Progress Report #2

For so long now it seems nothing much has been happening on the house. 'Stuff' has been happening, in fact we're flat out every weekend pretty much, but its just been all the preparation and intermediary stuff that doesn't really leave you satisfied that anything is actually finished.  Well....now stuff really is happening. It is finally starting to come together and we can see what all that blood sweat and tears has achieved.


The new lounge is very close to being finished. Just a few touch ups and we're done. New lights and a fan were fitted yesterday. Air-conditioners were fitted in the lounge and bedroom a few weeks ago (just in time for a stinking hot summer again). We've added new skirting, cornice and a picture rail. Sanded, prepped and painted. 


We've cut a new doorway through to the kitchen which has changed the whole feeling of the house. What was previously quite a dark kitchen, is now filled with light and we have a wonderful breeze blowing in through the new front doors. We will barely need to run the air-conditioner hopefully.


Not long after we moved in (a few years ago now), we learnt that the breezes comes from the front of the house. We often found it much cooler sitting out the front than out the back. Thus the reason why we decided to open up the front of the house and create more of an entertaining area at the front.  Plans are underway to build an additional roofed structure on the front of the house, in keeping with the gable style, that will give us that entertaining area as well as protect the new front doors/louvres.  We will also be adding decking and new landscaping to make it hopefully a pretty awesome space.


So, for now we plod on with the finishing touches for the lounge room so we can move everything out of the old lounge. We can then start on room number 2, the new main bedroom!


We might take a bit of a break over Christmas (which seems to have sprung up on us again).................. maybe :)


p.s. In late October, Tilly had 6 ducklings hatch successfully.  Their cuteness only lasted about 2-3 weeks and they now look more like less cute mini ducks.  I haven't managed to work out males from females yet - that should come soon when their voice breaks and they start to quack. Well....the females will quack. The males get more of a low squeaky noise. The males also get a curl in their tail feathers (but that won't happen for another month or so). They will all be going to new homes but might wait until I can sex them.

Still a work in progress but the front of the house is starting to look more completed

New porch light to replace the horrible 70's yellow glass one

Newly fitted in the lounge - LED downlights, a pendant light in the corner (knicknamed 'the fishbowl') and black fan

 

 

Tilly's brood freshly hatched and very cute

Tilly's brood about 5 weeks old and not so cute anymore

Progress report

Gee time flies! Even though we are a long way from being even close to finishing anything, I thought I better report on progress so far.

The house is completely restumped and so work both internal and external commenced with a frenzy (as if we didn't have enough to do still).  We have decided on a process of room shuffling to enable us to complete one empty room at a time. First on the list was the new lounge room which meant we had to move out of our bedroom.  That meant moving everything out of the spare bedroom into the office, moving everything out of the office etc etc. The result being that we have one empty lounge room and an abundance of 'stuff' in a pile waiting to either go back into the new rooms as we complete them or eventually sorted through and gotten rid of.

After much debate, we eventually decided to go with timber french doors in the front of the house. This mostly came about after we came across an old set of silky oak french doors for sale on Gumtree. They were originally from the old Townsville hospital so also carry abit of history. They needed sanding and varnishing but have come up looking amazing.

Settling on grey, white and colourbond ironstone for the colour scheme, we are close to finishing painting the front of the house.   French doors are fitted so just waiting on new timber louvres to go in either side then we can finish repairing the chamferboard and complete the painting. We are also fitting traditional style window awnings over the two front windows to disguise the ugly aluminium sliders a little bit. We decided to leave the existing windows for the time being due to the cost of replacing.

We also had to apply to relocate the entry point for the electricity. Previously hanging a bit too low across the street and fitting smack bang in the middle of the front of the house, it now sits at a good height and fixes to the side of the house.  Costing about $1500, this was done (a) to allow us to build a portico and deck off the new front doors, and (b) so we can plant tall shrubs in the front garden (for privacy) without the risk of them reaching the cable. 

On the inside, we have removed the ceiling sheeting to reveal the original (much) higher ceiling height, with battens still in place. VJ wall sheeting also still in place, we thought it was a crime not to revert back to the original 3.5metre high ceilings. It changes the look of the room completely, making it feel more spacious and cooler. Now comes the fun part - choosing new light/fan fittings.

We just need to replace the ceiling sheeting, cut openings for the new doors into the spare bedroom and kitchen, moving light switches and power points, fit airconditioner, paint....

Til my next report!

p.s Tilly is sitting on eggs at the moment so hopefully will have more ducklings soon. This time hatched my mother duck instead of surrogate chook.

