Kiwi bushblock life - look at my shiny deck

4 months later and suddenly the grass starts growing at a rate my mowing cant keep up with, all the flowers are out, birds are singing madly. The bush has the most amazing fragrant scent - especially the Lemonwood trees which have amazing flowers. The Kanukas and Manukas will start flowering soon too. At night time, because the land is mainly hillside we can walk along the driveway and the smell is so strong coming down from the bush.

We now have two Keas (NZ mountain Parrot) who have claimed our place as theirs in the last two weeks. They are getting closer to the truck and curse word I hope they don't discover its Butynol rubber roof membrane or the nice new rubbers on my Imp.  As awesome and comical as they are I do hope they get bored and pi$$ off elsewhere. 
There's also some native falcons about. Usually breeding up one of the gullies and this evening I watched one of them attacking a Hawk until it flew away. Its weird that they don't seem bothered by the Keas even though Keas will happily eat some meat (well mainly the fat that they like)

We now have a resident Chaffinch called Chaffy and a Blackbird called ... Blackie.

I know. Terrible.

They hang about here all day with us. Each morning they call us and wait for their porridge scraps. Chaffy has become a comically fat little curse word. Properly round! I'll get a good photo- you'll laugh. He now has a mate (Mrs Chaffy.. please don't judge. It was an easy name) She is still a bit shy. We think they might have started nesting in one of the Kanuka trees next to the truck. Will be neat if we get baby Chafffinches (except for the bloody naming bit...). No other birds have seemed to have spotted the abundent food these 3 get each morning. Weird. It might be that Blackie does chase other birds away. But he's cool with Chaffy and they will spend all day together just pecking about the place, mates really.  Its quite fun.

Then we sold the housetruck and stuff started getting real busy here! (so its the perfect time to buy three Micras then.... ha)
With the truck going end of next month we had to sort out a proper decent living arrangement pronto. We still have the cabin and that's a nice place to sleep. But to live out of for several months/maybe a year while we build another housetruck was going to get boring real quick. So we have been building the mezzanine in the workshop.

Once the truck goes we have loads of other planned jobs to do about the yard. Terracing and landscaping the bank behind and above where the housetruck is parked, with a view to designing it around the next planned HT build.  We are also going to get rid of the tin shed in the yard, put some concrete down and build a garage- big enough for the imp or Micra plus loads of old bicycles. Old bicycles that seem to be breeding around here (because N + 1) 

We also want to build a nice little funky glasshouse and landscape between there and the garage a cool chillout area because it gets the last of the yards sun in winter.

Then there is the elephant in the room - the cabin on the ridge. Might actually start building the decking up there this summer now that the timber is up there. We've bought an 1800 litre tank for up there. That will be a fun day out....
Anyway- yeah busy. So the truck is now cof'd and but for a few tidy up jobs we can consider it gone.

Better build some upstairs accommodation then....

This has involved a whole load of timber. A lot of it has come from our own land and was already milled, treated and stacked in the yard. We have been keeping it covered, stacked neatly on flitches and it was great to finally rip into using it. Most of our beams are from that pile.
Then we sourced more local pine from a friends place around the corner from us. Finally we bought a load from a local sawmill up the Motueka valley including some lovely Macrocarpa...




We ran it all through our thicknesser because it looks nicer and doesnt hold the dust like rough sawn timber does...

(Also lots of nice shavings for the compost toilet too- although we don't use treated stuff in there)
Bought a decent sized metal bender for a customers gate job a while back. Damn I wish I had one of these ages ago. Came in handy for parts of the steel feet for the posts..

The main mezz floor down one side went up and looked great. Finally our main plan for the workshop was happening! (its the reason we had gone for the highest knee height we could , in our budget)..


Getting the hefty unwieldy 3.6m long 20mm strandfloor sheets up to the next level was made easier for us two when we had a hoist to use...

With the flooring up on that side we had to build some stairs. We wanted to move the steel rack too so we could put up the posts for the second level over the entrance bay. Having that rack out of the way and moved further in would also make for easier entry with trucks (important really....)
So off with all the steel and sorted through it..


