Thursday, May 26, 2011

Brinca Gaga (or how it took three grown woman plus one Electrician/ Engineer far too long to build a house) Part 2

Lunch is over. Mr Div is back from the shed at the bottom of the garden with the recalcitrant chimney piece from part 2. The clock says 1:20 and we're off! OK, off with a little more sawing...and fiddling...
and sawing. And coaxing holes to be the correct size to accept the screws.But, finally, it's together. We add the next couple of pieces: (A little befuddled but following the instructions,discovering bits that have become unglued in transit and putting them back together)
Things are going reasonably well. The mood is confident.

The time comes to join the two parts of the house together and we start to realise quite how large (and heavy!) it is...We screw the two parts togetherand its at this point that we realise they've missed a very important step in the building process.Can you see? On the right there, two sides of house butted up but the wiring not connected? So these screws were screwed in and unscrewed a couple of times.
The shoelace finally came off. The wires were connected. And the screws were screwed in for the last time.(By this time our collection of swear words was growing rather impressive)
The bathroom wall goes in and the contortions get more and more elaborate to reach the screws:
We're not sure if the roof is supposed to flick up at each end or if it's warped in transit. But, to make sure the screw holes line up we ignore the what the instructions say about the order to screw the screws in and, with much fiddling to make sure parts line up and perspex is still in the groves it should be in (and the bits that slide, do) and all hands on deck to push bits and hold bits we finally get the roof on.
Div does the ceremonial chimney screwing on. You see, it's actually her house as M1K1 gave it to her. How nice is that?!
Finally, at ten to three, it's finished.
We check that the lights all work (using normal batteries as we're too impatient to wait for the rechargables that came with the house to charge through the solar panel).And collapse.

After shoving those rogue wires you see behind me back into the (ugly) hole in the wall, we give it a dustand test some of the furniture in it.(You'll notice we didn't quite get to covering all the screws with the plastic caps that came with the kit)

4 comments:

  1. That looks impressively difficult! Well done for having the patience to complete it-it looks good.

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  2. Reading that was like watching a thriller!

    Even my children were gasping.

    The owner should be proud of hers and your efforts because my nine-year-old said, "Ahh, that looks just like Fallingwater!"

    Can't get a better compliment than that!

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  3. Thanks for the photo coverage. I have an Emerson sitting in my parents' garage (waiting for my move to a real house!) and I'll admit, your post made me frightened. Very very frightened.

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  4. don't be too frightened!

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