I've been putting off posting again, waiting for things to happen, for better weather, to remember to take my good camera down to the house...
Yes, progress is being made. Although I initially decided that the roof would be the first thing to get done, what actually started happening first was the piles. The piles that I wasn't going to touch.
The family said "oh, it won't cost much, we have some jacks, we can just jack it up and pack the saggy bits." Let me tell you now, this is not how it works! Investigations with a laser level showed us that one corner had dropped by 70mm the other by 90mm. One or two bearers were visibly bowed. So we thought we would just correct the drop as much as we could and leave it at that. Except it doesn't work that way either. One thing led to another, yada yada yada, I'm getting the professionals in.
It was meant to be. I ran into an old friend in the house lifting business, who offered his advice, and the result is this. I will pay him to lift and level the house. It will be done safely and properly, and then I will sort out any piles that need to be replaced etc, as time (and money) allow.
It makes sense to do the piles first. I'm now told that if I had done the roof, it would have been buggered if I had to do the piles at some point afterwards. But the other discovery is that there IS a leak in the roof. It is, thankfully, a small and slow one.
The mystery of the damp ground, and the torrents of water running down the garden path when it rains has been solved. I'm not using enough water!
The water tank is full, and has been for some time now, as I'm frugal with water, have no washing machine, and am only home on weekends. (And it's been the wettest May in god knows how long). The roof is close to 100 square metres and almost all of it runs to the guttering at the back of the house, and into the tank. In theory.
In fact, with the tank full, the water just rushes over the edge of the guttering and pours on the ground. The overflow for the tank is fairly small, and has no hose attached, so all the water that does make it out of the tank goes down the garden path. I think this is why the path had disappeared from view! I need to make the overflow wider.
I'm now making fantastical plans for a "dry riverbed" (you like my fancy landscaping term?) to channel the water when it rains. Possibly a pond too! (Must get some rocks). We've had inorganics here last month and I've picked up some drainage pipe, just enough to do along the back of the house. Isn't that convenient? I've also picked up a terracotta chimney pot, which combined with a large bowl, has made a nice birdbath. Which no birds are interested in. I guess country birds don't know what such luxuries are for.
The "lovely assistant" and I, (I love this term, which a friend uses often) spent last Tuesday digging out dahlia bulbs, to save them from being trampled by the houselifters next week. Mum had dug out the small clump on the other side previously, (that's the small clump in the photo!) but it was nothing compared to the masses of them which we got out of the ground on the west side of the house.
This is after I cut down the remaining stalks, before we lifted all those bulbs!
I want to replant them all along the front fence, but I need to repair the front fence and build a sort of garden bed first. This hopefully won't be too costly, as uncle has sawn up a macrocarpa tree into planks for me. (!) I know, right? How awesome is that? Every time I open the garage I'm greeted by the waft of sawn macrocarpa! My biggest enemy at the moment is the weather. I got caught in the rain while fixing the back step, (well not fixing exactly, just making more safe) and that's how I found out about the spouting/tank issue.
(It's a fungus army!)The old tree stumps are sprouting allsorts in this weather.
Finally, to indoors. No point in continuing with paint and plaster until piles are done, as more cracks will just appear. For the same reason I haven't replaced the painted out glass in bedroom 2, in case it cracks. Bedroom 1 (mine) is looking much more like a bedroom, although it's hard to tell from this photo.
It's become the "red room" while the other is "the purple room". There is so much to do, and yet I spend little time in the bedrooms. It seems strange to me, someone who has always "lived out of bedrooms", flatting, and with mum and dad, I'm used to lying in bed to watch tv and read. Now I have a fire to lounge beside, a window to gaze out of, a backyard to glory in while I drink my coffee. I appreciate it so much that I am hardly ever in my bedroom. I even go to bed late and rise reasonably early. (by which I mean before 10am, heheh!).
I had daydreamed about retreating to the house to write a book. Nuts, right? It seems very indulgent to me, and yet lately I've been staying up late into the night, tapping away, working on ideas. Now I'm struck with an idea for a book, or trilogy, and I wonder if I have the tenacity to actually do it. Will I be able to stick at it for several years? And work on the house? And hold down a job and a relationship? I suppose the great thing about writing for a hobby, is that it doesn't cost anything!
Well, I guess we'll see, won't we?