Move the rack along, make new wooden shelves for the top so I could satisfy my inner ocd leanings and organise all the offcuts neatly...


Then we had more steel delivered including a length of 100mm rhs for the stair design I had planned. Started building stairs...

Finished the stair metal work, made some big Macrocarpa steps and while I painted the steel work Hannah painted the corner plywood a nice yellow...

Then finally bolt the stairway in place and attach the wooden steps. Really happy with how they turned out. Solid as and with loads of space below to stash other annoying tools (shame really because its so neat without stuff under there but it is a bloody workshop after all...)



Then clutter them up with stuff

...

Now with some stairs we could fill the mezz with bikes...

Better storage solutions will have to take place- we have some ideas involving skyhooks, ropes and pulleys.

Stairs completed so we better start building the next level up down the front. This will be a posh carpeted lounge room where folk can gather to watch a movie from (gonna get a projector for the ceiling) or just listen to music/read/dote on cat.

Kevin helped by keeping guard over his new favourite rug...

We have put up the floor up there and its great. I'll get some pics tomorrow.
Now we will start building walls and lining stuff out. Got heaps of nice pine and Rimu flooring to use for some wall lining. We want a sort of smart/rustic look to this whole build and it has to be practical because after we have finished living up there it will be used as a workspace for cleaner jobs and projects.
Oh and hey there macho men - don't laugh but I actually fancy getting into some sewing and making my own clothes- I have always enjoyed sewing but its a pain to do anything decent when you don't have the clear room to lay stuff out. So that will be a thing. helloooooo boys!

Oh I must add- we are both genuinely very excited about a future model train build so we are planning things around that too ie walls with holes, where track might go. It wont be to the same amazing level as things like the Pendon model railway but hey- ya gotta start somewhere and this will be a good space to do so. It will run around the perimeter and not be dated to any particular age so we can different eras and so include model cars from the 60s through to now. I want to make a sci-fi type section with futuristic type buildings and monorail like stuff too.

Dreams but gonna go for it

Great to see this thread updated.

I think you should link it to your car thread too, as many guys would enjoy it.

Cheers fellas. Yeah I need to sort out my thread links really. I cant fit them all in my signiture and it looks messy having a huge sig anyway. I might do a seperate links page that people can click on and go from there?

Anyway- as promised here is Chaffy, the fat little Chaffinch this morning, waiting for his feed porridge...

yeah they are pesky little parrots!

Wow!

I mean ... erm ... WOW!

You two seem to be a great team achieving so much and still going strong!

Amazing!

Impressive!

And your writing abilities are great too.

I would love to live so close to pure nature with all that green and those birds.

But what about the insect world, especially spiders? Australia offers some not so harmless ones, NZ surely too?

Wow

Wowow

Wowowow

How many bikes can one couple need? Lol...

Oh and those 8 legged thingies, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (and yet I'd once like to hold a big tarantula like spidey just for the feel of it, a very tame one that is!!)

There's no such thing as too many bikes in my opinion, my girlfriend and I have about 30-35 at the moment (was 100-ish 10 years ago!).

Oh man- you have to post up some pics or start a thread about them! What sort- classics, moderns, mtbs etc?

waynedear - thanks for the kind words. Glad you're enjoying the read.


So the other day we went further up the main valley here and our friends let us pick apart this old cottage on their land. Sweet as cedar windows set into Rimu frames. There was also a big copper water cylinder there for grabs. We are going back to get the french doors before the place gets demolished by a digger. Shame really because the location is bloody amazing! By a river looking at the mountains.













Then this afternoon we had a surprise visit from a fella on oldschool forums who has been following the housetruck build and this thread. He's a builder and often has spare timber left over from housebuilds so he so very kindly thought that we could make use of it, along with a load of left over fastners etc! Far out- this was such an awesome gift to receive - the timber is exactly what we need to start with framing out the interior rooms in the mezz !



So a huge thanks goes out to Morris for going out of his way to help us out. He is restoring a sierra xr4i with a cossie body kit and I am hoping I have convinced him to start a build thread on oldschool. I like sierras and its very rarely I ever see one about these days.

What a gesture.

I think Morris should be doing a build thread on Retro Rides as well.