Totara flooring!

This is the lounge area with the undercoat sealer on after the walls had been plastered. We are having white walls so that they will pretty much look like that in the end.

Photo of steve painting in our bedroom, at least painting isn't loud so we can do it week nights

Getting started one Saturday, Dad and I ended up painting and Steve and Graeme Watchorn started laying out the flooring.

Jono and Steve laying the first plank! The first three took us a while... ;)

We laid out all the wood around the house, trying to get as little overhang (so we didn't have to waste much when we chopped it, and tried to get similar colouring) We got the last of a companies stock as they are moving to engineered wooden flooring, so they gave us a bit of a range of colour and quality. we paid $50 extra and they gave us all the extra. We weren't planning on putting wooden flooring in our bedroom but we had JUSTenough so we laid it in there as well. We had one small plank left over! Phew.(That's the bathroom)

This is Graeme and Dad trying to fix a really bowed piece of wood, they used all sorts contraptions to get them straight. Dad takes health and safety seriously and made sure he had his high vis gear on.

We have Hardie sheets? in the bathroom, so it's more water resistant, they are semi concrete so the pneumatic nail gun wouldn't shoot the nails in so Dad spent AGES in the bathroom drilling each hole first. That's our shower base sitting there, we got one from Bruce,(Atlantis showers) who is Steve's uncle. We had a wee set back when we went to install the shower but now even better the man himself is going to install it for us this weekend. 

So this is how we did it, I was the WO-MAN with the nail gun and mallet and Steve stood and watched me work. ;) Nah, you cut the boards to fit, glue the floor (we were scant on the glue as we didn't want to have to buy two pots), Stick the wood in place, use another piece of wood and hammer the wood to get the gap as small as possible, often the boys would use a chisel to push the wood in further, then I would come along stick the gun on the edge of the wood and fire the nail into the tongue of the wood. It's TnG flooring if you want some Jargon. My back was killing me by about 2pm everyday. Actually we didn't get photos of it but I stopped every now and again to have a little read of my book - I had to rest my back you see.

This shot is showing you the nail gun and the mallet. 

There's no photos of the glue we used but we got it all over our hands, it was seriously hard to get off. We still have it on our finger nails. I was wearing those overalls to stop the glue getting on my legs like it did the day before, instead though I managed to get it all up my arm. A free wax if you wanted.

This is our bathroom complete with a shower base and an eastern style toilet! I can't wait!

Living area all done looking on to our expansive outdoor dining area.

Looking back the other way!

So that was our Easter! Work work work ;) The boys finished at 4.00 on Monday, so went out on the boat and stayed the night then dropped Steve at work on Tuesday morning, he climbed onto the wharf in town just outside the Hilton. Can't complain!

So the floors are being sanded and polished this week, hopefully kitchen going in later in the week, plumber and tiler coming early next week and fingers crossed we might move in on ANZAC day!

COMING SOON: photos of our floor when it is polished!! And photos of my very own Kitchen!!