New Home....nearly

WOW! So much progress. Back stairs were removed, rusty stringers jackhammered out of concrete and treads gone! New shiny stringers up and treads oiled and in place (just waiting on a guard rail). Downstairs corrugated fibreglass replaced with fibro. Kitchen floors have been totally replaced, pantry walls and ceiling replaced, old rotten yucky wood panelling replaced with fibro and all the tongue and groove now visible in the kitchen. New kitchen bench arrived and installed, Thanks Kel. Just need to gap and paint and we are in business oh and buy a new oven of course. (i've attached a 'before' pic so you can see the difference) Hay fever inducing, ebola festering air conditioner in our main bedroom and window removed, awaiting new windows to install, hopefully tomorrow. Main bedroom cleaned - YAY! and half gapped. Lounge room/s painted (looks amaze balls) and half floor sanded and oiled. (again added a couple of before shots) Miss R's room mostly gapped, floors sanded and oiled. Mst J's room painted 1st coat. Oh and electricians have finished Double YAY! We have lights, fans, power points and smoke detectors. WOOHOO! We are finally seeing some progress and its getting closer to being habitable which is exciting for us all. Its surprising really considering hubby who has never done a trade or building of any sort before, is studying law is our main builder (doing a mighty fine job too i must say), our only builder guru and advisor of all things 'hard' wood is an 83-and-holding-gentleman, our painter and all 'inside'jobs advisor is a 6 month pregnant daughter of a painter, our two labourers (i.e. dad and uncle) are in their 60s and i'm sure mainly helping us so we will vacate their home and open up the bar area downstairs of our money pit, and master of all things clean is my mumma bear. We may be a rag tag team but boy do we all work hard and i will forever be in their debt (as well as to the bank ;P )

Progress

One thing i've been dying to do and that is CLEAN the front of the house. I asked cleaners, painters, mothers, anyone for advice on what would be the best concoction to rid the front of the green moss, mould, mildew and tree sap that was caked on the outside of the money pit. What i ended up doing was mixing water, Ochlor (chlorine based product) and sugar soap. I am NOT advising that these products 'should' actually be mixed together but hey i needed something potent. I used Dad's old pest spray pump and sprayed this on the front of the aluminium cladding and waited. The waiting was probably a little longer than i would have but our gernie was on the fritz and dear hubby was fixing it, but impatient me went ahead and sprayed. Turns out this was a good thing. All the mould, mildew greeny brown muck started to turn orangey-red, (which a painter friend had said would happen) and then we gernie-d it all off and it was as easy as that, the muck just literally washed away. The house looks so clean, it was amazing. 20 min job took years off the place. I continued along the house but ran out of my concoction of cleaning supplies and i didn't wait as long before i gernied and found it didn't come off as easy so will have to redo a few places and finish the rest of the house but oh my, it looks so good. It is back to basics, literally, the house is now base aluminium, there is no paint left on majority of the house, we can see a bit of old paint up near the fascias, now the mould is gone, but the house was so neglected there is basically no paint left on it. Something else that is progressing is my HUGE double lounge room. Half of it has been gapped and painted when friends and family had a working bee, and I was continuing onto the bigger area. I have officially finished gapping ALL the tongue and groove walls in the lounge room areas. It only took 43 1/2 tubes of gap filler and hours of elbow grease. YAY! I'm so proud of my efforts. Now this weekend i intent to start prepping for painting. This will include putty, filler, sanding and masking off floors, doors, and windows. The ceilings still have to be filled and i haven't bought the ceiling paint yet but one hurdle at a time. This room is the biggest in the house so i feel great that i have accomplished something in this room, which just so happens to be my favourite. Hubby has been busy working on a few projects, something i have been advised shouldn't happen. One job at a time was the recommendation but those people don't have nagging me as a wife and two rug rats desperate to move in. Poor hubby. Anywhoo, hubby has removed the rusty old back stair stringers. YAY! Replaced floor boards and wall boards in the spare/craft/i-want-it-to-be-the-dining-room-but-hubbys-resisting room, replaced half the floor boards in the kitchen, (half to go), helped me to gernie the front of the house, helped my dad and uncle remove trees from the back yard, organised and picked up the floor sanders ready to go when all the floor boards are down, also chasing up any tradesmen and builders for advice or services. Plus his usual work 50 hours a week and study law full time. The man is a machine. Electricians have a couple of small jobs left to do and they are done. Front and back yard look like a cyclone has ripped through, but at least the sun can reach the house now. My cousin - in - law is organising a new kitchen bench top, until we can afford a complete kitchen reno, this will be great as a new hygienic food prep area. We can see small progress but its progress none the less. Have had a few comments from community members regarding the house and the progress they can see aswell, biggest comment seems to be the tree removal and actually SEEING the house, so thats encouraging as everyone is keen to see the finished result (as are we).

