I did not start work until 11.00 am.

Working from home, it took me all day to cut up the 90 x 45 CCA pine , nail gun it together as well as the strapping.

Tomorrow - installation.

Sunday

I turned up on site all keen to install these last two infills.

However, I had forgotten that the 75 mm steel column that I was connecting to also had a 90 mm timber stud connected on its other face. The upshot of this is that both of the small stud frames need a 15 mm square rebate on one side.

I decided not to hack them on site - instead skip the installation and bring them home where I have all the tools I need.

All I did was carefully mark up the alterations that need to be made.

I decided to stay on site and tackle a number of tasks I have been wanting to complete for a while now.

The first of these was to attach 5 overhead piece of 45 x 90 so that I could run small vertical studs from the top of the wall down to the previously installed LVL's (so that there is something to attach the external cladding to).

This required 10 holes to be drilled through the 8 mm thick PFC steel.

Each hole needed to be 12 mm in diameter.

The holes had to be drilled upwards.

This took me all of the day to complete (but included bolting in the timbers using the new holes).

By now, it was almost nightfall and I had a lot of tools and materials to put away.

I had come prepared for an overnight stay so like the previous weekend, I just carried all the power tools downstairs and crashed for the night.

This time I had brought a decent fold out matress and a pillow - so had a surprisingly good sleep.

Monday (Anzac Day holiday)

I woke up surprisingly late (7.30 am),

Being a public holiday I was not meant to make any noise until after 9.00 am.

Fortunately I had a number of quiet jobs:

Previously when I installed the rough opening LVL headers I had not yet received a box of square washers that I was waiting on.

Now that I was armed with these - I worked my way through all the bolting, replacing the standard 12 mm washers with the square washers.

Another job that I completed at the same time had to do with the bolting between the two new steel columns and the overhead steel beam.

At the time, I did not have any spring washers with me - so these were also upgraded.

By now it was after 9.00 am so I could make a bit of noise.

When I installed the 4 infills last weekend I used 20 bolts, each needing trimming back to the nut.

These are housed within rebates so there is not enough room to use an angle grinder.

This week I brought a reciprocating saw to complete the job.

This worked very well - it only took about 30 seconds to trim each bolt.

After this I ran around with some cold galvanising to protect each raw surface.

Jim and Sandy came to visit for a while and we had a good chat (while maintaining social distancing off course !)

I had intended to head home at this point but decided I would tackle moving the temporary veranda topping - as I knew in the past that this is quite a job.

For context - the veranda has a temporary surface made up of corrugated iron. I have done this because the veranda surface is exposed to the elements and a nicely laid timber deck would only become damaged.

When I installed this temporary decking I did a very neat job and brought it right up in to contact with the sides of the house.

What I have since realised, is that when installing the cladding I need about 150 mm of clearance at the point where the wall meets the veranda.

As I have worked on each wall, I have been forced to relocate some of the sheets by two "bumps".

In this case there was a lot of debris worked in between the sheeting and some was rusting through.

I took up two rows of sheeting, threw the worst ones in to the scrap pile, sourced a few replacements and cleaned up the muck as best as I could with a small hand brush.

Once it was stripped back and cleaned up I reinstalled the sheeting in its slightly modified position.

By now it was close to nightfall.

I packed away all my tools, stored away any materials, dropped the weather covers in to position, loaded up the utility and headed home.

Tuesday

I spent today modifying the two stud frames.

This involved removing all the strapping on one side, trimming a few millimetres off the top plate and routing a 20 x 20 mm trench down the height of the frame.

I had hoped to be a lot more prepared for my next visit to site, but I will need to spend the first hour of Wednesday loading up my utility.

Wednesday

Up late, left late, arrived on site late.

I installed the two modified stud frames - they fitted perfectly and installation was straight forward.

Very solid and good result.

Just took me all day for some unknown reason.