The final (ish) product

It has been brought to my attention that I haven't actually posted photos of what it looks like finished. And, by the way, it is not really finished finished, even though I've been living in there for some time. There are a few tidying up things that need to be done, but it is habitable. I was house sitting for a few weeks, and now I'm up in the North Island a while more. There were problems with birds trying to build nests in the unfinished areas before I left, so if I return to a nest full of peeping walls, I'm going to be disappointed in my lack of thoroughness.

And having said that, I've found that I don't have a good photo with me. Will get onto it.

Shack 1 Earthquake 0

After snaring a mouse yesterday or the day before, I deemed it safe to return. Slept really well.

It was quite a humourous scene when I retreated back to the house on my official first night in the shack. I had the fire cranking up to 23, then at 11.51 the scratching started. Rodents. Deidre laughed at me. No words were needed, just me lugging my bedding dejectedly was enough.

Hung one curtain. Ended up going for just some bits of wood to act as curtain rails. The branches just weren't straight enough.

Had some trouble deciding what I was going to do for curtain rails. Ended up deciding I would use some tree branches. Spent far too long working on taking the bark off and grinding the little stalks flat.

Shack warming!

Started a bit before 9 and didn’t finish until about the same in the evening. A relentless but satisfying day. This was the day of the shack warming party, and I needed to get things in a state that gave an illusion of being completed. Went close.

It wasn't an easy decision to invite to the party only those who helped me in construction. There were others I wanted to invite, but I felt this was the better decision, otherwise it was going to be a case of come and look at what I've made, putting me in a position I didn't really want to be in. The people who came had a stake in it, can all point to a few things and say "I was involved in that".

The day began with some lining, finished that off, including some parts which were probably optional for now, but Deidre’s high standards meant we got them done. It was a good result, it is looking good in there now.

Then things turned roofside where I did some of the worst silicone chimney flashing sealing you’ll ever see. I’m just hoping that somewhere in that mass of sealant there are no gaps. Deidre proceeded to gum up the rest of the old nail holes in the iron on the roof. She then sealed the bottles up – they had tape on them previously, but look much cooler now that they have just a nice plug.

It was a battle against the clock all day. There was heaps to do, and some that still didn’t get done. Managed to put a piece of wood over the door to seal that end up, but still the majority of the area above the bricks isn’t finished.

The rest of the time was spent tidying the site up. That took many trips, but it was looking pleasingly tidy at the end.

Deidre really has been quite the star of recent days, working tirelessly, which inspired me to work longer than I would normally.



The bonfire was a bit of a fizzer, much like the shack warming party. There’s got to be something to do, and the bike track did provide that early on, until it got dark and everyone had had enough of riding. I had volleyball in mind, but it wasn’t really on once it got dark. The fire didn’t illuminate the way I’d anticipated either. As hoped, I held the lap record at 22.93. That’s very beatable though. Sub 20 seconds will be a good time.



Deidre and Julie made a good job of getting the food ready, the foil wrapped potatoes and veges were good. Garlic butter required a second brewing.

After that there was your choice of sit around in the shack – a maximum of 25.3 was registered – or hang out by the bonfire. It was so cosy and toasty in there, I really liked it. There were many chairs around and a heap of candles lighting things up. Something smelt really good, it could have been the candles or just the smell of the wooden walls heating up.

Diesel got the fire excited for a while, that was the most fun we had out there. Aaron took some great photos, that was pretty fun too. We had some good marshmallow sticks too.

Earlier on, I’d been recalling Chubbs’ word Grangerism of the photo involving Chay Blyth: “On the day of the foundation pouring, Nigel did not yet know how to build a house” or something like that. I had a similar thought running through my head as I raced to get things ready today: “On the day of the shack warming party, I had yet to complete the shack.”

Back to work today so I could only scramble an hour or so at night. Did some more lining of the ceiling. Obvious child remains the song of 2010.

That smoke alarm. Doesn’t deserve first mention today but I just saw it above. I think the battery that came with it was done. Beeping and carrying on.

What a day. Deidre and I worked from somewhere near 10 til a bit before 9. Spent.

So many things achieved, I’m sure I’ll forget some. Sealed up the window. Chopped a heap of the great pile of trees that I’ve accumulated and stowed them in the converted wood bin. Arranged the last of the batts. I really hate dealing with those batts. Put the remaining full length ceiling panels on.

Deidre swept the shack out and it looked great. Tidied up the bricks that were lying round outside and binned all of the pink batts wrappers which were littering up the place.

Yesterday I had it at about 18, which felt too warm. Today, 16-17, was about right.

We replaced the panels which have the electrical cords behind, I’m now covering up for the shack warming. I’ll come back and finish the electricals some other time.

Started panelling the skylight. This was fun and looked good. Won’t take too much more work to finish this off.

I hammered my fingers. Couple of times. They don’t feel the way they should right now.

Gave some consideration to curtains. Had difficulty working out where the lighting will go.

The roof. That punk shouldn’t leak anymore. Justin’s roof thing was by far the best. The lead molded nicely. Deidre beat the corrugs out of some iron in order to use it as flashing. I attached that all eventually. It was difficult because I was beating through multiple layers and I didn’t always know where the wood was. Looks really good up there now.

There’s a bit to do before Saturday night but I think it’s going to be looking semi finished.

I had errands to run from about 1 pm onwards, and I knew it. That being the case, I had to scramble in a day’s worth of work in a morning and a bit. Did pretty well.

