All the Little Bits...

Aside from the quite major renovations of replacing an entire bathroom, taking out 2 walls and putting in 2 cavity slider doors, there were several other things we needed to address with the house as well (not mentioning that the roof needs replacing, and that the electricians found some old wiring in the house, even after it passed it's electrical test that was done prior to us buying the house. See, always more things!!).

These included -

• Taking out 2 small areas of dry rot (at least that means the house is dry right? Better than damp rot I s'pose) in the office and by the front door.
• Filling in some surface cracks around the outside plaster of the house.
• Replacing 3 piles.
• Levelling up the lounge room floor.
• Re-routing roof drainage pipes so that the water didn't spill onto the pathway outside of the kitchen door.
• Re-routing bathroom drainage and sewage pipes so that they are under the house, instead of on the wall outside of the house right next to the kitchen door.
• Installing a sump-pump under the house (that's a small post for another time!)

I think that's it. 

Oh, no wait a second, then there was the time that the plumber told me the hot water cylinder was leaking and that we'd need to replace it. But that's also a post for another time.

Onwards to the photos me thinks - reliving all that work above is giving me heart palpitations.

Oh Hai there bath!! And what the outside plaster covering the house looks like from the inside...

I've since made the revelation that the bathroom is now officially the most insulated room in the entire house. Building paper was put against the inside plaster on the wall, then pink bats, then aqua gib, then several layers of special stuff to make the tiles stick to the aqua gib, then plaster and tiles and finally grout. Mmmmm, toasty.

Plumbing has been installed!

The new toilet sits in the corner on the right, where the level is currently hanging out and the vanity sits in the middle of the toilet and bath.

Kitchen/Dining room on the left. Straight ahead is the door to the office/library. To the right, the lounge.

Er, I guess it was a good thing we decided not to keep the racing carpet then? (Spot the chook house?)

Oh dear. This section of the outside of the house was probably the ugliest bit of the house before it got all cut up (and it's the bit we use as the entrance to the house, I'm standing in the kitchen door taking the photo above). But with a huge section of the concrete path being cut up, mud, dirt and (for lack of a better word) building crap everywhere, it was a bit of a sorry sight. (Spot the old pinex board that used to cover the hall!)

That pipe running down the side of the laundry on the left has now gone. It was the pipe that drained all rain water from the roof into the mains water waste (currently hidden by bits of wood) except that all that water would spill onto the path instead, and not into the drain. That's the kitchen door on the right.

I'm not sure I actually got any good photos of this outside section of the house before the work started, which is really annoying because now that all the pipes have been taken away (and re-routed to under the house/concrete path) this section already looks so much better than it did. I'll need to hunt through my epic number of photos to see if I can spy anything.

Until next time,

xx

J (& D)

And then the Builders came...

It's been a few months since my last update, and well, an awful lot has changed. An awful lot has also unexpectedly (or expectedly?) popped up too, which is what you get with an old house I suppose. It's sort of been ongoing, with small little annoying things continually popping up and it seems to me that no matter how much you plan, there will always be more things.

I guess all that watching of Grand Designs over the years has at least taught me that in building/renovating, all's fair.

Day 1

By the end of day one, the house was in total destruction mode. I had no idea they could do that much so quickly. Behold...

Missing - x1 bathroom, x1 bathroom wall, x1 hallway wall, x all power to the house except for 3 plugs in the kitchen...er, great. Can we change our minds already?

(Well, in saying that, this part nearly didn't start on the day that it was supposed to! The plumber couldn't find the water mains after a minute of looking and so promptly left. After about 5minutes, one of the builders found it (right by the front gate) and promptly called the plumber back).

Looking up at the bathroom directly in front of me from the hallway. The lounge wall on the left has all but disappeared.

The bathroom (or what was the bathroom). The toilet was in the corner where you can see the hole in the floor.

Standing in what is now the lounge - the shower would have been directly in front of me, up against the far wall where the light is in the photo.

That was a doorway on the right and a wall on the left, now it's just the hall way.

Standing in the lounge/dining room/kitchen looking at the destruction.

By the end of the day, it was rather apparent that my initial plan to stay in the house was not going to be a realistic one. So I packed an over night bag and went to a warm house, complete with working bathroom. (I should add that David was galavanting around the world for the first three weeks of this renovation - was it planned? We will probably never know for sure).

Day 2 

Then the builders came back and did it all again the next day...

Lounge cavity slider frames are in (left) and the second wall is out (right). Bathroom - no change.

No more wall...

Standing in the dining room/kitchen looking at the lounge.

Cavity slider frame is in, the bathroom is behind. Why they put the bathroom door back on, we will never know...

The cold icky weather we had during this initial bit of house-destruction did not help either. Do you know how much dust renovating makes? SO MUCH DUST. Add to that constant rain and you get cold wet muddy mess.

If you plan to renovate, my advice is to give up any plan of cleaning/dusting until every single work person has left your building.

More pictures to come - I'm trying to sort through the hundreds... and they get better, oh how they get better (she writes while sitting in her lovely lounge with the french doors open, the sun shining and the birds tweeting!).

xx
J (& D)