Making up window awnings (currently removed for painting)

Uncovering the original ceiling height (with lower ceiling battens still showing)

Original ceiling height (with lower ceiling battens removed)

New front doors fitting - Yay they fit!

With timber louvres in place for photo (currently removed for painting)

Old power entry connection point - now needing patching and painting.

The new power connection point

Tilly and her nest

  

Renovations continue

Well a month on and it's funny how plans can change.  After much thought and deliberation, and a 'ball park figure' from a builder friend, we have decided not to raise our house and build in underneath.  We would need to take out a massive loan for one thing and that just doesn't fit into our future plans.  We were thinking we'd sell the house in a few years and go off and travel around Australia.  Instead, we have decided we love the house and the area and don't really want to sell. Going off and travelling is still very much on the agenda in a few years but we will only do what is needed to the house for now.

Only what is needed? Well thats a matter of opinion and financial capacity I guess.  It definately needed restumping and urgently, so I'm thrilled to say that has now happened. 

As of about lunch time today, the majority of old timber stumps have been replaced with new steel ones. They should be finished replacing them all within a day or two. It has been a hell of a job for one very unfortunate business that agreed to take it on but I can't begin to tell you how nice it is to have floors that don't bounce when you walk on them, and doors and windows that don't get stuck and not close properly.

Not much left below the ground. Some of the old stumps wouldnt have been doing very much.

This is about how much the house was out of level in places.

High tech stuff this restumping business. Yes, that is an old gas bottle on wheels - used to carry concrete under low houses.

The most rotten of all stumps. Well 'eaten' out actually. No sign of any current activity luckily.

Almost done! I sure don't envy the guys who had to crawl around under my house to dig out the old posts. They have definately earned every cent!

Next on our list is a redesign of the internal layout which requires a new front door.  Also typical of this era, our house has a long narrow lounge room on one side of the house and large bedrooms in the middle & on the other side of the house. We are going to swap the large main bedroom which is currently in the middle of the house, with the lounge. This will have several benefits - one being that the lounge will be bigger and although the main bedroom will be smaller, it will be big enough and the added length allows us to create a nice big walk in robe. We can also add a new door way to the 2nd bedroom as we currently have to walk through the 3rd bedroom to get to the 2nd bedroom. 

 The decision we now need to make is how to place the front door so it works on the inside (with furniture layout) as well as looks nice from the front. The 3 gables have challenged us somewhat because being symetrical they look better with a centred window/door feature. We were thinking of french doors in the middle but they would need to open inwards (to allow for security doors on the outside) which would limit our furniture placement, and don't allow for any ventilation when the doors are closed. We are now thinking of placing a normal hinged door to the right hand side and put new casement windows in the centre. We intend to visit some show rooms and get a few quotes before making a final decision.

New roll barge capping installed and some painting to barge boards - otherwise front of house has not changed much yet (all in good time).

Since my previous post, I've also learnt a bit more about my house which points toward it being younger than I first thought.  Following an article in the newspaper, I discovered that our street was named after a local WWII soldier who died in 1942.  I could be wrong but this tends to suggest that our house was built after this date as one would assume that a subdivision of land would have occured around the time when the street was named.  If the subdivision happened sometime in the mid-late 40's, and our house was built around that time, our house is more 'post-war' generation.  However, from what I've read about 'post-war' houses, they seem to be characterised by less features, more fibro exteriors and concrete stumps, which doesn't match our house at all.  I'm leaning toward it being built post-war but still with the pre-war, possibly a bit of Californian Bungalow, style. One of these days I'll research it properly and then we'll know.

Renovations

Well our next project has been decided - we are going to renovate our house!  I don't just mean splashing a bit of paint around either - I'm talking big here....at least that is until we start really crunching the numbers.  The plan is to raise and restump the house and build in underneath.


Our house is a 1920's-1930's era Queenslander. "Pre-war" I think it may be described as - which means that it is not a real fancy Queenslander but still has the beautiful timber chamferboard outside & timber VJ inside. There are 3 gables across the front but no verandah. 

As is typical of this region, Queenslanders of our era were traditionally built on timber stumps with 'ant caps' at the top of the stumps to stop white ants (termites) eating through to the house.  Also typical of this region is that white ants will inevitably be (or have been) somewhere on your property and there is a very high probability that they have gotten too close for comfort.  We discovered that at least one of our timber stumps was almost completely eaten away on the inside and was pretty much useless. I haven't gone around kicking any more for fear that the house will fall down. Bottom line is that the stumps need to be replaced....and soon!