The door closes now which is good times. ‘Closes’ is an interesting term, it kind of jambs shut. I tidied that up a bit, and it does a better job of keeping the air out now.

Some more work on the ceiling. I put some batts in as my final act of the day. Tomorrow Wednesday is pretty much my last full day before the shack warming. Needs to be a big one.

In recent days I’ve been trying to work out whether I have a common cold / flu or Batts Disease. Still undecided.

$45.10 on electrical fittings and smoke alarm.

What a good day. I didn’t like it much earlier on when I was working on getting the wiring in place but it came good.

I prepared the ends to hold the ceiling panels, then Deidre came out and helped me with getting some paper on the ceiling. This justified the decision of the flat ceiling – it started looking great from that moment.

Got some of the ceiling up, then it got too cold so I didn’t want to go outside and cut and get the panels. I had much fun blocking off the draughts which were coming in, holding my hand up and feeling where they were coming from. Sealed up both ends completely from inside, good times.

It was awesome how the temperature didn’t decay. The fire had kind of petered out but the temperature was still holding. This gave me a lot of encouragement that I’m not going to suffer an awful winter in there. Maybe the plan will be to get it up to 30 degrees before I go to bed then if it loses 2 degrees an hour it’ll still be nice in the morning. Is 30 degrees possible? What a challenge.

I finished lining the walls. Spent much time fluffing round with the three bottle bricks shelf. A further $8.90 for nails. Arranged some batts in the overhanging ends and did a hack job sealing up that section from the interior. In a move that is sure to earn me many questions, I’m going to go with a flat ceiling. I don’t care. I DON’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN MYSELF TO YOU. It’s going to be easier to put up, and hopefully warmer. It’s going to make the shack appear smaller, but it’s a small shack anyway.

Oh yeah, I ran in a panicked state to Justin’s place. This morning there was a real heavy frost. The insulative properties of the shack were once again excellent – it was -0.1 when I went in there just before 10 am. There was visible frost inside on the black paper where it was touching the corrugated iron. This proceeded to melt and drip. Not good times if that kind of thing keeps up. But, once I’ve fixed the roof up, water shouldn’t be getting there.

Simon came out and we were in a good rhythm cutting and nailing lining pieces. In my afternoon session I basically finished the lining. The shelf around the brown bottles is looking really good. I haven’t quite finished the other shelf. I reckon I must have cut out some of the draughts, I had the fire going and it only registered 10 degrees, but didn’t feel cold in there.

Bought some ceiling batts for $100.45 – to put on cost table.

I discovered that the electric planer will work as a bellows device. The downside is that it fills the air with mad ash.

Lined the bit on the left of the door as you go in. Started building the shelf area around the bottles. Fiddly.

This is out of sequence but I like it

I put up a few more pieces of lining and tried to plug one of the outside air holes.

Paul and Simon came out, and we managed to break the 20 degree barrier, this was good as it was about 4 degrees outside. That being said, there was an overall feeling that it wasn’t warm in there, draughts were still flying around, away from the fire.

I only had about a half hour at it but I really enjoyed knocking up three pieces of lining.

Jose beats Doors

Borrowed Adam’s riveting device. Spent a long time getting the fire set in the right place. The spirit level was involved. Managed to strap the fire into place in what was intended as earthquake protection, and ended up doing that and actually being what held the fire to the floor. A pleasing job. Paul turned up at the window unexpectedly. We made some really good progress, having to rush against the coming darkness. We riveted the inner flue, and made the outer flue housing. Made a ceiling cap and man that thing was ugly. Cut the inner flue to length then sat the cap on and pushed the flashing around. It isn’t all finished but we considered if fireable.

Jose Feliciano provided the background music as we fired up the first fire. Good times. It gradually got up to speed and was burning hot, adding 8 degrees to the outside temperature. We cooked sizzlers, garlic toast, chocolate toast – with some spillages – and potatos. We gave the potatos 30 minutes – maybe a few too many. I need some different cooking tools. Oh yeah, we used the glove to allow us to cook things in the fire. Still too hot.

The fire really worked and we had some good times out there.

Looked at things for a while working out what was next. This was some rare daylight time so I decided I would just get into it, and I cut my chimney hole. Tentatively set everything in place, more so that I could see how everything looked. It can’t stay there, several different things need to be lashed down properly. But, it provided me with heaps of incentive to get into it again tomorrow. The tasks – finalise the position for the fire, brace it so that it doesn’t tip in an earthquake, cut the inner flue to length, build housing for top flue, rivet everything into place, fit flashing.

20?/6 I put up a couple more bits of iron to protect the walls – looking good in that corner now. I didn’t have to rip the iron again as I had expected I would, so that sped things up a little bit. Located some metal things that will support the outer flue nicely.

On advice from Adam Cron I moved one of the rafters to get out of the way of the flue. He also reckoned that the hearth was too big. I hadn’t really thought about it, but it was. So I made it smaller. Also banged some more corrugated iron up to protect the walls near the fire. Cronsai talked me right through the process of putting the chimney in, so I’m confident about next steps now. He also gave me an amazing old had which will fit both flues nicely. I also put up a few more pieces of lining.

Queen’s birthday Monday. I took out one of the roofing timbers to make way for the flue. That got ugly. Chiselling and sawing away. Had fun and games on the roof when the ladder blew down. Mum spied me up there and came to be of assistance, but by using the tape measure to hook the extension cord, I was then able to lasso the ladder back into position.

