Forever House #48

Monday 5th June 2017
By the time I left work at 3pm and stopped here and there on the way out, it was 6.15pm and dark on my arrival at the Forever House. I had already met with Ronnie @ Bunnings car park at 7.45am and we'd shopped for pop rivets, Intergrain (Merbau colour on this occasion as opposed to Jarrah - Ronnie thought it would be less orange), cement screws, biscuits to join timbers together for the frame above the mud walls, and glue.
Then to Richmond Sand and Gravel for 4 barrows worth of sand and gravel, and a bag of cement. This was half a tonne's worth and seemingly more than we needed but we wrapped it up in black plastic and gaffer tape like a huge dead man laid in the bowels of Ronnie's ute between the tool boxes and air compressor. Next stop Budget timber where we collected another half tonne of hardwood - the makings of the frames for the glass walls above the finished mud walls in each bedroom. I got fuel in a gerry can while Ronnie tied that load down and we realised his mud flaps were dragging on the ground... We went to another servo for air in both of our vehicles' tyres, and gas for the cooker at the farm.

At that point Ronnie decided we needed to ditch some of the sand and gravel at my house to make the load more realistic. I left the gas bottle at the North Lismore servo accidentally. Ronnie trailed me home to unload the dead man. There is now a black plastic and gaffer taped package in my yard awaiting the next concreting job...

Ronnie headed west; I packed my car for the farm and headed back into Lismore.

Before work, I took a couple of paintings I had done at an abstract art workshop on the weekend into the framing shop. It seems my creative muscle is being flexed at the Forever House and I feel quite freed about creating at the mo. My sister Danielle, who was also at the workshop, thought I was channeling our Dad, Frank, who was prone to landscape painting.

While at work I left my car getting two new rear tyres due to a slow leak in one and them both being on their last treads. After, I went to collect the gas and filled another gerry can because we're going through more than one each week for the genny to run power tools, fridge and to recharge the battery tools. I food shopped at Casino and took out money to pay Jason who slashed my block.

Ronnie had the fire alight when I arrived in the dark. We wandered around looking at all the work he had done since I left last Wednesday. He'd swept through also and the place looks amazing.

He's realised he wont get as far as lock up by the end of this week. So, after a week's break next week (following the Queens birthday weekend) to spend with his family, he'll come back for two more weeks to move the project along to lock up.

I'll take pics tomorrow. We'll mix concrete first up to fill some gaps in the block work - to tidy up the corners and give him a finish at the top of the block wall to meet with corrugated iron.