Although a mild day was forecast, it was bitterly cold, being a bit inland and subject to more extreme temperatures.

Instead of making a start on freezing steel, I visited the local deli, purchased a newspaper, made a coffee and relaxed for half an hour.

When I re-emereged the sun was fully up and everything had warmed up by 10 degrees.

The first job was to finish off the 550 x 600 frames - last night I had cut them down from 800 x 600 but did not have time to fully nail on the bracing.

The next half of the day went on installing the joist extensions.

These were needed because where the joists meet the steel work for the cantilevered bath room there is a 120 mm gap where the floorboards have no support.

The brackets that I had fabricated worked perfectly and even improved the rigidity of the rest of the joist.

However, they did take a long time to install and it was after midday before I was ready to install the 15 floorboard to extended one side of the atrium to the top of the steps.

I was expecting the floorboards to take a very long time, but being short they stacked quite nicely as a 15 wide installation (even though on the longer ones I only clamp up 4 at a time).

After a bit of attention to line them up evenly I was able to fix them down relatively quickly.

By now it was 3.30 pm and I was contemplating installing more of the temporary roof.

I packed away most of the tools that were not needed for the next task but suddenly felt exhausted.

I went inside for a snooze. When I woke up it was 4.30 pm and the sun was already going down.

There was only enough time to roll out black plastic to cover the vulnerable floorboards before the dark set in.

So what I am seeing here is that even though it is only the end of April, the working days are becoming far shorter.

I will have to think up some strategy to keep the hours up.

I have also decided that I want to race towards completing the temporary roof with the first rains of winter approaching.

This means installing supporting frames, rafters, battens and corrugated iron before the back section of floorboards is installed.

I have worked out that if I construct frames and install battens in 900 mm increments then I will be able to remove a small section at a time when I get back to laying floorboards.

Monday

During work breaks I pulled out a number of jarrah timbers to use as rafters and loaded them on to my utility.

Tuesday

I was up at 5.00 am and made a run out to site to drop off the timbers.

They are pretty scruffy, have been used before and have many existing holes and notches, even some termite nibbles but they will be good enough for a temporary roof.

Wednesday

During work breaks I pulled out and docked various timbers that will allow me to create 900 x 260 frames to position in the mid point of the temporary roof to support the 3.2 / 2.5 metre rafters.

Thursday / Friday