What We Started With 6 Years Ago - A Renovators Journey

When we purchased our property back in 2009 it was a bit of a dump and was in desperate need of some TLC.

What gardens there were were overgrown and the shade house was collapsing.  There was no driveway until we put one in.

The deck had never been oiled and was all grey and mouldy.

The front room had kids drawings on the ceiling and the walls were painted with exterior house paint.

There was no carpet in most of the rooms and most of the window dressings were broken.  The office was painted with exterior paint too.

The main bedroom had a horrible old rattly air conditioner and some of the lovely fake wood paneling that featured throughout the house.  Thankfully Hubby was able to make a massive improvement.

The kitchen had a horrible old recirculating fan above the stove that was covered in grease, and the dinning room was a sea of wood paneling.

The lounge was more wood paneling and a timber floor covered in paint spots and a green painted edge around the entire room.  We were really glad to repaint and get carpet laid.

The bathroom had a concrete floor and old vanity and a bath with horrible wall tiles and a scratched bath and we lived with it for 5 years until we renovated.

Outside the ugly tin sheds were on full display.

There was a number of poorly maintained trees that had been pruned badly and were all misshapen.

The lawn was growing over everything.

The lawn was so overgrown at the back we could not even open the back door and it turned out there was a concrete slab under all the grass.

The property did come with a tractor that we used a few times and then sold for $800.  There were no fences other than the boundary and the cows had been keeping the lawn mowed.

There were no gardens just random trees planted in the lawn, where gardens might have been at some stage in the past.

There was a bent pine tree that was removed as soon as we moved in and an old low retaining wall that we replaced and turned into a fire pit.

I bet you are now wondering how we could see past it all.  Looking back I am not sure either, but we did and we thought it could be a great place to live.  And it has been,
We have put in a lot of man hours and a bit of money (but not that much) and lots of sweat, tears, four letter words and a few god old tantrums too.

So now we just hope it sells in a reasonable time frame so we can move on to our next adventure.

A Bathroom Make Over

Well the renovating is nearly over and our biggest job has now been finished, the bathroom.
This was a big job and it involved completely gutting the bathroom including stripping the walls back to the stud work.  We spent a couple of weeks showering in the backyard with our camping solar shower and for the few days we were without a toilet we borrowed a camping toilet from friends.
Our bathroom was the ugliest room in the house so we were not sad to see it go.

Here are the before shots.

Our toilet was surrounded by a piece of lino but it was just cut to fit around the base of toilet but it was just sitting there and looked very second rate.

Then there was the fact that our toilet was on a weird angle so you were facing the corner when sitting on the throne.

Our bathroom is a good size but it was just slapped together by a previous owner.

The floor in our bathroom was just unfinished concrete which we covered with a bamboo mat.

The vanity unit was old and all of the basin was scratched.  We had replaced the taps when we moved in and so were able to reuse these in the new bathroom.

The bath surface was all cracked and scratched.

The tiling around the taps had never been done properly instead the tile had just been cracked to allow space for the taps.

The shower head was supported by a piece of garden hose.

The window frame was water damaged and the plaster board was cracked.

The sealant around the bath was messy and grubby.  Because the bath was so uneven the sealant had been used to fill in the gap.

And here is the finished product.  The walls are pale grey, the tiles around the bath and shower are white and the floor tiles are a charcoal colour.

We constructed a partition wall instead of installing a shower screen.

And we now have a nice new straight toilet.  We installed a new toilet suite that uses less than half of our old one and only cost us $59 so it was worth doing.

Hubby did all of the work himself except for the tiling and he did a great job.  The bathroom was more than 10 cm off square on one wall and that had to be squared up so our tiling did not look funny, the whole room had to be re-lined and the window re-framed.
We are so glad to have it all finished and the total cost came in at just under $4000 including the professional tiler.

This is the last big job we had to do and we are now on the home straight.

A Driveway Upgrade

Back in 2009 when we brought this house there was no driveway at all.  It was just a couple of tyre marks on the grass.  I tried to find a photo but do not seem to have any.  We had a load of gravel, about 3 cubic metres tipped in a pile which I then spread by hand (never again) to give us a straight driveway from the street to the garage.
A year later we extended the gravel towards the house and into our newly rebuilt shade house, this I do have photos of.

Originally the area between the house and drive way was grass with a few pavers
which we put in at the same time as the first lot of gravel.

Another cubic metre of gravel was all it took to link the driveway with the house.

The gravel driveway made a big difference and we were no longer getting muddy feet trying to get inside. But there was never a proper edge and over time the gravel crept into the lawn and the lawn into the gravel.  So hubby gathered up a whole lot of stones we had lying around and made an edge to hold the gravel in place. He also took the opportunity to straighten the edge and level out some of the lumps where the dirt kept coming through and growing weeds.

Of course the number 1 helper is always involved.

Then we got the new gravel delivered which this time was not dumped in 1 big pile but spread out a bit, and it was Hubby who did the spreading this time.

Nice new edges the keep the gavel where it should be.

We are really happy with how it turned out and this just makes the front of the house look so much neater.

Hopefully the gravel is now thick enough to keep the weeds down too, time will tell.

Bedroom Makeover

While I was in New Zealand at the end of last year Hubby spent the time at home renovating our bedroom.  In his words "he didn't want me there putting my 2 cents worth in".
Anyway he did a great job lining the room to cover the external timer cladding (our room is an addition to the origional house) and the ugly brickwork.

The old air conditioner fell from grace...

Into the garden below and was added to the dump pile.

The wall containing two old windows that used to be the out side of the house was packed out with blocks.

Then it was clad ready for plaster and paint.

The end wall of bessa bricks was prepared ready for cladding

As was side wall around the windows.

Then the whole room was clad and the windows were framed.  Then the gaps were plastered and sanded.

Finally the entire room was given a coat of paint that matches the rest of the parts of the house that have already been renovated.

Then new curtains were added and new carpet was installed.

It feels really good to be making these improvements to the house.  Even though we are moving to NZ in the next few years we are able to get some enjoyment from our hard work.
The list is also getting shorter which is also satisfying.