Went in to Rangers and bought another piece of flue once I had worked out how it was all going to work. Add another $23.84 for that. Made a hearth base then jammed some bricks in. I think it will do, not sure. The bricked hearth should mean that any rogue sparks don’t come to anything, but they are just jammed together, they aren’t solid. Probably won’t be spending much time standing on there anyway. Unwittingly, that hearth takes up a considerable fraction of the floor space of the shack. It really is the focus in there now. Oh yeah, I banged up a couple of pieces of corrugated iron onto the walls as fireproofing.

The big 3 day weekend didn’t see me in there, but I made good progress. The foot set me back a bit. Even if I had managed to get the chimney in, I wouldn’t have enjoyed sleeping out there tonight, much of the roof is yet to be nailed down, so it bangs and carries on. Oh yeah, I could feel wind coming through the gaps between my lining panels. Everything is not well sealed up yet.

So, next steps. Find the bricks that will hold the tripod legs of the fire. Get fire sitting correctly. Shape bottom flue. Spider bracket that onto chimney. Cut a hole in the roof. Attach flue to inside walls. Attach flashing. Shape and seal the top flue. I’m far from getting the fire going. Maybe next Saturday.

Put another $8.95 on the sheet for more nails.

I can’t even remember where today began. Worked for an hour before church. Then from about 3.30 till just before 9. The halogen bulb blew, which was a setback. Used a 40W normal light bulb which was sufficient but not awesome. I did what I needed to do to enable tomorrow to be the day of the fire. I put off the decision about where the socket would need to go, didn’t hammer some of the nails right in. Fenced in a piece around the window. Good progress.

Slept in till after 12, the remnants of yesterday afternoon’s illness still there. Fell off a ladder which set plans back a bit. Paul came out and we put down a few rows, plus fitted the batts into place. Those things are so horrible to work with. The scrap batts that Luke found were awesome, accounting for maybe half the batted area.

Because of the way I want my lining to overlap, I have to do the opposite wall before I can do the adjacent wall, the second one needed in order to be able to put the fireplace in.

We also mused about things electrical, I need to make some decisions soon before I line much further.

Got another 3 or so rows of lining up in an hour or so. Looking good.

Organised the batts in the empty gaps. Attached some bits to the frame so that I can nail my lining to both faces of the corners. Nailed 3 bits of the lining in place.

Good times Sunday

It’s 8 pm. I trotted over to the shack full of hope that the pattern I’d observed over the last few hours of daylight would be halted. My hope was wasted.

The shack maintains a steady 0.5 degree temperature differential to the outside world. Sure, I haven’t completely sealed things up yet, but this is pretty disappointing. If the fire doesn’t crank, I’m in for a cold winter.

Hung the door. Sealed up the non door end. Hauled a heap of planks up.

Not really meeting flue rules

Did some more sealing. Also arranged the door jamb. The bricks up against where the jamb goes aren’t in a straight line so I had to get a bit creative with the planer. There is a beautiful carpet of shavings.

I went and bought a chimney flue and the thing that sits on the roof to keep it water tight. These cost me $116.20, I’ve got to enter this into the table at some point. And $8.90 from ages back for second bag of lining nails.

Mid week shack work

Pinched 20 minutes or so last night, and the same length this morning before the dentist. Sealing.

Some more lined

More of the same. It’s looking good, and not too far away from completely lined up outside.

I did well this weekend to resist the allure of track and stayed on task. I was up with the sunrise this morning, grabbing hours wherever I could. Yesterday I did ok, but we were up till 4 playing cards so I slept in till 12.

A bit lined

The Mira turned packhorse as I transported a bunch of the lining timbers up to the shack.

Lined some of the roof underhang. Got a bunch of sawdust in my eye.

A differential of 1.7

It was 9.7 degrees inside and 8 degrees outside. That's not a great result.

Fitted window number 2 and tacked in window number 1.

519 - stop right there

And that was the bricklaying. About an hour and a half tidied it up, under the windows. The bricks I laid today look a bit crazy, but that's in keeping with the general feel. Pleased.

I transferred the wood that I'll use to tidy up the top row of bricks up from the shed. It was the same wood that I used for the boxing for the foundation, a strong sense of connection there.

Yesterday I finished scraping out the old putty and fitted the new pane. Also changed the hinge position so that I'll get more opening capability out of the window. Now I just have to wait 2-6 weeks until I can paint the putty.

I probably should plan what my next steps will be this week, otherwise I'll probably spend every free few minutes doing more fun things like track or picture frames. Next weekend promises to be a pretty open time for more work. Before then I can:

• Fit window #1
• Fit window #2
• Pack cavity between bricks and roof with batts.

And then on the weekend:

• Fix the roof
• Seal up the cavity and ends.

That means that all I need to do to finish is organise the electricity, batt it, line it, cut a hole for the chimney, lay my fire base (maybe bricks or clay poured wet), assemble the fire, hang the door, spray the bricks with a sealant. It doesn't seem that there's too much to do.

+ 31

I want to say all of the bricklaying is done, but I can't quite. All of the regular bricks are laid, including an extra layer on the ends that I hadn't intended on, but it looked silly without. I need to lay the little bricks under the windows, shouldn't take too long.

An interesting day really. I laid some bricks earlyish in the morning. Then I headed for church, but the lack of cars prompted me to remember that they were on camp, so no church.