In Queensland it is now quite common for timber houses needing restumping to be raised to legal height to allow for a second living space underneath...or to be flood proof or cooler etc.  Our house is currently about 3 feet off the ground which has its advantages - fewer stairs to climb, doesn't have far to fall.... - but just isn't big enough for us. We love the area we live in so there really only is 2 options - raise and build in or restump at current height and extend.  We think the 1st option is the best and probably cheaper too.

Work has begun! Cladding removed except for the top gable section around the powerline

The previous owner had covered up all the front of the house with aluminium cladding which had faded and been dented, and was a horrible shade of yellow/cream and maroon. Had to go!  And so, while the house was still down low, we decided to pull off the cladding and restore the front of the house closer to original. While this can be a bit of a gamble as one of the reasons for cladding a house is because the original boards are in poor condition, we have been lucky and found the original chamferboards to be in fairly good condition. Being an old house, as expected there are a few rotten sections - a small section of chamferboard and the bargeboards will need to be replaced.  We will also have to replace a few bits that were removed when the cladding was installed, such as the gable brackets and window sill ends but this gives us the opportunity to change it a little.  We have given the new barge ends our own unique style and made our own gable brackets.  We just have to put it all into place and paint. Sounds easy but there is still quite a few man hours left just to finish and paint the front of the house. Then there is 3 other sides...... Needless to say, its going to take us awhile!

Rotten timber around an old aircon - luckily aircon and rotten timber have now gone (to be replaced by a set of french doors)

More rotten timber

The hollow stump

Replacing bargeboards

Not 100% sure but this will probably be new house colour

The work so far - new bargeboards & fretwork on middle gable. old aircon temporily replaced with a sheet of ply

Lawn Hill here we come - days 15 & 16

Day 15 (Friday, 17th April 2015)

After a very quiet night, we awoke to another beautiful day.  We decided to go for a walk to a nearby homestead (more of a hut, most probably used infrequently by stockmen as they traversed the property back in the day). We're told that there was an old lady living there up until perhaps the 80/90's.  The kangaroos have moved in now and the place is in a very delapidated state. It was about a 1km walk and was interesting to have a look around.

We prepared our redclaw (& blueclaw) for the barbie and cooked them up with some butter and garlic - yummo!

We discovered there were also freshwater mussels in the creek so we decided to go for a swim to see if we could find any. We found heaps but Pauline had told us they needed to be soaked for a couple of days to get rid of the muddy taste - as we didn't really have room to keep them we decided to throw them back.  

We had a bit of a fish but not even a bite. We weren't too fazed after our red claw feast though.  Played another round of horseshoe and relaxed.  A really terrific spot.
 

Walking to the old homestead

The old homestead

An old gas fridge

An old generator

The remains of an old chook pen

Our feast of redclaw, preparing to be cooked up

The outlook from our campsite

Having a game of horseshoe

Great bush showers with hot & cold water

Day 16 (Saturday, 18th April 2015)

Another quiet night - except for a feral cat that woke us up trying to steal the rubbish bag out of the bin. Sadly though, we had to pack up today and head home.


It took about 5 hours to get home. We stopped briefly at the White Mountains lookout, and then again in Charters Towers for lunch & catch up with Bretts family.

This has been a fantastic trip.  I think our favourite places would have been Cobbold Gorge, Kingfisher Camp, Lawn Hill & Koorooinya. Highly recommended!

White Mountains lookout

Graffiti etched into the sandstone everywhere

Lawn Hill here we come - days 13 & 14

Day 13 (Wednesday, 15th April 2015)

After a hot and sleepless night, we were keen to get going early. We made our way back to the highway and continued east. We decided to stop at the old Mary Kathleen ghost town which was interesting.  Mary Kathleen was a township established in the early 50's when the Mary Kathleen Uranium mine started operation.  With a population of around 800, Mary Kathleen was home for many families until the early 80's when the mining operation ceased and most of the homes were sold and removed. Mostly all that remains is a few roads and concrete slabs, but you can still see where the town square was and you can see several other relics such as a fish pond and flooring tiles.

Continuing east, we reached Cloncurry where we stopped at the bakery for pies and drinks. We also went to the Cloncurry Info Centre where we had a look through the museum which included a section on Mary Kathleen which was very interesting. We got a few brochures and settled on our next overnight stop, Corella Creek Country Stay.

