Painting Party!

We were lucky enough to have a wonderful group of friends to help us out last weekend with some painting and verandah building (cleverly disguised as a 'painting party' hehe). Bikeman co-ordinated the 'Testosterone Team' outside, who concentrated on putting together the verandah which is now nearly complete. The 'Persistent Painters' worked really hard inside getting through as many walls as we could. By the end of the day we'd been able to put the first coat of paint on all of the walls in the front section of the house, so it was a great result! Huge thanks to the following helpers: Boyle Clan, The Sandhurst Crew, The Evans duo, Mr & Mrs Reichy and Doo-Bah for their hard work all day. Also big thanks to Nanny C for outstanding babysitting duties, and also to Bish (aka Mrs Reichy) for providing the most mouth-watering lunch you've ever seen provided on a worksite. We are very lucky to have such wonderful people who are willing to give up their time to help us out, so thanks to you all. Also a big thanks to Pops, he's been up helping Bikeman nearly every weekend for the last 3 or 4 and we really appreciate your help - x. No 'finished' photos yet - it was too dark by the time we finished (6.30pm) and we just wanted to get home, cleaned up and get the kids to bed! We were absolutely exhausted after such a busy day. Here are the progress pics and I'll post some finished ones tomorrow. Putting up the REALLY heavy steel lintel that sits on the verandah posts outside the garage. That was a work of art in itself really - executed beautifully by the boys with much thought into ladder placement, ballasting (the girls!) and how it was all going to work. If that beam was going down there was no way anyone should be in it's path. The idea was to lift the beam then put the bolt through the holes in the wood and the steel - fingers crossed they lined up ok. After a couple of little hiccups the job was done and the lintel was safely in place. Whew! Mrs B doing a beautiful job of painting the walls in the rumpus room...

Evans 1 doing the high bits in the theatre room ... the first room to be painted, very exciting!

Evans 2 doing the low bits in the theatre room...

Doo-Bah and myself moving the split jamb doors - wonderful invention, the architrave comes pre-prepared around the door frame and the door is supplied, hung and with the strike in place - takes about 1/2 an hour to install instead of many hours of chiselling, measuring, cutting - brilliant! Made specifically with owner builders in mind, I might add. Thank god!

The 'Ballasts'!! Holding the ladders down so that when the boys lift up that super heavy lintel the ladders don't tip over down the hill. Scared? Yes we were. Specially when Doo-Bah's head got stuck on the wrong side of the lintel. I was glad when this bit was over!!

The 'lifting of the lintel'. Took 5 super strong blokes and still it looked bloody heavy. Did a great job of getting it in place without a) dropping it or b)taking off any fingers or heads. Well done guys!

The verandah is starting to take shape....

Miss B enjoying a cupcake!

Everyone sitting down to the scrumptious lunch organised by Bish (aka Mrs Reichy). Roast meat on the weber, roasted chat potatoes, salad, gravy and bread rolls. Followed by scrummy chocolate cake, strawberries and cream and banana cake. Mouth watering yet? It was DELICIOUS!

More photos to come soon, of the walls with paint on them. It's so lovely to see the walls with paint, seems even more real each step we get closer. Thanks to all who helped we certainly had an enjoyable time, and we hope you all did too. xxxx