Went to Mitre10 where I picked up a couple of bags of mortar sand - I didn't know where I was going to source them from on a Sunday, and had just run out of sand. I also bought a wheel for the hand grinder, but I'm not going to charge that to the expenses because it is a general tool. I'm going to use that thing to rip out my chimney hole when the time comes. I bought some nails for the lining from Hammer Hardware who previously had been good to me on nail prices.

$20.90 for nails and sand needs to go on the expenses.

Returned home, had a sleep then got into it. Dropped a brick and it smashed. Steve Connor stopped by. I just go for rides around that track every now and again. It's fun now. Just imagine what the track will be like when it is good.

+ 16

I wasn't feeling great so the big Saturday didn't really eventuate. Put some side walls on the jump and built it up a bit.

The first tears were shed on the the track as Rhonda and Phil's kids had some difficulties. Oh yeah, and we timed laps! I think 20 seconds will be the measure of someone with some riding ability, but the track will probably change a heap. I had a few low 21s and a 20.9. I spent a long time thinking about how I could modify a mouse to act as a timing device on a pressure pad linked up to a computer.

Man I hurt my finger day before yesterday. It is my right index finger, the one I use to poke the mortar to where it should be. The cement has burned through all of my skin.

458

After his laughter subsided, “I told you so” would probably have been Paul’s first words, had he been there at the time. The scaffolding structure to allow me to lay the high bricks consists of a sawhorse. I would occasionally put some weight onto the work table to pick up the next brick. I put too much weight on.

39 was the second highest day total, I believe. Paul came out about 1. We had both had enough at close of play, probably about half an hour too much by both accounts. Not even multiple toast could alleviate that feeling.

I got off to a hot start about 8 in the morning. I began by strating where the bottle bricks would go, and changed my original plan. I laid 16 bricks before I ran out of sand. Considered doing other jobs like the roof or lining, but knew I would lose my momentum if I did that. Raced down to Woodend and picked up a 3/4 bin of sand – hopefully all I’ll need.

I pulled down the bits of wood that were allowing me to string up the lines of bricks for straightness purposes. Good to get them out of the way, they were such a nuisance.

I’d been avoiding bricking in around the windows but armed with knowledge from the Justin visit, put a heavy layer of dpc down and got amongst it.

Paul reckoned I got 3 feet of air off the jump. Video evidence suggested otherwise. What a let down. I felt like I was flying.

Tomorrow could be the last day of bricklaying.

419

Shacktastic!

Work for the day began at about 4.40 after I returned from work. Paul came out and we laid a swift 9 before it was kind of getting dark. We watched the end of Rocky that we had begun some time ago, and were both better for the experience.

I went out again in the dark and dug a wheelbarrow load of stuff to make my start/finish ramp.

410

The plans for today changed a little bit, as Brad and Josh came to stay. I managed a quick 10 bricks before I headed in to work.

I had lunch with Justin, and when conversation turned shackwise, he pulled out the manual and we looked at how you are supposed to do brickwork around windows. Also discussed how to “seal” off the top layer of bricks from the roof. I’m still not comfortable about how I’m going to do this, but have a while to work this out.

400

I'm hoping I'll have laid all my bricks by the end of this weekend. I need to go in to work a bit, I've got to do 1.5 more days but I'm really struggling to be there during my holidays so that is going to take me 3 days doing a half day each day. That way I should be able to lay bricks before and after work though and not get too sick of anything.

Yeah so 20 tomorrow, 20 Thurs, then I have 3 days to finish up. I can do it.

They were going to charge me over $60 to fix the broken pane in my window. Get out. The glass cost me $20 and putty $7.50. I have a new skill to learn.

395

More time spent on the track than the shack. I cut down a heap of low-hanging branchs, and made a bit of a banked turn.

373

So yesterday I made 28 bricks before 2 pm and today I made 21 after. It’s not exactly hard work so there is potential for big numbers of bricks per day. But I’m down to less than 100 bricks to lay now so it doesn’t matter if I have 2 big days or 4 average days. 50 of my bricks are still drying anyway. Things are coming together!

It would be fair to say I could have used my time better today. I was busy practicing my tennis serve, reading, cooking, and sleeping. But I finished strongly and just had the most fanastic day. I loved it.

Yesterday I was pretty excited to strap the running shoes on and go for a jaunt up Bowenvale. At the start of that track I saw a guy grooming his backyard bike park with a hose. Today I couldn’t stop thinking about how cool it would be to have a racetrack in the treed area.

Paul came around at the start of things today, and I felt sure I would have an ally in him for some track creation. No. He was relentless in his push for MORE BRICKS MORE BRICKS MORE BRICKS!

We laid bricks and chatted away. By the time we were done we had managed a lame 11 bricks. I did manage to talk him into shooting one of the bricks with a gun. That was fun. The brick (a reject one) didn’t even care. We shot at it several times and weren’t even really damaging it. The brick didn’t handle me swinging at it with a piece of wood so well though.



I mowed the track. I walked round out there plenty, planning where the turns would be, the jumps and the banked turns. Good times. I snapped and moved around some branchs to make way for my track. I then rode round the track many many times. There is quite a gradient there which I wasn’t really aware of. It wasn’t that fun riding up hill, couldn’t go fast, but awesome downhill. I’ll be able to alleviate the first uphill stretch a bit by creating a starting launch ramp.

Finished laying bricks in the dark with the halogen on, perfectly acceptable conditions.

352

Good progress.

Another 23 made, I think I’m done making full bricks. I’ll probably need to make a few more partial bricks though. I had to go and dig a wheelbarrow load out of quarry 2, so that slowed me down a bit.

