Not a Box in Sight

Finally, the final box has been unpacked and they have all left the building. All rooms are now pretty much done, just some more walls to fill up over time. I shall have to find time somewhere to work on some more of my photos and have them printed.

So now lots of photos - including some before and after. Before photos are the ones from the real estate listing.

The front of the house. Work done - new roof, painting, new blinds in storeroom on left, new light, new glass in front door and surrounds. Still do do one day, decking on verandah, removal of concrete and improved front garden. Storeroom will also one day become our ensuite. It was generously described on the floorplan as a study.

Before - front of the house

After - front of the house

Before - front verandah and front door

After - front verandah and front door

The Master Bedroom. Work done - new plasterboard ceiling, plaster patching of all walls, new cornices and ceiling rose, painting, carpet, lighting, heating, blinds. New tallboys just arrived.

Before - Master bedroom

After - Master bedroom

After - Master bedroom

The Guest Bedroom. Work done - plaster patching of all walls and ceiling, painting, new cornices and ceiling rose, additional power points, built in wardrobe, carpet, lighting, heating, blinds.

Before - Guest bedroom

After - Guest bedroom (mostly used by Molly the cat)

After - Guest bedroom with Charlie looking serious

The Lounge. Work done - plaster patching of all walls and ceiling, new cornices and ceiling rose, painting, fire place covered over for now, carpet, lighting, heating, blinds.

Before - Lounge room

After - Lounge room

After - Lounge room

The Hallway. Work done - plaster patching, painting, repair moulding, new cornices and ceiling roses, additional light in back of hall, add picture rail to back section, heating, floor sanding and staining. New glass in front door and surround.

Before - hallway

After - Hallway

After - Hallway

The Office. Work done -  new plasterboard for all walls, plaster patching of ceiling, new cornices and ceiling rose, built in cupboards, fireplace covered over for now, painting, carpet, lighting, heating, blinds, relocated and new phone and power points.The light shown for the office in an earlier post was replaced with a new one shown below. Original one gave off virtually no light, and it broke... this one heaps better.

Before - Office (after settlement, no real estate shot)

After - the Office (the boys hard at work!)

The Office light fitting (changed from earlier post)

Kitchen and Dining. Work done - lino on floors (no floor covering before), added shelves over benches, removed a cupboard and added a dishwasher, new cooker (old one had faulty oven), new blinds, heating.

Before - Kitchen and dining

After - Kitchen and dining

After - new gas cooker

Bathroom. Work done - bath removed and laundry added (following demolition of falling down laundry outside), lino on floors (no floor covering before), painting, heating, towel rails.

Before - Bathroom

After - Laundry in bathroom

After - Bathroom

The Backyard. Work done - laundry/shed demolished, lattice added to fence line. Since then lots of pruning and weeding - still a work in progress so photos to follow.

Before - Laundry/Shed

After - Laundry/Shed no more

Other stuff done - mains gas line connected, instantaneous gas hot water, hydronic gas heating, tv aerial, Austar tv.

So that is about it for now. Pretty much done for a while inside and some garden tidying up happening at the moment.

Jo

Dale is sleeping on the couch....

And yes, I am sleeping on the other one! The floor sander called on Monday and was able to come from Tuesday to get our hallway done. So we have decamped to the lounge and kitchen/dining for the week. The third coat went on this morning and should be ok for light walking tonight, but we will probably stay on the couches one more night so that little and big paws can stay off the boards for a little longer.

We have used Feast Watson Floorseal (Tung Oil) with a black tint. So the result will be nice and dark and a matte, rather than gloss, finish. It looks great so far against the white walls. Shall get some pictures up on the walls over the weekend too. The painter will come back to touch up the skirting boards sometime and then all done.

So some photos of before and during each stage.

Before (from a while ago)

Floor sanded - already a million times better!

First coat down

Second coat with tint added

 

Third coat today - with a little more tint

Molly enjoying my new bed!

We will have our house back tomorrow and it shall be good to finish a few things off. Hopefully some more photos next week of the rooms not yet shown.

 

All Moved In - and mostly unpacked...

Hi,

Well we have been in the house for two and a half weeks already and we are really enjoying the location and the house. 

Molly the cat joined us on day three and settled in super quickly and is now racing in and out through the cat door a million times a day. Charlie likes his new backyard and keeps finding weird really old bones (one with teeth!) and grotty old tennis balls. He also loves lazing in the afternoon sun out the front and talking to whoever wanders past.

We still have a few boxes to unpack, but are slowly getting through the remainder. The guest room is unlikely to be ready for photos for a little while yet... Also we haven't yet put many pictures up. I finally found some decent picture rail hooks (Bunnings ones were useless), but now the Bunnings wire is way too weak so will have to use something else, perhaps fishing line will do the trick. Shall get onto that next week.

So the only reno type work still to be completed is the sanding of the hallway. We have booked a new guy after the first one didn't turn up on the day, and he is booked out but will try and fit us in between larger jobs. So a paint spattered hallway lets the place down a little at the moment - but you won't be seeing photos of that!

Now some photos of the finished rooms and the front of the house.

Outside - before and after. See if you can spot the yellow door!!

Our bedroom, all done except for needing some more pictures on the walls. Plus we need to buy a tallboy for more clothes storage and this will go in the far corner with the tv on top. We haven't had a tv in the bedroom before but decided to do as Austar had some special deal for two rooms.

The kitchen and dining room - with Charlie supervising the photo shoot. Our table fits just fine and could probably come more away from the wall to make the window seats accessible all the time. Will test that out sometime. We have enough storage and the kitchen is actually really good to work in, although the oven is a little dodgy. I haven't been brave enough to do a roast yet but will need to try before hosting Christmas.

Our bathroom, before and after. Before, all yellow with a bath. After, all white and with a laundry instead. This space has worked out really well and we are so glad we made a last minute decision to paint the bathroom and loo white.

That is it for today. The office still has some unpacked boxes, so not quite photo ready. We are waiting on an extra filing cabinet we have ordered for that to get sorted. As mentioned the guest room has a bit of work to do. And the lounge, looking good but will photograph once the pictures are on the walls.


So making some progress each day and really looking forward to being completely organised soon!

Almost done...

Hi,

Well we are very close to being finished now. The floor coverings went down yesterday. Carpet in the main four rooms and lino out the back in the kitchen/dining, toilet and bathroom. We chose lino as we hope to renovate this section of the house down the track, so wanted an economy solution for now.

The hallway is to be sanded and stained. This was originally scheduled for yesterday, but they wouldn't start then as the carpet guys were in the way (who were meant to be here earlier in the week and were delayed...). So sander due here first thing today and he hasn't turned up. His boss expected him and was chasing him but is now not answering calls. No idea what is going on at the moment. Worst case we will move in without it done and then have to grovel back to sleep at Mum's for a couple of days when it is done.

Our builder was also back yesterday to put up our blinds and a few other odd jobs. The electricians are back again today. Worried about this bill given how much they have been here. Oh well!

So now some photos of finished rooms. Yaaaay!

Firstly the master bedroom, before and after.

The guest bedroom.

The office, before and after.

And out the back - kitchen and dining, before and after. Changes here - flooring (there was none), new blinds, shelves in kitchen and we added a dishwasher.

So that's it for now. Next shots will be with all our stuff in and unpacked next week. We are moving on Monday. Very excited and looking forward to being unpacked.