Destruction Phase

Sorry its been so long since my last post, what can i say, life is hectic! So Roof is on, YAY!

Fascias are done, YAY!

ALL carpet is up, gone, destroyed, YAY! So where are we now..... Well kitchen was a complete destruction site, we pulled down the timber veneer panelling to find holes in the tongue and groove, as well as some boards completely missing, exposing the bath tub on the other side. NOT ideal, hence the panelling, and the floor boards aren't great. We have since found out that the kitchen was once TWO kitchens as the house was once a duplex, so there are holes in some floorboards that we believe were once drain holes. The back stairs are pulled out and although we have the stringers we still haven't gotten the treads so that is a no-go-zone at present. We pulled down a wall in the entry way that had water damage and one in the lounge room that was used as a painting studio and had paint and nail holes all over it (underneath was exposed beams which we feel looks in place with our genuine 'old-school' look). The bay window in our bedroom was drooping as the support poles were rusted out and a supporting beam downstairs was rotten so those two things were in desperate need of being replaced. What seemed like forever to being replaced was really only about 2 weeks. All i can say is Thank the Lord for demolition yards. We got tree loppers in to get rid of the palm trees that appeared to be multiplying. We still have a few massive trees that are about 5 storeys tall but another day, another $1800. Seriously in my next life i'm coming back as a tree lopper. My childhood friend is visiting at the moment and just so happens to be the child of a painter. Hallelujah!! She has been invaluable, having worked with her Dad and brothers has been able to point us in the right direction for colours, paints, gapping, puttying, etc. I love her! She lives with us now :P So we had an impromptu working bee this weekend and we got the bay window jacked up and support poles cemented in place. Kitchen wall replaced with true tongue and groove walls. Entry wall replaced, junk removed. Lounge room fully "no more gaps" gapped and sanded ready for painting. Fire place wall fully painted. We'd like to thank everyone who has and is helping us in any way, the support has been AMAZING from family, friends, new neighbours and our community. We truly appreciate all the elbow grease, laughs, and achy joints you have given us. Here are a few before, demolition and reno pics.

Progress

Roofers arrived today with all their supplies ready to roll, now if only the sun would shine. Due to all the moss, rust and god knows what else up on the roof it was too slippery for them to get up and start today but they have left all the insulation, corrugated iron and gutters ready to go when hubby rings to tell them the sun is out (our roofers reside in Cairns). Electricians have told us we are looking at pretty much a complete re-wire but said it isn't as bad as they were anticipating so thats good.....i guess. They were down at the house today discussing with the roofers when 'their' section of the roof will be up for them to gain access. My Uncle and Hubby ended up pulling up carpet in all the bedrooms, kitchen, and BATHROOM (still can't get over that one) before i got home from work yesterday - i dodged that bullet :). All thats left is just a piece under a fixture in the main bedroom, hallway and the entryway. Stringers for the two external stairs have arrived in Cairns from Brisbane and a courier should deliver them to the residence tomorrow. 2 stringers made, freighted and couriered from Brisbane to Malanda, came in $1000 cheaper than buying locally. THAT is madness. God bless the internet. We are without electricity at the moment so cleaning has come to a stand still (ohh too bad) but no doubt with recommence within the week (dammit). Things are moving along. Still a lot of work to do but i know the 'big' stuff is happening first and thats the most important.