I also put in the next row of brick ties, and stacked up next bricks to lay. Bought some more cement too.

At 20 bricks per day, I’m only 7 days away from being done with the laying. Awesome. 20 a day is a joke too given full days.

I'm not pleased with diminished daylight hours. I'm just grumpy in general today though.

The shack laughed at this morning’s earthquake. If anything, the quake actually made the shack stronger.

I don’t remember disenjoying brickmaking, but it wasn’t much fun today. I do remember not liking having to put the frames together. I made 28 bricks, I wanted to have 50 made in 2 days. This was a good start.

Same

A disappointing day. Sure enough, I had a headache for most of the day, and a nauseous feeling for some of it too. Took it pretty easy.

I bought some more building paper, and some nails too. I’m not going to include the price of the nails on the cost sheet though, because I’ll only use about 8.

I put the black paper up, so it is fully enclosed. Inside it feels like a proper room now. The lighting inside wasn’t bad either which was good news. However, most of the light was probably coming through the door gap.

I did a little more chopping of the iron, that will be ready for the roof tomorrow.

In need of more sand, I paid another visit to North End Sand and Shingle. I showed the guy my camera with a photo of the shack on. We agreed upon a price for the sand – he wants to be invited to the celebratory end of project bbq. Awesome.

I did the calculations. I need 144 more full bricks; I’ve got 99 on hand. This was good news – I’ll be able to make those bricks in a couple of days. And it won’t matter if they’re not ready, by that stage there will only be a bit over a layer left to lay, so it should be liveable then.

324

What a great day. I was out there before 8 a.m. having a look at things. Simon came out about lunch time and we worked for something like 4 hours, breaking to cook up some amazing salmon pasta.

We managed to fit the window today. During, I wondered why I’d shirked it. Really fun cutting wood and smelling it again. It probably did need the feeling that there was a full day there to be able to do it.

The day began with me wondering where the window would go. Astheticly I wanted the window in the center of the wall, but that would mean that the options for arranging bed and table inside would be limited. Eventually convinced myself it would be ok off center. Is that how you spell center? Centre? I’m lost.

We had to make room for the window. We cut off two of the studs part way up and put a whole new stud in. One of the studs I had mucked up when I put in originally. It was on a diagonal. Unfortunately, this was the key stud, would form one side of the window frame. We loosened the nails that held it by way of a hacksaw then belted it where it was needed. I was scared of this because there were brick ties underneath on this same stud. Eventually got it.

It was quite a tight fit in the end and we had to do a heap of hammering and chiselling to make it fit. A pleasing sight.

I spent a lot of time just thinking about what was to be done, I wasn’t exactly sure how to. I think it went ok in the end though. Used a table to check that the height of the window was ok. Eventually just attached it to the top wood.

There was some accidental miscellanery knocking of the bricks today. They crumbled. I didn’t like that.

I ran out of big nails at the end. Si had done a great job all day banging crazy ones back into straight. I’ll need to buy some.

The arc of the window is troublesome. It bangs on the truss meaning it doesn’t open fully. Maybe I’ll need to go to work on the truss.

Justin gave an inspection later on at night and pronounced all well.

I even managed to start cutting some of the corrugated iron, another of the feared jobs. Awesome. Jobs for tomorrow: locate or buy more black paper, get more sand, calculate bricks needed, make bricks, buy nails, finish up stud changes, do roof.

I pushed it all day today and my body, soul, and life cherished in it. Come on health, hold together for tomorrow.

Finished up just before 8 p.m. with a quick 3 bricks layed. There were a couple of tennis sessions in there too. I loved today.

In case you were unsure which line to cut

321

319

My sand got wet in the overnight rain. I wanted to just lay a quick 2 bricks before church, to get on the board for the day. But the wetness of the sand mucked my ratios up, and the more sand I added to dryen the mixture up didn’t work. I had a heap of mortar and that made us late for church. We rocked up at 11. It starts at 10. Was there for the good bits though.

Deidre helped me out today. We laid a quickfire 15 in about 2 hours to make it 19 for the day. A good effort, we were by no means bored by the end either.

I’m up to my line of black paper – I’ll need to put another layer of that on now. I don’t know where the rest of that paper is, or if I have enough left.

I’m on layer 8, and I’m pretty confident that there will be 12 layers. That should make it pretty easy for me to calculate how many bricks I need. For some reason I am shirking this calculation. If I am going to finish my brick laying by the end of my Easter break though, I probably need to be making more bricks, if I need them, now. I think I’ll need a few more. It is just unclear to me how many bricks the new window will occupy. But it is an easy calculation if I just get onto it. My mindset right now is just get out there and lay bricks, while the other tasks of finishing off the roof and getting that window ready remain neglected.

300

A steady run saw me continue until dark and be late for Mel and Heidi’s birthday dinner. A pleasing Saturday at it, not too tired in closing either.

276

272

With Mum’s pending return I tidied the garage up a little bit today. The batts occupy a lot of space once they are sprung from their housing and it was a mess. They are now housed in the shack. I’ve got itchy arms and back.

266

100 posts! I can't believe this project has gone on as long as it has.

Michael Green had been lamenting the end of summer. Well, we got one last day of it and a really fun 27 bricks, followed by the arrival of Hamish and Tatum, some tennis, high jumping, dinner, and cards.

The line “we’ll fix that on the next layer” has become a catch cry.

