The doors

The dining room window has been replaced by some great bi-fold doors we found at the salvage place. I hadn't been there before and had to restrain myself from buying all kinds of stuff. We also got some other bi-folds with coloured glass panels. You'll see them morph into side windows for the front door at a later date. These doors are the doors to nowhere at the moment. Soon there will be decking outside. Can't wait. You can see some drunken skylight planning on the wall.

In the meantime, 'we' are putting the air con in. 44 degrees warrants some cooling in my opinion.

Started as a normal window.










The column on the left side is one door. The other two is a bi-fold.



We are going to put a cat door in one of those empty bits on the right. The last bit of kitchen bench will go on next. Left it to last as we didn't want to damage it when putting in the doors.

This is where the decking will be

Cupboards

Here are the first two cupboards put together (not in their final spot). Thankfully its only a small kitchen cause im over putting cupboards together now. Im really proud of these cupboards. And yes, the kids graffiti'd the walls once i said they were getting replaced. So they wrote on the ones that are staying (although they'll be covered).



The next two. The cupboard on the right is for the oven.



Not sure if its obvious but the door has been moved to the right. This meant I could have a bigger oven.



OMG a bench (oak) i could use




Those carousel things in the cupboard above are mongrels to put together. Four are done and in place. Oh and they work brilliantly.

The bench will go on the cupboards below once the window is swapped over for a door.  You can see the Christmas tree up the other end of the room. I think its well over time to put that away.

Im not overly keen on where the tap is now but too bad because its there. Reasoning behind that placement is that the window will be dropped to be level with the bench and I didn't want the tap being damaged by kids on the other side of the window. The sink is the BEST. Its big and deep. Tons of room.



The dishwasher is in and working although its 'stand' needs to be fixed up. Its still a bit temporary. I love this cooktop. Its almost fun to cook. Almost.



Ends, plinths, splashback and other bench top need to be put on but other than walls and ceiling and floor, that bit is sort of finished. Well kind of.

It was a long few months

Lots of preparation to get the house ready for selling and now Princess Milly is tired.

On the level

From this

To this

Hard to see to be honest but there was a fairly decent gap.  Now there isn't.

From November to now

I can't believe the last picture I posted was of my arse crack and really bad lino. Not sure what is worse. I finally have internet and a great computer so I can update with some more pics and news now.

Update on the pictures below.

We pulled up the carpet in the lounge room and discovered that the boards were in really good condition. Just some weird staining that someone did. Sanding it should sort that. 

We knocked out the wall dividing the lounge room and kitchen. So one big open plan room. I didn't like the idea at first but it meant I could have a bigger kitchen so i was easily talked around.  Picture below shows the first section cut out.



During

And after.  CARNAGE

Following picture is from before we pulled up the carpet. 

I pulled apart one of the old kitchen cupboards. Turns out the cupboards you see in the earlier pics are updates. They clad the old cupboard in the new panels, put on a new bench top (over old one) and so on. They built things to last back then as ripping this kitchen apart nearly killed me.

One of the high priority things we had to do was level the house.  The house is about 60 years old and definitely not level. You could get vertigo walking up some parts.  "We" pulled up three boards from one whole side of the house. I had been told I was getting under the floor to put the blocks in but i decided that was the best time to have a nervous breakdown to get out of it.  Too many spiders under there. 

With the three boards replaced

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.