Isolation notes

I'm sitting here watching the wind try to tear the washing off the clothesline.

We've been in isolation for the past week after B tested positive for covid last Monday night. We had been dreading that moment, but when it came we were actually excited. Well, I was. B was a shadow of himself, flat and tired and short of breath.  He slept most of Tuesday, and barely remembers that day at all.

I was secretly thrilled to see the two lines appear on the test. It's been a long school term, and I'd been yearning for a bit of a break from the hamster wheel. A week off from life was exactly what I wanted. And of course the girls were incandescent with joy at the thought.

It's been wonderful. And let me acknowledge right here the privilege in that fact. We are not worried about money, we have a pantry full of food, we are warm and safe and have been overwhelmed with help and support from friends and family. We are lucky, and I know that.

Honestly, I wish we didn't have to go back to the real world. Our world here at home, just us four, is perfect for me.

There's a jigsaw puzzle on the dining table (a lockdown tradition by now) which we all take turns to pause at and pore over.

B has taught the girls how to make friendship bracelets, and now J walks everywhere with embroidery floss pinned to the knee of her pants.

We've played card games ending in helpless laughter.

I've knitted a whole sleeve on A's pink cardigan. I should have got both sleeves finished really but alternating rounds of knit and purl are boring and tedious. Another pattern I probably won't revisit.

We've baked bread, of course.

A has learned how to swing herself at last, and now spends ages out there, one of the rare times she ever plays alone.

And, perhaps my favourite part, we eat every meal together. I haven't felt harassed by the thought of dinner, there's plenty of time to think about what we'll have and to get it ready in time. 

The only two things I've missed are barista coffee and being able to just nip to the shops for something we need.

We all, including B, tested negative yesterday evening so it's time to rejoin the world. Bugger it.

The house blanket

Right around the time when we got serious about building this house, I started on an epic crochet project, a huge intricate blanket named, beautifully, Sophie's Universe.

The house project and the blanket project became, for me, inextricably linked. Both long slow-burn projects, both with their share of difficulties and false starts and bits needing to be ripped out and re-done. I gave myself a deadline: when the house is finished, the blanket should also be finished.

Sometimes it seemed the house would win, and other times it looked like the blanket would romp in at first place.

Through the summer days and the truckloads of metal, wood and brick deliveries, I doggedly hooked away. In front of the tv in the evenings, during the school/kindy day, a snatched moment on the weekend. As winter crept in, the house grew and the blanket spread across my lap. The house barely progressed, but the blanket became too big to finish one round in an evening. Then winter slowly withdrew and the blanket lay idle, folded neatly in its basket, and the house raced ahead again as spring bubbled up around us.

As you would know, there have been ups and downs in the house build. In some way those memories, good and bad have been stitched into the blanket. All the ebbs and flows are preserved there, even if I'm the only one who remembers.

Now here we are, living in this house. To all intents and purposes, it's finished (4L of paint notwithstanding).

It's summer again. The blanket is barely half finished. One day I folded it into the basket and never picked it up again.

Today however, I opened the storeroom and saw the blanket, still neatly folded and patiently waiting. I pulled the basket down and tonight once the smalls are in bed, I'll sit down with my hook and find my place in the pattern, choose a colour and add another round.

The house may have won the race, but if I can spend all winter under the comforting bulk of the blanket, in our beautiful new house, I'd say I won anyway.

So close!

As I type, the carpet is being laid in the bedrooms, and the kitchen installer is finishing off his last few bits and pieces (handles, toe kicks, etc).

The wooden floor is now finished, and beautiful!

The dust though! So much fine powdery dust everywhere. All over the walls, windowsills, in every drawer, cupboard and shelf, a fine coating on all the vanities... The clean up is epic. I'm trying to tackle it by degrees so I don't keel over and die from the enormity of it all.

The piles of top soil are now gone, and in the new year we'll get the fencing sorted (if/when we ever have money again). I've sown the grass seed and there is now the faintest tinge of green all around.

All the concrete is now poured, including the gigantic driveway. These kids better not ask to go to the bike park ever again, they now have their own huge bike park to ride to their hearts' content (7-10 days from now anyway).

The cladding on the front entrance is still to be done, but I'm loving this view of the house as you pull in the gate. I have some grasses ready to plant around the front entrance once I can organise a trailer load of top soil.

