renovation update

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.

New fan and lighting in the lounge

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

Wall mounted the tv and voila, finished. 

The new lounge getting into the christmas spirit

Getting into the christmas spirit with my 'trestle tree'

The posts for the deck/portico in

Work begins on the portico roof

Portico roof done! Work beginning on the deck

Working into the evening to get the deck finished (sorry neighbours)

Done! (except for some finishing off bits)

Enjoying christmas breakfast with family and friends

Work starts in the new main bedroom. Blocked off old arch through to dining room and built new wall for walk-in-robe

New louvres fitted to where front door once was

Finished! New lighting and wall paint

Walk in robe awaiting its fitout of shelves and hanging space

A 'before' photo taken by the real estate when the house was for sale

 

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.

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