It's been awhile...

I've been busy yada yada yada, working, kids, friends, babies, weddings yada yada, renovating, but blogging has definitely taken a back seat. So this post will show a lot of progress i'm sure. I can't even remember what we have done since the last post, but the house is definitely looking a million bucks (it may have cost just under this to renovate it aswell). So last i left you i think we had put up back stairs and started to paint Mst 8's room. Well we finished his apple-green room

We also wanted to see how we could paint the exterior of the house, being aluminium cladding and unsure if the total prep would be enough of an undercoat so we painted the side of the house and thank god something went our way and it held up and looks great. So of course that is about as far as we have gotten with that. Oops no i lie, i have undercoated the front of the house but am yet to venture up the scaffolding again to pain the thing. Soon, my dears, soon. My Dad replaced all the rotten wooden pallings around the front of the house and we painted those as well. My sister helped and was unable to use her hand for 3 days....amateur :P

I got a visit from the electricity company asking if they could take down the safety cover off the cables connected to the house yet, seeing as how the roofers had finished. I asked nicely if they could come back next week, then got right onto nagging the hubby about those last few pesky palms in the front yard and if we could pretty please cut them down before it was too late. See ladies nagging does work.

Then of course in Curse Rigby style. We had a big rain and the downstairs flooded. This would have been ok (not great but ok) if we didn't have all our furniture, boxes and belongings down there just sitting in an inch of dirty rain water. ARGH!!! So the 'moving in' phase happened rather quickly and undignified. Mattresses were being blow dried by my friend - on her birthday no less. Furniture was being lugged up stairs, thank god hubby had put in the good ones by then. We both had to take a day off work just to get it all up, dried and cleaned up. In a small way it was a blessing as it gave us a kick up the ass and we had to get the inside of the house moving in order to unpack or move boxes around. So hubby got the wooden floor boards sanded and oiled.

I got stuck into the gapping and painting and managed to get our bedroom and Miss 10's bedroom completed. Which was a feat in itself. Her room had a lot of termite damage, so hubby had to replace wall boards, and we came across a few botchy jobs from previous owners that tried to either conceal or fix damage. Then the painting was a nightmare as the undercoat was beading and wouldn't paint onto the walls properly. A few phone calls to my friends dad and we had that sorted, then there were so many different angles and we had wardrobes, lofts and windows, 2 shades of paint, my second painter was coming on 8-9 months pregnant and it was probably the hardest room to paint so far. But we got it done in the end and my little princess is happy.

Painted our front entrance/door which hubby hates and my friends think looks like a hookers door but i LOVE IT! So it stays!

Our library is underway. Wall papering with an old 1960's American Dictionary i found at the op shop. It was hard to cut out the pages and even harder to decide which side to show and which to hide, but i'm happy with the results so far

My friend had her baby - so adorable - and her Dad came to visit for the birth, the same friend who's Dad is a painter. YAY! This amazing man, painted my kitchen, pantry and entrance way. I have no way to repay his kindness and hard work except to praise him in cyberspace and say ThankYou!

Today we cleaned down in the bar area and man cave. And of course found more damage to be repaired. So....... To Be Continued....

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.