and finish the bottom of the stairs.

And that's about it really.

Cheers,
Nat

Staircase progress

Finally the day has come. Today we got the staircase installed. Well they finished about half of it as they didn't arrive until 1:30pm and left about 4:30pm. So they are coming back in the morning to do the remainder of what they can do.

They can't finish it yet because we still need the bathroom access so the bottom bit will be finished later.

I couldn't sleep last night because I was so nervous. You'd think I'd be excited wouldn't you, but as I hadn't seen any drawing or plan I had no idea what I was getting. All I did was sent him photos of what I wanted.
I had a dream they installed a spiral staircase, so of course I was panicking all day.

But when I got home I was thrilled with how it was looking and how much space we still had under the stairs. So now for some photos.

You can see how they are incorporating the metal beam into the design.

 Below are all the pieces that fit together like a puzzle.

This blackbutt tread you can see is a very light wood just as I wanted.

There are no handrails here yet so I guess they will bring them tomorrow.

Very cool huh!

The two guys that were installing it (Brad and Jack from Going Upstairs) were awesome! Jack said it was great to be doing a staircase like this because they don't get to do this style. He said it will look amazing once it is all painted up. Let's hope he is right, but now I can picture it and yes it will be pretty awesome.

So tomorrow night hopefully you will see some more progress shots.

Cheers,
Nat

We have a staircase date and other works

The latest breaking news at This Little Yellow House is that the stair guy just sent and sms and said let's do the stars on Monday. So that is 5 more sleeps. I'd normally be doing a dance but that initial excitement from last week has faded. I am sure Monday morning I will be excited and dying to get home from work.

We spent the weekend working on a few things. Saturday morning Dave pulled down the scaffold.

 

So now it looks like this from the back fence line. You may be able to see what I was doing while he was doing that from the picture above. I painted most of the back wall in the first coat of Lion's Den yellow.
 

Dave is actually finishing it off right now (time check: 8:47pm). Champion!

Other work we did after that was to brace the stairwell walls then hang the plaster. We had to both get up on the highest ladder to get the plaster up while Andrew kept the kids well clear below.

First piece of plaster

Walking the plank

 Also we got the ceiling framed up at the top of the stair well and bought some lining boards to paint white then install maybe next week.

Heidi checking out the lining boards

 Then yesterday I moved all the scaffold timber under the back pergola so the kids can actually get to the trampoline again. This was the before photo. Now it is all clear again.

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. But check in next week for the staircase!

Cheers,
Nat