One step(s) at a time

The starting point for this whole flurry of activity was the collapse of some steps leading from our main door to the lawn.  That was because of a leaking joint in the gutters above them and we have replaced the gutters as a starting point..

The step illustrated above  was, I had thought the worst step.  But then the second one (from the top) completely collapsed and was replaced with a jury rigged effort by me.

So we had to get new steps.  One possibility was to get a kit from Bunnings but an expert was consulted and he advised that any wooden steps were likely to fail relatively quickly,   He suggested steel risers and treated pine steps, which we agreed with.

The wood for the steps came a couple of days early, so that it could be prepainted.  Here we have yet another use for an unroadworthy trailer!

To save a bit of time for our expert I removed the old steps.  This took about two hours and astonishingly did not involve any self defeating prophetic language (where the second word is "me") or references to the hot place, even when a huge coach bolt needed to be removed.  In this process I used just about every tool I own - including the chainsaw and the angle grinder - except the lawn mower.

 Having done that, it was important that neither I, nor the smalldog tried to use the steps.  Fortunately we kept the tape from when the ford was concreted.

The gutters of 2015 (part 2)

I posted recently about the preparations for replacing our guttering.  That has now happened.

Here is a snap of part of it.

Pretty much as soon as the job was finished a thunderstorm rolled in, bringing with it a lot of hail.

Much of it washed down the gutters and ran of the leaf guards (too big to fit through the holes!) and formed a heap n the ground under each opening.

Eventually it got a bit much and blocked the leaf guards but a quick visit from Mr Hand fixed that!

The gutters of 2015 (part 1)

I have eventually got fed up with cutting myself to ribbons lifting up gutter guard every 2 months to remove the dust etc from the gutters, so that they don't overflow every time there is rain.  So we contacted ACT Gutter Services.  Even though they live about 80km North of Canberra they came out and gave us a quote which we accepted.

We had painted the fascias and the gutters a shade of blue which wasn't accommodated in the range of hues offered by the gutter manufacturers so Frances chose a shade of red which matched some of the tones in our bricks.  See below for more on this.

Andrew, for the installers' offered to come out a bit before they put up the new stuff to remove the old so that we can repaint the fascias to match.  So here we go.

The old stuff was just put in a heap, waiting for them to have an empty truck to take it away.  It looked a bit like a modern art installation.

A wombat expressed a critical opinion on the matter.  This raises a matter of taxonomy: are wombats genetically similar to art critics or are art critics genetically similar to wombats.  Possibly even raising the question is being rude to womabats!

It was very clear where we had painted beforehand.  On the original part of the house the fascia was painted behind the gutters but the extension had bare wood in that position.

Here is how the initial stage of repainting looks from the lawn side of the house.

 This shows clearly how the colour chosen matched the bricks and -bonus time - the garage doors ....

 and the woodwork above the windows!

Here is part 2.