Earlier in the day I went down to North End Sand and Shingle Supplies near Woodend to pick up some more mortar sand. The guy there gave me an amazing deal on my sand. Thanks dude.

The sand was a lot finer and performed really differently. Better.

239

235

The 6th (current) layer is going to be the last easy one. Bricklaying is at about rib height just now; the next layer up will require some difficult lifting.

228

How easy was it to lay 6 bricks in a session after work? I’ll tell you how easy. Real easy. Good to be there. I get 2 weeks off at Easter so maybe I can hit it hard then.

A couple of outstanding jobs are annoying me – getting the roof tidied up, and fitting that new window. Detracts from bricklaying. I just need to toughen up.

222

The best day of bricklaying. I even claimed that this was my best summer Saturday. Michael Green and I got into a really good rhythm, we were laying bricks so fast. We could have done a heap more, but the chicken was smoked and it was time to call it a good day. We completed a layer and then some. Paul arrived later on in the day and shot me in the ass with a BB gun.

In other developments, Aaron gave me a big old awesome window today. This thing is going to add so much style to the shack. It opens.

Thanks for coming out today lads, I couldn’t have come close to doing that without you.

171

Simon Peterson had said I should have one of those DOC signs pointing towards the shack. And I should. Today I met a guy who used to make those signs for DOC.

171

I was on track too. I ran out of cement. Someone said didn’t you see that coming? I should have. I was 3 bricks short of 4 layers, and that would have been a new day high also.

144

A good day. Michael was today’s guest and we got into a rapid rhythm, rocking out 12 bricks in about an hour at one point.

An early evening fade saw me lost to the world on the couch for a couple of hours. I then returned and had a really enjoyable headtorch-lit 4 brick session, finishing in the dark.

Tomorrow is my last day before I return to work. It has been a productive couple of months on the shack, and I shall remember this time fondly. On the whole I’ve really enjoyed the work. That being said, I’m looking forward to a return to work too.

I need to lay something like 28 bricks tomorrow to finish 4 whole layers. I think that’s on.

120

I was full of aspiration about today, but church, lunch with friends, Simon Peterson, a game of netball, a game of tennis, and dinner out got in the way.

116

Hamish Dean made his debut on site today, and it was a fine one. A few of us had been up till 4 am playing cards, so I was unlikely to be in particularly good form. And so it was. I had a headache that Panadol couldn’t beat. That being said, we managed a bit over 3 hours at it and worked some nice combinations, laying 29 bricks.

The bricks are 3 layers deep in places now, and I’m really pleased with how it is coming along. They’re really starting to look like walls now, solid and hard. Enthusiasm is high. If only I could sustain 20 bricks a day.

I have decided to abandon my post title notation. There are a few bricks, I don't know the exact number, that I've deemed unsuitable. I'm now just going to keep track of the number of bricks that I have laid.

87 / 515

Pasting mortar onto the brick that I’m going to insert dominates the world. The whole world. I’m not sure what went wrong the first time I tried it, but it is a really fast technique for me now.
Michael Peach provided some valuable assistance early in the day. It was so much easier having another person there.

Mike Green timed me late in the day and I laid 3 bricks in about 24 minutes. Not swift.

Mike started talking about making a window out of bottles. This idea was one that I’d written off. But when he showed me photos of them on his phone, I was back on the horse. That would be awesome.

63 / 515

Yeah yeah

54 / 515

17 bricks made on what was essentially a free day was a disappointing effort. Motivation is low for bricklaying. I did sleep twice during the day so maybe I wasn’t feeling too flash.

37 / 515

I returned from my trip not shattered as I had semi expected to be. What an awful sentence.

It seems that the cut I inflicted upon Paul during our normal scuffling around caused an infection. And it didn’t stop there. It proceeded to infect his whole system. Sorry mate.

I have taken great joy in posting photos on this blog whenever I have drawn blood, mostly minor scratches. Unfortunately Paul didn’t take a photo of his finger, but this is the colour his finger was:



Things sped up considerably today as I developed a new method of filling the gap between the bricks. I slapt mortar onto the face of the sitting brick and held it there until it gripped. Paul, Simon, and Alan stopped by today and they suggested the correct technique was to apply the mortar to the brick in hand then quickly slam that home. I’m sure that is the correct technique. I couldn’t get it working for me though.

I believe the stake may have raised as high as 20 cents should Alan manage to touch a cow. He couldn’t.



I’m done using the concrete mixer to mix my mortar. I’m working with such small quantities at a time that there is no point using the mixer, most of the mortar gets stuck in there anyway.

Things weren’t fitting so well towards the end of the row I was working on today so I beat the end off a brick with the hammer. The resulting mangled end didn’t resemble square so a thick smear of mortar was needed. This section of shack is looking distinctly castle-like, though embracing none of that austere structure’s structural capability, nor moat.

23 / 516

Michael Peach helped out with some of the lame job of filling the vertical gaps between bricks. We got on a bit of a role with him doing that and me laying them. It was a lot easier to do with wider gaps between the bricks. This brick laying is going to take a long time.

517 became 516 when one of the bricks was deemed unsuitable for shack duties. Maybe it could still be suitable for ugly duties.

15 / 517

The laying of bricks, the culminating event of this project, is the worst job yet. I figure it took me a bit over 2 hours to lay 15 bricks. Frustrating. I was definetly getting faster toward the end, and it will be a bit easier once I’m up higher rather than scrabbling on my knees.

