Update from the trenches

If you don't like to hear about other people's renovations, click away now.  Here is my weekly update on Chez Christensen's transformation.

Week 3.  Day 12.  Demolition.  

On our middle and lower floor we have no ceilings, lots of dangly wires and a box covering the loo and sink for builder modesty when caught short.  

Because they've knocked out a lot of walls to create our openish plan, we have lots of steel beems called acro beams holding up the roof.  There are about 20 of these on the bottom floor.  They are like a forest.  But better than the house falling down no? 

My laundry is outside.  Our rear staircase is gone.  I don't miss it.  

Soon we will have a lot of steel bits delivered which will somehow be inserted into our ceilings to make it stay up without acro beams.   Once this happens, they can begin coving up the exposed bits with new walls and ceilings and stuff.  

Excitement.

In the fullness of time this will be the kitchen.  

Our builder is called Chad.  He is way cool.  He looks exactly like a Chad.  Like all builders he listens to Triple J.  I can feel myself becoming cooler by association (in my dreams).  Triple J are currently playing reruns of old Hottest 100 CDs from late 1993 onward so I even know some of the songs.  I regularly show my age as I sing along.

Chad and a series of labourers have been knocking the s**t out of the house.   He doesn't like technology, he likes wood, because it does what he wants.  I agree.  Wood is certainly better behaved than both words and children.

I love progress, even when walls keep vanishing. 

So there you have it.  A lot of smashing.  A great deal of dust. Many many acro beams and no ceilings.  Quite a few holes in the floor. At least 6 skips full of house have driven away.  

Upstairs, it's mainly serenity.  The stress of moving and throwing out is over.  There's much less to clean.  A fine layer of daily dust and Triple J coming up through the floor into the study below but I am rolling with this.  A new beautiful house being constructed below me.  

I know it's early days, but it's not bad at all.