Corella Creek Country Stay is in Nelia, about 50kms east of Julia Creek. I'm not sure how to describe this place......different, quirky maybe.  When we pulled up we very nearly drove off again but the man spotted us and came over so we decided to give it a go.  There are no signs, you just have to know it is the 2nd building to the left before the railway line. There are only 5 or 6 buildings visable in the area, and you are literally just camping in someones backyard. Someone who has a lot of animals - and I mean a lot. There are chooks, roosters, ducks, geese, turkeys, guinea fowl, goats, sheep, cows, a donkey and Guiedo the rescued red kangaroo joey. All just free ranging around the place. The kids loved playing with the animals and I'm surprised we didn't find a duckling or two kidnapped and brought home with us. As we relaxed in the afternoon, Guiedo made himself at home beside us, as did scruffy the kid. There was a toilet and shower which is accessed from the outside but is part of the resident owners building, but at only $20 a night this was perfectly adequate.

Resigned to the fact that it would probably be another sleepless night with all the animals, we settled in and just enjoyed the experience. We might have got more sleep staying at the Julia Creek caravan park (not a lot of options in this area) but then we wouldn't have experienced this place. Did I mention there is a railway track about 50 metres from our tent....totally expecting a sleepless night.

The old Mary Kathleen town square. You can just make out the fish pond behind the plaque.

Part of the main street

Whats left of some tiling

A pathway to somewhere

Whats left of a building in main street

Anyone need to pee? - Toilets at Cloncurry info centre

Campsite at Corella Creek Country stay

Scruffy the kid

Turkeys, and the entrance to the amenities at the back of the building

Ducklings

Some more of the menagerie

Brodie making friends with a chook

Annieka with Guiedo

Scruffy and Guiedo saying hello to each other

Day 14 (Thursday, 16th April 2015)

Yep...by morning the novelty had worn off.  There were at least 3 trains that rumbled past through the night and the roosters started around 3am.

Continuing east, next stop was Richmond where we briefly stopped at the Kronosaurus Korner museum and decided not to go in. Cost maybe, lack of interest perhaps, or maybe we were just tired and a bit grumpy from our restless night. We drove to the lake at Richmond and had an early lunch.  Next stop was Hughenden where we stopped at the Flinders Discovery Centre. We decided to have a look around the museum which was interesting, and we also found a flyer for Koorooinya Falls nature reserve. I had read about this place on Wikicamps but hadn't been able to find much info online or at other info centres. Deciding on there as our next overnight stop we got advice from the info centre and took the Muttaburra Road south and did the 'scenic' route.  About 20 kms south we took a left turn and cut through the Strathroy cattle property, before turning right onto the road south of Prairie. The turn off to Koorooinya is well marked although not at all what I was expecting.  With a name including the words "nature reserve", I was envisaging something akin to a national park but no - all set up for the one-day-a-year Picnic Day races, Koorooinya is a horse race track.  Pauline and Neville, the caretakers came out to greet us. Pauline gave us a very enthusiastic tour of the place and made us feel very welcome.  Only opened to campers in the last 5 years, this is a great place. We were the only campers there but aside from that, we got a really relaxed feeling about the place and decided to stay two nights. There is a great creek and gorge about 50 metres from the camp grounds.  The creek when full, overflows into the gorge creating a waterfall drop of several metres.  Pity there hasn't been more rain recently or we might have got to see the falls flowing.  There was just enough water in the gorge to have a dip but I think before long it will be all dried up.

There are all sorts of humpies scattered around the place. Many have spring bed frames for people to lay their swags, some are just frames for people to hang tarps etc. Pauline was explaining that the same family groups often come and stay, with one frame known as where the 'batchelors' stay. There are great showers & toilets, an open air bush style with lots of corregated iron, but with modern comforts such as gas hot water, lights and flushing toilets. 

Our bad luck so far with red claw ended as we caught about 20 within only a few hours of having the pots in. We caught more overnight and a few more later in the morning, resulting in about 40 all up. We could have caught a lot more but there was no need because we had a feast enough and stuffed ourselves silly.

Pauline and Neville came over to our camp for 'happy hour' at 5pm when we played a game of 'horseshoe'. Neville won (we told him we suspected he had magnets in his horseshoes lol).  Then the kids had a game of tennis while Brett and I went up the track call box and took some sunset photos.

A lookout on route to Koorooinya

Inside the Flinders Discovery Centre, Hughenden

Kronosaurus Korner, Richmond

Our campsite at Koorooinya

Going to put in the red claw pots

Towerhill Creek

Looking down into the gorge with the camp grounds just visable in the back ground

Further down the gorge where we swam

Looking down the straight from the call box

Okay I have to give credit where credit is due - Brett took this great photo

Camp grounds with various humpies used when the races are on

A game of tennis

Garlic fried red claw anyone? Yum!