Getting the mortar to adhere to the side face of the brick is the hardest bit, I’m yet to get a good system going there. I tried smearing the side face with mortar, and some of it would hold on there, then jamming the brick up against that. But like a young boy being told to give his older girl cousins a hug, he just didn’t want to get in there close. My most successful technique from this point was poking mortar into the gap with a stick. Amatuer. I am amatuer.

I hope my mortar mix is ok. It looks pretty dry, but I figure I need it like that in order to push it into position. The bricks do feel really solidly anchored once they are down, so that has to be a positive thing.

My line of bricks wasn’t particularly straight, nor was it level. The level was the fault of the foundation, so over a number of layers I’ll bring it back to horizontal. The straight though is my fault, I just need to be more careful.

78 / 517

I’m pretty pleased with my first day’s bricklaying. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Donald Crowhurst stopped by and we made rapid progress, laying 78 bricks in a bit under 3 hours. Loving it.

517

I didn’t lay any bricks today. Again cycling formed a big part of my day. I spent maybe 2-3 hours on the shack. With Andrew’s assistance I got the bottom layer of black paper on and got the concrete mixer into position. Then I started putting the string up to act as a guide for the brick level. Not easy. I attached some temporary wood to the roof that I’ll put nails into to determine the brick line. Tomorrow there will be bricks. Surely.

517

Cycling was the main focus of the day, so I intentionally didn’t get much done. Maybe an hour or so tidying up the site, moving the wood I didn’t use back to the shed and getting some of the bricks in position.

I’m heading away for a few days on Thursday so it would be good if I could get some bricks laid before then. Surely that is on. I have shown terrible skills in estimating times for tasks on this project, but surely I must be able to get bricks down by Thursday. Stapling the paper on will take 20 minutes tops. Getting my levels sorted will require a bit of work. Get the concrete mixer in position. No, unless I wake up feeling gross or it is storming the big one I’ll have bricks down tomorrow.

517

I had a good night’s sleep out there. I heard the coughing sheep a couple of times but it wasn’t sleep depriving. The wind kicked up a bit at one point, I could feel the coldness striking my face. It was a nice sensation. The birds started talking it up at about 6, and it was pretty light about that time. I managed to sleep in till about 8 though.



I played cricket today so called it a rest day of sorts. I tidied up the site a bit for about 10 minutes.

517

The floor is down. It is not completely nailed down yet but all the boards are on and it holds together.

A pretty good session today. I woke up feeling amazing and rode that for a while. The floor is solid rimu and nails. And a bit of glue.

There are lots of little tasks now to keep me busy – I still need to finish up that ridge cap, gum up the roof holes, finish nailing down the floor, work out where the other window is going to go, and paper the bottom layer. Then brick laying.

I’ve got a mattress set up in the shack now and I’m not long away from bedtime I reckon. I’ll definetly start out there, but I’m not sure how committed I am to spending the night. If it is cold and there are bugs and wind and coughing sheep and birds I may just retreat to the house. That’s soft isn’t it.

517

I worked as full a day as I was capable today, and I’m feeling it right now. Maybe something like 6 hours.

It wasn’t as fun today. I’m about 2/3 of the way done with the floor I think. We must have used all of the straightish bits of wood yesterday I think because today I was left with things that were bent and warped. In one place the warp of the wood is so gross that it is going to need big planing to get it approximating flat.

My 3 mm standard of yesterday looks laughable right now, I reckon I blew out to about 10 mm at one point. I’ve inserted a strip of offcut in there so I think that will come up ok. It’s not perfect, but once again I can blame non perfect wood. It is my floor and it is shack like.

I decided that I was going to plane all of the rimu timbers up to see if there was anything worth using for furniture rather than for the shack floor. From our discoveries yesterday, 2/5 had the really nice orange/red colouring and the others weren’t as nice. So, failing to find any that were geniunely lovely I decided I’d just keep using them for the floor. There may still be the need for a couple of pine ones to make it all fit, but not too many, and they should all be invisible if my arrangement of items within the shack goes according to plan.

I think I should probably sleep in it first night that I have the floor down, and that very well could be tomorrow. I hope it’s reasonably still though.

It was a gross day here today, overcast, windy, not warm, bits of drizzle hinting but never really letting fly.

Yesterday’s goggleless antics have left their mark

517

Possibly the most fun day on the shack yet. There were jokes flying around, almost too many to remember.

Paul was there for the duration, in fact his arrival heralded the beginning of work for the day. This was sometime between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. I’d spent the morning running errands but always had plenty of interest in going to work on the floor.

Paul asked me if I used Excel to do a task with the wood. There was no using Excel for that task. It needed a hammer or a saw or something. But such had been my expression of love for Excel.

What are moths doing? You don’t see them during the day then they fly towards the lights at night. Do they spend the day flying towards the sun? What really is their game? What are they hoping to achieve by flapping around a light?

We fell into a nice rhythm of grooming a piece of rimu with the planer, chiselling out one end, drilling, and nailing down. Most of the chiselling lacked quality. I’m not apologising for that though, none of it is visible and it is completely functional.



I stated that I was prepared to accept gaps between the timbers of about 3mm. For those of you who have difficulty with mm, that is 0.3 cm. For the most part we pulled that off. The gaps actually look pretty cool, but not looking down to silver foil. I’ll need to get some black in there.

We got maybe 5 large timbers and 2 small ones down. There was discussion about spending the night out there tonight, but there isn’t quite enough floor space to hold a mattress yet. Maybe tomorrow.

