A large gardening task
The Garden is under way at last! Peter Salmond (Hokonui Alpines) is the fellow involved with this task. Mrs Susan Mort was the landscape architect who spent a whole day with us to get an idea of what Sarah & I wanted - her vision for us is breath taking.
Threatening Brick tie failure
Next to our dismay we found that some of the original brick ties had come loose, referred to as 'wall tie failure', this meant that our South facing wall was 'bowed', especially around the large arched window. Sarah spent several hours researching the problem on the internet as our architect had no clue or inclination to help us solve the problem! Sarah found a product called Helifix in Australia. Helifix Australia then directed us to a specialist in Wellington. Contact was made and in December 2005, just a few days before christmas, two men flew down and pinned the whole brick work together with stainless steel ties.
The Garden is under way at last! Peter Salmond (Hokonui Alpines) is the fellow involved with this task. Mrs Susan Mort was the landscape architect who spent a whole day with us to get an idea of what Sarah & I wanted - her vision for us is breath taking.
Welsh slate roof
Third job - fixing the roof
The slate roof had always been one of our main concerns about purchasing the house, for two reasons. One, we knew that the roof had to be worked on to prevent leaks from damaging the roof structure and the ornate plaster ceilings below, our concern was that fixing the roof could prove to be an expensive job. Secondly, unlike in the United Kingdom, slate roofs are not commonly found in New Zealand, here the roof of choice is corrugated iron. We wondered if we would be able to find a trades person that had the skill and knowledge to fix a slate roof. We managed to track down a slate specialist in our area, Mr John Meegan, a slater originally from the United Kingdom but now settled in Queenstown, New Zealand. John was able to restore the roof to its former glory.
Slate tiles provides a high quality, medium weight, good looking roof, and if fitted by a skilled tradesman will last for many years. John informed us that most slate was brought over to New Zealand from Wales in the hull of boats as ballast to weight the boats down. He also told us that Welsh Slate is becoming more diffficult to come by in New Zealand as cheaper chinese slate is imported into the country.
Our first restoration projects
First job - clearing the grounds
Stephen Black Contracting from Balfour was hired to clear the grounds in order to create easier access for the contractors to carry out restoration work on the house. By the time Stephen and his men had finished, the house looked as if it had been transported to the middle of a war zone.
The only lone tree that survived the jaws of the digger was a fully grown Copper Beech, situated on the boundary with our neighbour Jan Mills. The reason why this majestic tree is still standing is attributable to keen gardeners and patients of Dr Mathew Stokes, the Hutchinson's from Lumsden. They happened to be passing when the excavation was going on, and informed us that they would never speak to us again if we pulled up such a grand old tree. Eden Hutchinson told us that she had tried to grow a copper beech at every house she had lived in and had never had much success. Needless to say, we were persuaded, and the Copper Beech still stands.