By far my favourite development this month though, besides the floor, is the kitchen ever closer to completion! With a functioning kitchen we can move in (ok yes and toilets...)!  The rangehood is up, the splashbacks are almost complete, and look at that beautiful benchtop.

We had this benchtop custom made and boy was it worth it! I'm a little nervous about how shiny it is but apparently it will dull down with use. At the moment no one is allowed to come near it with one sticky finger. I love it.

So shiny!

 So, the age old question, when are we moving in? Well, it's close enough that I have called the movers to book a date! Yes we will be using movers. Neither of us want to deal with the hassle and drama of trying to shift everything ourselves, and for the sake of a few hundred dollars I consider it money well spent.

I'm hoping to be in next week, B reckons it'll be the week after. Who wants to lay a bet??

Progress

I know you've all be waiting with baits on your breath (family in-joke) for the next update.

There has been a lot going on, but not much that shows up in photos for a blog post.

As you can see above, we now have a fancy-schmancy front door - no key required! Ideal for someone like me who misplaces their key more often than I'd like to admit.

The slab for the shed has also been poured, and in fact the framing is now going up too.

Inside the house, the plumber and electrician have been busy running pipes and wires everywhere. 

Last week the ceiling insulation was installed, with the walls to be done next week.

Still no bricks yet though. Local kids have been very excited that we're building a blue house, they're going to be so disappointed when the bricks finally get done. Hopefully in a week or so. I'm dying to see the bricks go on because then it'll really start to look like what it's going to look like!

It's been pretty wet these last few weeks, but when the sun shines it's a great time to go down there and dream about when we live there...

The view from the guest suite

 And how about that sunshine streaming into my bedroom! I'm going to have a reading/knitting chair in that far corner and you're going to need a crowbar to prise me out of it come any sunny Sunday.

Eight weeks from slab to windows

I told you guys we were motivated to get this thing built, and I wasn't kidding.  As of last Friday the house is wrapped and windows are in. They're not boxed out or whatever you call it, but they're all where they're supposed to be.

We went with a kind of wrap which means that once the windows are boxed in/out/whatever, the house is technically watertight.  The brickie can be bricking outside and the work can carry on inside at the same time.  Building at this time of year it seemed like the sensible choice.  As I type it's raining pretty steadily, and although the sun is shining in these photos, that was a brief interlude between some pretty persistent wet weather.

Since we're at a sort of juncture in the build, I thought now is an opportune time to give a wee shout out to some of our trades so far who have been pretty stellar, helpful and easy to deal with.  Quite a few of them don't even have a website, which I think is usually a pretty good indication of their skills.  If you're able to run your business on word-of-mouth alone, you must be pretty good at what you do.

Architect: Toolbox Architecture

Builder: Brad Raven

Earthworks: JJT Contracting

Slab: A+ Driveways

Frames and trusses: Timberco

Windows: NuLook

Roof: Central Roofing

Plumber: WC Plumbing

A roof and the beginnings of a shed

We have a roof!

And not a moment too soon.  They finished up on Friday and yesterday the rains came pouring down, with more predicted for... well, basically the foreseeable future.  Now we just need the windows installed and the wrap wrapped and we're watertight!

Isn't it beautiful?? Here's a few more angles!

The very observant or deeply invested among you might also have noticed a "few" pallets of bricks around the place there. Yup! Bricks are here ready to go, and you can't see them but the windows have also been delivered (stored in the garage for now), so (so far...) we're tracking really well time-wise.

We also have the beginnings of a shed, which is desperately needed. The original build plan was to have the shed built first so we could order materials etc and store in them in the shed at the ready, but it just hasn't panned out that way. 

It'll be great to get this thing complete and then I can start ordering stuff like kitchens and toilets and have somewhere to put them! Not to mention emptying cupboards in our seriously overfull current house and bringing them down here. I have already started pulling out and boxing up things that we're not going to need or use between now and moving in. Some may say I'm going a little early, but if my past many MANY moves have taught me anything at all, there's no such thing as starting too early.

The number one most popular question from literally everyone has been, "So when do you move in?"

The short and simple answer is, there's no date. Living onsite, it's not like we have the worry of two mortgages or paying rent. We won't be putting our current house on the market either, so we don't have to worry about a settlement date that we need to be moved out by. That being said, we're very motivated to get the build finished asap. If we move in in August, that would be amazing! If it's September, that's a good result! If it's before Christmas, I'll still be happy!

So, I'm shooting for July.