It was so fun planing the timbers down. We would try and guess whether the board would come out looking amazing or not so. Some of the ugliest ones came out amazing, on one, the deeper I planed the more red and beautiful the wood got. 2 of them were a much lighter yellow/brown colour, with no suggestion of the lovely sought orange/red. The floor looks so great though, we were both really really pleased with it. I’m really not looking forward to having to put that pine down.

Before and after


We finished up for the day about 8.30.

517

The day began pretty grossly but got better later.

I moved the possible pine flooring timbers, 7, into position. I also sorted out the good rimu from the bad.

My one little achievement of the day was to put some of the silver underfloor insulation down. That stuff just looks warm. I'll get that all down tomorrow and hopefully have the floor in some sort of shape.

517

The roof seems to know what it's doing. There has been rain and no signs of moisture on the floor area. Today there was some light drizzly stuff that was floating around and it just reached the foundation, so my bricks may be fairly safe.


Rimu won the battle against pine for prettiest wood. But I think the pine still looks a bit hard. Shack like. Plus most of the limited floor space won't be visible anyway, what with bed, fire, some chairs, and a table. I'm also conscious though that the pine may actually have some value so I don't want to be wasting too much of that. Maybe I'll make the bed and fire side of the floor out of pine then use the worst of the rimu on the rest.

517

So my summary of today’s work – nailing in most of the rest of the roofing nails, covering the ends of the shack where the roof meets the triangle, and putting the polythene down on the ground. I also purchased a tube of silicon sealant for the roof holes. Afterthought – I also moved the fireplace from the shed onto the work site so that I could check its size and chimney angles.

I started liking the way a part of the shack looked for the first time today really. The synchronisation of some old ugly brown and green iron made it look really shack like. I think that was actually what I was envisaging when I first named this a shack – gross corrugated iron.



I’d be interested for it to rain now to see if any gets into the shack body – I’m testing to see what sort of coverage / likely brick protection my roof gives. At this stage that rain would just collect on the polythene then drain off or evaporate, so there would be no problem. Maybe actually some could still get through the roof, I haven’t finished that up yet. While I do kind of trust the roof, I haven’t been brave enough to leave my wheelbarrow load of tools out under the roof. It’s probably better for the power tools to be in the garage than have moist air sifting round anyway.

John Martin Leo Peter Son hopped along today. He confirmed that my flooring timbers are rimu. I didn’t really like this because I love the rimu and don’t want to waste it on the shack floor. Down in the shed there are some similar sized boards but made from treated pine. Maybe I’ll use them.

I think I must have used all of my powers up by about 1 o’clock today, because after running some errands I returned empty. I’m not well here now. I may be feeling the effects of that roofing day a couple of days back.

517

I banged in more nails, and cut 2 triangles out of some old iron that I stomped the corrugs out of. These triangles cover the exposed ends of the shack. This took 2-3 hours. I feel a bit beaten down from the long day yesterday.

517

A big day. The roof is on. It was reasonably easy going until about 10.30 when the wind started. Putting the paper down in the wind was tough going. There is still a bit of work to do on the roof, I need to put in all the nails, secure the top cap properly, and work out how I’m going to cover the ends.



I did plenty of clambering up ladders today. I had one fall which was a bit of fun, I was most of the way up the ladder and felt my balance go, so I knew I had to prepare for a crash landing. No pain.

The McCartneys stopped by today. It was good to hear Justin’s thoughts on my progress, I’ve gone a while unguided, with no real clue. The idea of putting more windows in was floated, and boy it was a good one. It’s dark in there already, and it doesn’t even have any walls yet.

I ate so much today. I did work long and my belly isn’t feeling obviously fatter so maybe I used it all as fuel. The inventory:

2 pieces of peanut butter toast
2 apples
2 honey sandwiches
1 packet of 2 minute noodles
1 can cream style corn
½ a sushi roll
1 fruju
1 medium sized baked potato with chilli beans and sour cream
1 bowl of pasta
1 scoop of chips
2 bread rolls garlic buttered
17 small wrapped chocolates
1 bowl of salad

I just weighed in at 77.5, so maybe that is up a bit. That is a lot of food.

Miscellanery building detritus as viewed from the roof of the shack


The new neighbours asked me to keep it down a bit. I abused them heartily.

517

It took on distinctly shack-like proportions today as I tacked the roofing iron on. It would be better if the iron was grosser, old paint coming off, but this is what I’ve got.

Surely only bad weather can stop me from putting the roof on tomorrow. I’ve got the iron cut to length, and each piece knows its position. First task of the morrow, low wind and no rain permitting, is to paper the roof area. Following that I bang the nails in on the iron, then I need to do some tricky things to cover the ends maybe. It all looks promising. I think I can do it.

517

You can’t shake a baby. But you can shake the shack. It won’t care. It will most probably laugh at you.




Braced up. Today was sweating hot, just humid and lovely even after 8 o’clock at night. I’m not far away from being able to put the roof on. I need to cut some more 4x2 and put it into the frame kind of as more bracing, but its real role is to be a barrier to wind getting into the shack. I only need to cut and nail in 8 pieces of wood so that shouldn’t take that long.

I’m going to have to get the iron ready, lenghted, and I’m going to have to work out what piece goes where. Then I’ll need to find the gun stapler, then put paper on and iron on on the same day. It’ll need to be a still day too, otherwise that paper will go nuts maybe. Plenty to do.