Week 3: Tilly

Tuesday; Back to work we go. Today is pretty busy. Not long after we sit down with our surveyor to talk about our land in Palmerston. The pegs show the neighbours fence is not right. It is out by quite a lot at one spot. We are not worried, we will most likely leave it where it is unless we need to build some new fences. We get some supplies from mitre10 and say hello to Leona. Then we have the sparky come take a look and give us an idea on cost to put a new switchboard in. The rest of the afternoon is spent taking a load to the dump and other various tidying.

Wednesday; with our load of stuff to drop off at the Hampden Tip we head there first. A cheap $40 mower in Moeraki will do the trick at Till. I return 3 of the fans and loads of other goodies too good to put in the skip. We pick up lots of glass. It costs a good couple of hundred to get someone to cut you glass to size. It was something Rowan really got good at when we renovated in Bluff.

At Tilly I focus on a top to toe in the smaller bedroom to turn it into our break room. I will continue this throughout the house. We just need the next few days to really get organised and make a place for everything so we know where it all belongs and where to get it from when we need it! At 1pm Tama our builder pays a visit. He will help with jobs we just can’t be bothered with. Weatherboards, flooring etc. We also have a roofer turn up to take a look at the place. Sounds like it is in good knick and we shouldn’t do anything to it.

Thursday; Rowan and I attempted to get the Clawfoot cast iron bath sorted. Unfortunately it only has three legs. I will have to start looking for another one or a complete different set. We are soaking the old bolts in some WD40, it is now a tomorrow problem. We have two more sparkys come to look at the house. I think we finally have our man. We will probably use him for Palmerston too. I have tried to use paint stripper to help prepare the windows but it really is taking way too long. Not to mention it is expensive. So we go out to the tool shed and acquire a specialised tool. It is designed for weatherboards. Basically it is a plane and it cuts out a small amount as you run it along. Hopefully this is a clever next move. Note to self watch a video before trying. We get to knock off a little early today, we are heading to Glenavy to see Kelvin, Paula and the girls. They have just been south so we headed up to them and had fish and chips for dinner. It was great catching up with them.

Friday; Rowan started his glass cutting and I followed behind with some putty. I got some putty I have never tried before. Not the usual linseed based one. I made a mess at the start as I went to knead it but with this stuff you make a mess doing that. It is best to not work it. Also it has the benefit of a few days to set before painting rather than weeks. Rowan is doing really well with his cutting of the glass. I am up the ladder when I hear a “Katie.” I find his attempting to move the bath on his own. I am going to paint this bath. I am just not sure what colour yet. I really need to choose colours soon. As the day comes near an end I find a lot of shattered glass on the ground. Ah yes, of course some of this glass is safety glass. Haha thanks tip shop. I make the decision to leave that as Cory’s first job and put it in the too hard pile. We head off and see an amazing sunset tonight. The way the clouds are formed gives us an amazing effect.

Saturday; We had a few morning errands but we busied ourselves while waiting for Cory to arrive. Eventually I send Rowan off as he is now late to see Dave (Leona’s husband) to see if he has any potential claw feet for us. We also have a lunch date with our neighbours. However that gets a rain check. I potter in the house and busy myself easily. Finally I give up and message Cory. Whoops we have communicated wrong and he isn’t coming today he is coming tomorrow. Oh well. When Rowan gets back we head up the road to get some free native grasses and thyme. The lovely Lyn tells me I can come back for more if I like. So I pull out a lot of them and when we get back I put them in water as I won’t have time to plant them yet. We then go to Resene, I am after some wallpaper. Well deary me it is expensive! Nope it is way more costly than paint. I am gutted as I really want to go for wallpaper. I am going to have to come up with a new idea. We also get a few other jobs done while we are out. Today is near 30 degrees it is just too hot. We also would have taken the day off if we knew we weren’t obligated anywhere. So we make the great decision to go back to Herbert and relax the rest of the day.

Sunday; I spent all day in the garden. It wasn’t as hot as yesterday. I aimed to get the free plants into the ground. This task won’t take long… well it took all day. I found three walls that I rebuilt. There were dog bones and litter throughout. Plus a few piles of ashes to remove, one was full of nails. There were loads of sticks and grassy bits to remove. finally once I did all that I could plant all the lovely grasses and thyme. Rowan had the task of hardening the wood. There is a special two pack epoxy designed for boats that hardens rotten wood. It is quite a process with you need to remove most of the rot first. That preoccupied Rowan for the day. We had our man Cory back, he was straight onto cleaning up the safety glass. Then he pulled the cardboard down out of the studio and cleared up the crap in the corner. After that we had him removing stumps. This was good for me as it was the last job before I could plant. Rowan and Cory took out the old dog house out. I wanted to list it for free but as soon as they started to move it, it fell apart. Cory dismantled it for his last job of the day.

Monday; Today I woke up super early 3.30am and couldn’t sleep. Rowan also woke up early 5.30am so we were at till by 7am. We picked up some more plants from lovely Lyn and I got another carex from another lady on Facebook. So I spent the morning planting more of the same area. We had a Dave and a Harry come over. Dave looked at the building stuff and Harry got his chainsaw out and chopped up the macrocarpa more. Rowan is a little annoyed as he broke a window and Rowan said to be careful. Argh another job on the list. We also have wee Presley here helping out. Cory gets the trailer loaded with rubbish to take to the tip. It is mostly the stuff inside the small tool shed and other crap from the garden. We get some more stumps removed today and finally get the one next to the house gone. Rowan works on replacing a window in the main bedroom. We also take the time to see the building team at the council about Palmerston. The PIM (pre building consent), came back and we just had one question. All looks pretty good. Yay, first step done, now to finalise plans then apply for consent. I also noted water in our garage that hasn’t disappeared all week, if anything has gotten worse. I thought it must have rained while we are away. Alas the water Toby needs fixing. Rowan let the council know, which they will fix in the next few days.

We sold a washing machine which was doing the ticket but we upgraded at the tip shop. Twenty bucks and it is a front loader. We sold the old $10 washer for $30. I didn’t get as much done as I wanted today. There was a lot of interruptions, however tomorrow is a new day!