Blog 17: Preparing for the roof

Over Christmas and New Year while Alessandra and I were visiting family and friends in Australia, Pat kept ploughing on with work on the house to ensure we would be ready for Michael’s arrival at the start of January to help us put on the roof. 

Many thanks to Pat and to helpers Piers and Jake for their work through the (wet) festive season.  

The house is now surrounded by scaffold’s and has netting under the roof trusses so we are all safe to work at height.

 We returned to Maraetotara on 31st December and were amazed at the progress, as are our neighbours… “who is your builder??”

As 2019 chimed in, the rough weather in New Zealand faded, the sun came out and we have worked with Pat every day up to and including the 5th of January. 

Some quick numbers - Michael has put in 500 screws, one at every rafter-perlin intersection this week in the baking sun and since we started framing in November we are now up to more than 9000 nails used, plus the many brackets, bolts etc..

The roof has started to take shape as the rafters and clearvue panels have now been installed by Pat and Michael over the South deck!

Next week the main roof will go on before Michael jumps a plane back to Sydney, and we are on track for the build as we start the new year. 

There has been some fun along the way this week, in addition to the building… catching up with family and friends here, a couple of nights open air cinema at Black Barn and drinks after a hot day at work.

Cheers, heres to a great start to 2019…