Week 1

Well it has been a big week. We didn't have time to organise the fascias to be done, before the roofers arrived to assemble their scaffolding, ready for them to start this week. The electricians started today and had a good look around, ready for a meet and greet with us tomorrow to prepare us for the bad news i'm sure. No, no think positively. Hubby has started to pull up the hideous carpet in the lounge room and we had a sneak peak under the bathroom carpet, (yes carpet, WHO carpets the BATHROOM!!!) to find timber floorboards - YAY! So my challenge this week is to rip ALL the carpet in this house up and throw it to the tip. I think that alone will have a huge impact on the smell in the place. My mother and I have been heavy duty cleaning the walls, toilets, bath, shower, more walls, windows, doors, anything and everything to get ready for us to finally habitat the house 'hopefully' in the next month or 2. Most exciting news is we have ordered our claw-foot slipper bath. Its gorgeous. I can't wait to see how we end up designing the bathroom (and kitchen for that matter) we both have a few ideas so i'm sure we can come up with something great. We estimate this old house has been renovated and/or added upon most probably 2 or 3 times from its original plans. There was once a verandah which has since been built in and we're guessing the kitchen and extra bedrooms were add-on's aswell. This was evident by the wood panelling currently occupying the walls in said rooms. After umm-ing and agh-ing about the wood panelling, we got an idea to paint them, my dad had seen it done on a reno show on tv. After googling some images we thought it didn't look too bad, after making that decision, to later find out that we had timber tongue in groove behind it thanks to the electricians who today pulled the panelling off the walls, AGAIN, why oh why would you put nasty 70's chip board panelling over hard timber tongue in groove walls. Madness i tell you. (please excuse quality of photo, its off hubby's phone) So i guess the moral of the story here is we need to totally strip this house back to its bare bones and start from scratch. The young electrician told me he has grown up in these parts and said our house was the first one built in this street. He says it will be a "grand home" once we bring it back to its glory. We estimate roughly it was built in the 1920's. So of course i'm thinking of a Flapper-Gatsby themed housewarming. You in?

What have we done!!!!

Ah, the smell of mould, stale smoke and rot in the morning! My moods are swinging from excitement to fear frequently and rapidly. Now that the previous owners are out (bar a massive painting they are coming back for once there is a break in the weather - please, this is Malanda, i'll be keeping the painting at this rate, lol) we can see what we have left and what that is, is pretty dismal. The smell alone makes me want to promptly turn and leave, but i know once the carpets come up, bleach goes on the walls and a asthma-inducing spray of Glen 20 around the place, will make all the difference. Just got told from the roofers that the fascia's need to be done before they do the roof. The roofers come on Monday. Thats 5 days away. That piece of information may have been useful to know months ago when we got the roof quote - BUT, thats ok, i'm sure i'll find a builder that can have it measured, made and installed in 5 days, leave it with me :S

We bought a ...... renovator

Tomorrow we settle. Hubby and I bought a renovator. What are we thinking? As if life isn't hectic enough we thought we'd up the ante and buy an old queenslander in desperate need of some TLC and a hell of alot of elbow grease. The Big word here is POTENTIAL! The house has a lot, if you can get past the trees, the mould, holes in the walls, water leaks, rusted roof, condemned stairs, no sewerage (its on septic), dodgy wiring, hmm and thats just the start. The first time i saw the house, was for my hubby. I wasn't keen from what i'd seen of the pictures on real estate.com but he had convinced me to just have a look as it was in our budget and we had seen and dismissed all the others in our price range. As i walked around the front of the house i almost stumbled into a pond. What the hell was that doing there? It is overgrown and surrounded by trees, you can't even see it exists. I later found 2 more ponds in the back yard. As i gingerly climbed the stairs to the house and relieved i made it to the top without them falling away behind me (like Tom Hanks in the Money pit) i was excited as to how big the space was upstairs. FINALLY! A house that may store all my big furntiure and cluttered mess we've been hoarding for years. See i knew we'd be able to house all our stuff one day. I could immediately see our things here, where i would put everything and everyone. Downstairs used to be an art gallery once. There is a built in bar. Enough said, we were sold. I could look past all the work (what would i know about actually working on a house. Can't be that hard, right? We'll just hire people to do the things we can't manage) and see the.....potential. Hubby took a little more convincing. We looked at a lot of other homes, but nothing was as big as our little Money pit. Well we bought it and tomorrow we get the keys. We have roofers coming in a week, electricians, plumbers and tree-loppers all lined up for the following few weeks and the floor sanders acquired. Hubby is in the process of finding stair stringers, as that's kinda important, considering we have to transport all said big furniture UPSTAIRS! Did i mention that we both work full time, and hubby is studying, and he has exams this month? But we'll be right. Can't be THAT hard......right?