Well, Christmas 2015 has passed and we have welcomed in 2016! I hope everyone had a good one.
While many people were slowing down for christmas, taking breaks from their usual working lives and perhaps going away for a
holiday, we were...you guessed it...renovating. At a mad, crazy pace,
we put in almost everything we had to build a deck and portico by christmas morning. That was in the space of about 1 1/2 weeks
roughly. We did it! We celebrated christmas 2015 with family and
friends on our new deck. There are still a couple of little finishing
off things to do, like fascias and painting and we will put a ceiling in
and fit lighting as well...but it is definately a usable space.
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| New fan and lighting in the lounge |
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| Brett built a beautiful feature wall out of old silky oak panels, as well as floating shelves and drawers to house our tv/stereo gear etc |
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| Wall mounted the tv and voila, finished. |
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| The new lounge getting into the christmas spirit |
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| Getting into the christmas spirit with my 'trestle tree' |
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| The posts for the deck/portico in |
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| Work begins on the portico roof |
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| Portico roof done! Work beginning on the deck |
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| Working into the evening to get the deck finished (sorry neighbours) |
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| Done! (except for some finishing off bits) |
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| Enjoying christmas breakfast with family and friends |
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| Work starts in the new main bedroom. Blocked off old arch through to dining room and built new wall for walk-in-robe |
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| New louvres fitted to where front door once was |
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| Finished! New lighting and wall paint |
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| Walk in robe awaiting its fitout of shelves and hanging space |
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| A 'before' photo taken by the real estate when the house was for sale |
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| The latest 'after' photo (with window awnings added) |
So, to recap the renovations completed so far are restump, repaint facade, swap lounge and main bedroom, and build a deck and portico. Tick! Now we plan to build a new front fence and do some landscaping so we can enjoy our new deck living area more. We still need to paint the rest of the house outside, revamp the second bedroom and office, kitchen, bathroom etc. Does it ever end??
Apart from giving us a fabulous looking home, we now have a new appreciation of older timber homes. Sometimes a curse and believe me, there is plenty of cursing, older timber homes have a unique ability to be transformed in so many ways. The options are unlimited (depending on how deep your pockets are). Sure, we could have taken out a massive bank loan and paid for someone else to do all the work but we wouldn't have the same appreciation. Things wouldn't have been done exactly as we wanted, and we wouldn't have learnt as much about the house. Of course there are plenty of challenges that someone more experienced might have resolved much more quickly than we did... for instance, walls that look square, rarely are. And, anything timber, from floorboards to load bearing posts, can be warped and bowed and unlevel (or all three). We have had to work with the house and all of its quirks, however in doing so, we have also learnt many new skills and have loved the challenge. The big question....would we do it again? Yes probably.
