The exterior of the Sow's Ear is starting to look a bit schmick.
This weekend Jason and Mr Rooney, our multi-lingual (or dab hand at Google translator) builder, have worked tirelessly to finish weatherboarding the sunroom side of the house.
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| Exterior - sunroom side |
Mr Rooney had done most of the preparatory work during the week. Priming, cutting, sanding, removing, measuring and whatever else one needs to do to put up weatherboards.
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| Timber weatherboards which had been painted with an oil based primer to help prevent rot |
Towards the end of the week he began nailing up some of the weatherboards. The boards had to be nailed by hand.
The Sow's Ear is made of hardwood timber which over time has become as hard as stone. According to Mr Rooney, the combination of a nail gun, new timber weatherboard and aged hardwood would have meant a lot of split boards.
To avoid that Mr Rooney had to drill a hole for each nail before manually hammering them into the boards - a laborious yet necessary process.
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| Mr Rooney in action on Friday |
On Saturday Jason was free to help. The day operated very much like a factory production line - Jason cutting the weatherboards and Mr Rooney nailing them up.
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| Jason having some power tool time |
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| Mr Rooney suffers from vertigo. Not a good thing when scaffolding forms a big part of your life. |
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| Timber weatherboards on a Queenslander sunroom |
By Saturday afternoon, most of the hard work was done - the weatherboards and window stops (the timber on the side of the windows) were up. Jason also re-puttied all the windows.
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| Jason painting the exterior of the sunroom wall and windows |
After our Mothers' Day celebrations this morning, Jason squeezed in a couple of hours painting while the scaffolding was still in place. Mr Rooney has kindly lent us his scaffolding allowing us to make a start with the exterior painting.
Painting the entire house is going to be a big, big job. We plan to do it one wall at a time...
P.S Don't forget to enter the Danish house number giveaway
HERE
Mr Rooney rocks! Nothing can deter that man...not even vertigo. We had an employee not turn up to work one day because of an unfortunate eyebrow wax....you are blessed indeed with the fabulous {and patient...all that drilling then nailing!} Mr Rooney. Meredy xo
ReplyDeleteGreat work lads. Nothing like some completed weatherboards and window puttying for an awesome Mothers Day present. Tops the mum at New Farm park who appeared to have received a large electric hedge trimmer. Can't wait to see the painting in progress. Mel:)
ReplyDeleteLooking good. It must be cold there as Jason has his shirt on I see.
ReplyDeleteExcellent work! Even without the painting, the exterior looks so much better than the before picture. Three cheers for Mr. Rooney!
ReplyDeleteFantastic! Must be even extra happy that you got it done before this rain today. Mr Rooney was right it does look seemless next to the old, even before final painting. He knows stuff that Mr Rooney!
ReplyDeleteYou are getting there, wow it will feel like a different house when it is painted.
ReplyDeleteI shuddered at the mere mention of drilling each board then nailing it. That is what we had to do for our entire deck. Very painful memories.
ps. I love the word schmick.
x
Looking very good! ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhat an exercise in patience with all that went into this job. It looks excellent though, and how nice to make use of the scaffolding. Handy!
ReplyDeleteI was looking at your your house in your header, and wondering does that image look different now?
It's certainly coming on! I am looking forward to seeing the finished wall too.
ReplyDeleteOh my! I can't quite fathom the thought of painting the exterior of a house. You lot are indefatiguable. (I couldn't even be stuffed spellchecking that word, so I'd never muster the effort to paint a wall).
ReplyDeleteGreat going VJ's family. And builder.
The scaff isn’t mine.
ReplyDeleteThe planks belong to my good mate Jas’ Terepai, who is the cleverest man in the South Pacific. He came to Australia as a solid plasterer. I saw him today. He gets around nowadays in a polo shirt with a big construction company logo on the pocket and takes 50 mobile calls an hour.
One of nature’s gentlemen.
Holding the planks up are ‘brickies trestles’. They were welded up by a gun boilermaker, Cec’ Pink back in the late 1940’s. Grandad Pink was 92 this year. I was able to beat him in an arm wrestle for the first time, only last year.
Another proper gent.
Both of them ace tradesmen with a thorough familiarity with workings of ‘the old mates act’, long may it stay in the statutes.
How come everyone's wearing shirts?
ReplyDeleteJason & Mr Rooney are just legends, the sows ear is looking fantastic even without a lick of paint!!!
ReplyDeletecan i google translate schmick? thats a new one for me.
ReplyDeleteand i second the comment, whats with the shirts?
laura
Oh wow, whenever I visit here I'm always amazed at the progress you've made.
ReplyDeleteHaha, I was wondering about the shirts too ... is it the cool change we've had in the weather keeping everyone fully clothed? ;)
it's a huge job - mic did out gordon park house by himself - massive sand job first the patch and fill and then paint ... seemded like FOREVER :) but hey once done ... nice :) le xox
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