Citywide plywood enhancement fashion trend

We have a new look!!!

PLYWOOD!!!

It is the in thing in Christchurch these days and, not wanting to be left behind, we have joined the citywide plywood enhancement fashion trend!!

After the removal of the chimney and part of the front of the house we travelled through some different looks….

Half pink batts half plywood .... mmm, I'm not sure about this.

Pink batts. But it really wasn’t working for me—I have never been a ‘pink’ kind of girl.

Half pink batts and half tar paper. Not that was kind cool. A little risqué, a little revealing, a little …well, face it, slutty! (We don’t live in an area where ‘slutty’ is going to go down terribly well!)

Full tar paper. Have to admit, I thought that worked kind of well. But, again, it just didn’t feel right!

Half tar paper half plywood ... mmm, not sure I like this either.

Half tar paper and half plywood! Aha! Now that was just downright chic! We had white, black and beige across the house and, as you fashion folk know, that colour palette worked well. In fact, we liked this one so much we trialled it for the entire weekend. (Which is a really nice way of saying the tradesmen had reached knock off time and would be back on Monday, but did his best to whack up one large sheet of plywood before he left.)

On Monday the tradesmen arrived back and set to work and did an outstanding job (and I mean that sincerely). By days end we had a whole new look going on … and I like it! In fact, I love it! And it is just as well I love it because I’m going be living with this for quite some time!

I love it!!!

I think you will see that the look works well, it fits the house nicely, it is subtle, coy, a sort of ‘you don’t really notice me until you stop and pay attention’. It’s a bit like wearing red stilettos with long jeans. Only as you walk do people see the ‘teaser’, and if you sit down (at a nice café—seriously I love a good coffee!) and cross your legs and the jeans ride up the boots a little…well, let me just say that I have had people pull the leg of my jeans higher just to see the boots.

But, back to the house … I will point out that we paid for the pink batts, in case any fellow Earthquakians reads this and thinks EQC will let them put pink batts in a wall that did not previously have pink batts. They won’t. This was an emergency repair job, and they are not supposed to leave a property ‘better’ than its original state prior to the quakes and aftershocks. We did not have pink batts before the damage to the house, and so they would not put them in for us as they repaired the house. I asked for them and am paying for them, but otherwise we would have gib-board and then plywood and then winter…and this house is cold enough in winter without that added chill factor.

I don’t really know what we are going to do with the front of the house when the full repair goes through (as I said, what we had done was an ‘emergency repair’ due to the instability of the chimney and the front of the house after the June 13 ‘twins’ – one decent 6.0 or better would have taken it all down, so we could no longer leave it).

To conclude....

Plywood is the new trend – if you don’t have it, you’re nobody!

Fluro is the new black—there aint nothing sexier than a workman in a fluro vest walking up your driveway, because you know he’s here to fix something!

Hardhats…well, combine that with the fluro and need I say more… (*tiger growl*)

We don’t look at the latest Mercedes or BMW and think ‘Wow, I would love one of those’, we look at the utes and say ‘I wish I had bought one of them!’

When our husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend (not all in the same bed of course ... although...) rolls over and makes the bed shake we almost scream 'Earthquake!'