{"id":2810,"date":"2016-08-14T13:49:02","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T01:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/?p=2810"},"modified":"2016-08-15T20:56:49","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T08:56:49","slug":"a-quiet-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/a-quiet-week\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quiet Week?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not\u00a0so long ago we had a visit from\u00a0our friend DIY Guy<\/a>\u00a0and his lad, Young Adventurer. They came\u00a0to stay for a week during\u00a0the\u00a0school holidays, and I had thought they might like\u00a0to have a bit of a quiet time pottering around the property and getting\u00a0out and about in\u00a0Whangarei<\/a>. Instead we somehow ended up balancing atop ladders doing\u00a0this:<\/p>\n

\"Nothing<\/a>

Taking apart\u00a0and reconstructing walls.<\/p><\/div>\n

As\u00a0previously mentioned<\/a>,\u00a0we have rather a lot of pine\u00a0in the farmlet house. The match-lined ceilings are a lovely feature, but for some reason whoever\u00a0built the place also added tongue and groove pine cladding over the top part\u00a0of all the walls. It was an odd choice since it\u00a0obscures the lovely lines of the raked ceilings and visually lowers the height of the room by a couple of\u00a0feet. I guess we’ll\u00a0just file it under the heading ‘decor crimes of\u00a0the eighties’. Anyway, I’ve been keen to get rid of that cladding\u00a0since we moved in, and it turned out that DIY Guy was a willing accomplice.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a>

BEFORE: No. Just no!<\/p><\/div>\n

We started removing the paneling\u00a0in the northern\u00a0wing\u00a0of the living room. (This house started as a much smaller building which\u00a0was extended in the mid 1980’s. The\u00a0living room finished up as an odd L shaped space. It’s hard to describe, but\u00a0here’s\u00a0a floor plan\u00a0for you<\/a>). Anyhow, it\u00a0was the work of only 40 minutes or\u00a0so to demolish the pine\u00a0on the top of the first wall we tackled (you can just see that to the left in this photo). The remaining\u00a0three were\u00a0a decidedly bigger\u00a0challenge, and required some serious effort\u00a0from DIY\u00a0Guy while I swanned off\u00a0to work in the early part of the week. Please note, I would rather have been\u00a0tearing walls apart, but feeding\u00a0ponies and teenage boys requires dollars.<\/p>\n

In a pleasant\u00a0surprise we found during the deconstruction that the\u00a0exterior walls here are insulated. In a less\u00a0pleasant\u00a0surprise we found\u00a0several ancient rat skeletons embedded in the pink batts. Awesome! Never have I been so glad that our\u00a0current rat populations have decided to make\u00a0their\u00a0home under the chicken house<\/a>. It might lose us some eggs, but at least they are no longer living (or more to the point, dying)\u00a0in our walls.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0Thursday morning, with demolition in the kitchen end of the living area complete, and rat remains having been removed, we were\u00a0at Bunnings buying wallboard. It’s not the first time DIY Guy and I have\u00a0helped each other out\u00a0on gib-fixing projects at one or other of our homes\u00a0(actually I owe him\u00a0a few DIY hours), and once we got back to the farmlet\u00a0we quickly\u00a0fell into the\u00a0familiar routine of measuring, scoring, snapping, and attaching gib to framing timbers. By\u00a0the end of the week\u00a0the walls looked like this, and I was so excited I had to keep walking into the room\u00a0to admire them.<\/p>\n

\"AFTER:<\/a>

AFTER: Ready for gib finishing and painting.<\/p><\/div>\n

DIY Guy put on the first layer\u00a0of plaster, and now it’s my turn. I’ve only ever done a couple of small sections\u00a0of plastering and don’t have much skill in that department, so it may be some time before I can blog about any painting. Ah well, I suppose I’ll never get better if I don’t practice.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Would you have kept the paneling, or are you with me in unveiling the top part of the walls? And, because I can’t wait to think about paint,\u00a0what colours do you suggest?<\/p>\n

Meantime, should anyone have a hankering\u00a0to build a sauna there are\u00a0oodles and oodles of tongue and groove planks in the barn!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Living room expenditure to\u00a0date:<\/p>\n