Carport, Verandah, Paint and… a Lizard?

Remember this pile that was delivered a few weeks ago? It now looks like this:

We spent our long weekend building the verandah frame and the carport. We will roof the verandah with the back half the house in continuous sheets. My father-in-law had already dug all the post holes, which saved a lot time on the day. But the first job for me was to rescue this little guy:

Poor blue tongue lizard had found himself at the bottom of one of our post holes. The hole was the better part of 800mm deep and there was no way he could climb out himself. I knew I wouldn’t be able to climb out of the hole holding him. And while I have handled blue tongues before, he was a rather out of sorts lizard. I was not keen on risking a bite. Instead, I carefully eased a spade under his front half. Then I found a thin piece of wood to coax him further up the spade so he didn’t take a tumble when I lifted it. He was so busy puffing himself up to look scary that he didn’t move while I slowly picked him up and put him in the garden bed.

The Verandah Frame

The frame consisted of three posts, the connecting C-sections and the guttering. I spent most of my time holding the posts steady and fetching tools and materials. Once the two end posts were up, we put in the middle one and then the guttering. We were making good progress until we had to join the two pieces of guttering in the middle. We had the first piece up already. The second piece needed to be slid under the curled front edge of the first. We trimmed it a little to make it slightly smaller. It didn’t fit the first time. Or the second time. We took the second piece down and trimmed it back even further. Finally, it fit and we were able to secure the rest of the guttering.

The guttering is basalt grey. We wanted the posts in grey as well but it wasn’t an option for this construction. Once the posts were up, we moved on to the remaining two for the carport.

We concreted the posts to make them secure before we called it a day. Fortunately, the weather stayed dry, though the wind coming down the drive was bitingly cold. We had a few minor issues, like the guttering. We also had to widen a few of the holes to get the posts in the right place.

Finishing the Carport

We could only do a part day on Monday and the weather was supposed to deteriorate. I filled in the post holes from one of the piles of dirt that seem to multiply between every trip. My husband and father-in-law put up the back channel and the foam. We went to start on the roofing sheets and realized they all needed to be turned 180 degrees before we could put them up! My husband and I spun the sheets around, then it took all three of us to get them up on the frame without scratching the white underside. The flashing is the same basalt grey as the guttering (shouldn’t basalt be black???) But I think it looks awesome completed. It is much higher than the previous carport and the white underside really brightens it up.

I emptied the remaining sand mix in the trailer and we finished up for this trip. But before I end this post, I have some photos from inside to show.

Interior and Paint Colours

My father-in-law has done a great job with the drywall. The front bedroom:

The new master:

The hallway:

The third bedroom:

He also used a heat gun to strip the old oil based paint on the door frames in the hall:

We went paint shopping and bought all the paint for the exterior and the interior. At least, we bought the amount the paint shop said we would need. Personally, we don’t think we have enough but I guess we will find out. We did change the interior grey colour to a lighter one by the name of “Billy the Kid”.

The Wet Areas

The plumber made minor progress in the ensuite, bathroom and laundry:

It is still a rocky mess though. And that is all for this trip! Hopefully next time it will look a little more like a house than a construction site….

Adios!