Tonight's effort

I really just want to wake up to NO lino on this MOFO floor.

Niamh occupied herself by taking pics of the house. Including every piece of lino I had ripped up.

I am NOT arse cracking in this picture TYVM.


This bathroom is just um, bad. That vanity is going to go hurling through the backyard soon. I just want a pedestal basin or shelf/basin type thing. The bath is going too. Will just have a corner shower I think.



ps. i am over trying to rotate that image. It wants to be on its side so FINE.

Edit: Ok it worked somehow.

Ideas

I will confess to having changed my mind regarding cupboards and covertops and appliances and whatever else but here are the current choices.

Because the kitchen is so small we are going with light colours although I would like a 'splash' of colour for the splashback (it will be a glass splashback).

White cupboards and an engineered stone (I think) thing for the covertops. Im thinking the covertop on the left???



Appliances are nothing full on but very nice. Nicer than I've had before anyway. Mid range Bosch dishwasher, Lofra cooktop, oven and rangehood. The cooktop is ceramic which should be fun. Im sure this means I'll have to buy new pots and pans. I already have a fridge so no need to get a new one.

I think i have the right pic. Its 700mm so a bit bigger than the standard 600 and smaller than the epic 900mm.

The outside (front)

Here is my cute little house. Its small and needs some help but it feels like home. Good sense of community in that area and thats the sort of thing that attracts me to an area.



The roof is a pretty purple colour due to some lovely weeds growing on the roof



The big windows in the front are the lounge room windows. They are going to be made into double doors and lead on to decking that we'll build with the boards from the kitchen and lounge room (same issue there).



The climbing roses were given to me by a friend about 8 years ago (when i moved there the first time 8 years ago). Im shocked and stunned that the two house trashers didn't kill them.

More kitchen pics

The kitchen is still the same although we've stripped more of the lino.

Three layers of floor (not including floor boards)


Scraping lino and glue from the floors. These will be sanded soon and then pulled up. The boards will be used to build decking out the front and 'fake' floors installed. The house really needs restumping but we are going to do it ourselves (yes, im saying my prayers). Only way for us to do it is to lift the floor and jack it up that way. The floor boards have dropped so has to be done either way.



You can see Andrew in this pic and the one above so that might give some indication of the size of the room (small). The window in the dining area will be made into a door and the outside area paved and a bit of waterproof cover put there. The framework is already there with shade cloth. That area used to be a lovely fernery but is now a lovely weedery (you can see ivy growing up a pole) and is a waste of space.

The Kitchen (stage one)

The kitchen was a pokey little brown room with manky cupboards. The stove and cooktop decided to die which made the decision to gut the kitchen and put in a new one an easy one.



Naturally ripping out cupboards exposed atrocious walls so we'll be redoing all the walls with gyprock/plasterboard. Same with the ceiling.



You can't really see it but behind the wall oven we could see all the grease splatter from when there must have been just a normal stove there. GROSS. We also found some redback spiders living under the cupboard the oven was embedded in.



You can see the lovely garden growing up through the walls.


So plans are

• Continue to clean up that disaster zone
• Rip up the floor and replace
• Put up new walls and ceiling
• New light fittings
• Lower the window
• Put in a new kitchen
• Glass splashback (green is sounding nice)

The other window (not in pics) is going to be a door. There WAS (bastards renting the house let it all die) a lovely fernery out there. Im going to clear it all and eventually pave it and have a nice outdoor area. Not sure what year work on that is expected to start.

Im also not sure I like this blog format but it will do for now.

Some history

I (Shauna) bought the little house on Torquay Road back in 2001 (I think). After a couple of years it was rented to a relative (now an ex relative) who damaged it after living there for a few years. Andrew and I fixed it up using all our available (and unavailable) funds and once it was in nice condition, rented it to someone else. After 18months this person also decided that damaging a house was fun so again, repairs needed to be done. At least this tenancy was through an agent so we should be able to recoup some costs.

Financially and emotionally its now impossible to hang on to both houses so I decided it was time to sell one and get life sorted. After some soul searching I decided to sell my nice big 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house and move myself and the four kids back into the little 4 bedroom, 1 bathroom timber frame. As they say, location is everything.

I will confess to walking into the house, bursting into tears and having second thoughts about my decision to move back to the little house. One look at the beautiful roses and seeing friendly neighbours soon calmed me down (just a little bit) and I started to make plans.

It turned out the oven and stove were no longer working so that made it easier to decide to put a new kitchen in. Mr Fixit (Andrew) is super skilled at whatever he decides to do and put my mind at rest by saying he would help me redo the kitchen.

That conversation has morphed into some hardcore renovation ideas. Everything from a new kitchen, to new doors, decks, bathrooms, flooring, walls and other great ideas. Am i scared? Totally. But im also excited to start undertaking these massive changes and I also know the massive sense of achievement we will feel knowing we've done it all ourselves. Well, Andrew will have done it and I'll have helped.