Obviously I haven’t updated this blog since, dare I say, August 2009.
Now February 2010, so Happy New Year to all.
But, while not much has happened on my blog, there has been a lot happening at the hangar. As I’m so far behind, I know the order of things happening will be out of sequence, but better that than not at all.
Stan has been working like crazy, and at times had a week or so there by himself struggling on without my help!

The electrician finished off all the wiring and I think around that time the required council inspection took place. He found a small piece of metal bracing was missing on the hangar frame which has since been rectified.

Stan then, with a lot of cursing at how terrible the fibres out of the insulation bats were, put all the bats into the upstairs ceiling, the walls, and supposed silencer bats between upstairs and downstairs. Yet to work out if they were worth the expense as at present when you walk across upstairs floor it is clearly heard downstairs. At a much later date we might carpet upstairs which hopefully will prevent that noise problem.

Anyway, upstairs shower has continued to work well and we are very pleased with the Solar hot water. Once the weather started warming up we haven’t had to turn on the booster heater at all.

Michael Reidy made a trip to Yarrawonga to install the air conditioning pipework upstairs and downstairs, and since his visit Stan and some friends put the two air conditioning units up on the roof near the solar hot water panels, so they are well out of the way.
Michael has to come back and fit up the two air conditioning units inside once the painters (us!) finish off painting the walls where the units are to be installed (one upstairs, one downstairs). Would have been great to finish that off and have them up and running prior to the hot weather arriving, but it was not to be. Now I’ll just hope we manage to finish off enough to get him back prior to the really cold weather setting in, as the air conditioners are also our heaters.

Van Steensel’s Timbers from Officer have made two more deliveries of goodies for Stan to play with. The first with pine lining boards for the upstairs ceilings and also Weathertex which will be the weatherboards for lining the hangar side of the residence.
Not sure what else they had on that truck, but the second truck came in January, and it had cupboard doors and shelving, and all the fix material for skirtings and architraves.

Don Santoni, the Plasterer from Berwick went up prior to Christmas and didn’t quite finish off the plaster, so went back again late January and it is now finished. Looks great.

Late November we received the sad news that Ted Berryman and his brother were killed in a Microlight accident at Yarrawonga. Ted made and installed our big hangar door, and several others at the Yarrawonga Aerodrome. He will be sadly missed, but we think of him every time we press the button and our hangar door goes up or down.
We met one of his son’s, Auskir, who together with friend Cecil finished off one of Ted’s doors. We look forward to hearing in a few years that Auskir has taken over building Ted’s large doors!

We purchased most, if not all our paint undercoat and top coat and took it to Yarrawonga prior to Christmas.
We had a few days at Yarrawonga, then back to Pakenham for a few days around Christmas Day, then we went back for three weeks.

Stan had started on the upstairs ceiling pine lining prior to Christmas. He ‘limed’ all the boards, then we painted them all with a lacquer before he fitted, glued and secret nailed each board in place. As he was working off rather high planks, he soon had me organised to glue each board prior to passing them up for fitting. Very time consuming, but the result is terrific. He fitted the boards up the ceiling of the stair well and balcony area, right through the large room and also the upstairs bathroom and toilet. There was an awful lot of fiddling with a lot of boards as they had to fit around or above the hangar steel bracing. Apart from it looking great, the best thing about finishing that was most of the horrible insulation bats were covered up, particularly when the plaster was also finished.

We also painted at least a third of the Weathertex boards in a grey, trying to match the colour of the interior of the Colorbond. Will try and finish the rest prior to Stan putting them on. The Weathertex grey paint we purchased at the Yarrawonga Paint Shop.

Isn’t it amazing how people seem to disappear when you mention you are painting and that you have spare brushes?
Max Glynn was an exception to this. He flew in one day from Porpunkah with Ken Jelleff. He didn’t leave when Ken left, and we soon had him helping us paint for the day. And it was an uncomfortably hot day! He was wonderful, as we had been putting off making a start on the painting, and he got us underway and into the swing of it. Max flew out the next morning. We hadn’t met him prior to that day. What a man!

The painting in the hangar shower was finished off as Darren Harris from Select Finishes at Shepparton came and placed a product called Granicrete to the shower walls and floor, and the hangar toilet floor.
The whole process took about three days before the final lacquer was applied. We really like the look of it, and it will be good to try it out before we decide whether we put Granicrete through the residence.

It was really nice to shift our showering facilities downstairs.

After the plasterer finished, we had another weekend where we painted, and painted, and achieved a lot, but there is still a lot to do. One of the good (or bad things, not sure which) is the paint shop suggested we tint the undercoat the same colour as the top coat. After undercoating the ceiling and walls of the lounge/kitchen hall area it looks so good we nearly feel reluctant to start the top coats in case we mess it up!

The best part about heading back to Pakenham after the last weekend was that we didn’t have to pack up all the hangar, as we presently don’t have any more tradesmen or deliveries planned. Other times we have spent several hours packing things away and generally cleaning up, and then getting into the car tired out before our four hour drive home. But as we left the fridge seemed to die in as much as the freezer was still working but the fridge didn’t seem to be keeping things cool. We will have to sort that out on our return.

Stan presently has some ‘real’ paid work for several weeks, so we won’t get back to the painting for a while. No doubt, it will still be waiting for us. Just hope the paint hasn’t dried up in our absence.