Does a renovation ever end?

Today I was asked by a friend I hadn't seen for a while whether my renovation was over and I had to really think how to answer this. I mean technically the 'reno' he was referring to is over in that the extension has been built and fitted out, the contract with our builders is finished (well except the defects list) and we are living in and enjoying the new areas of our house, so I suppose the technical answer is Yes!

On the other hand we still have so much to do and when I started putting a list together I realised just how long it was. It is all those finishing off things, including, painting, painting, painting oh and putting in fittings such as towel rails and toilet roll holders and then there is all the external work, the big one being the alfresco deck being built (which we are using a different builder for), weatherboards being replaced, more painting and lots, lots more.

So really does the renovation ever really end? It some ways probably not as I have friends who years after doing their extensions are still putting on finishing touches and that's with the house. There is also often so much work to do in the garden but in some ways that is all part of the fun of it, the journey - as they say life is about the journey!

For us the main part is over though, so we have noticeably got back quality family time in our house and our stress levels have decreased thanks to this. On the weekend we managed to just enjoy time in the house and out in the garden with the kids, it was fantastic!

Does size matter?

I have discovered recently that size matters to a certain extent but as long as you use what you have well and you cover what is required, bigger doesn't necessarily mean better.

Now before I go too far down this track I suppose I better explain that I am talking about house size! There is a general Australian trend for houses to get bigger and bigger hence the term McMansion. I have to say personally though that having inspected so many houses I have found the the medium size houses, with good storage and design are so much more appealing then the large ones.

Our house before we started the reno / extension was a two bedroom, one bathroom home with a toilet through a small laundry. We also lacked storage. This started to feel too small with two kids and regular interstate visitors (that would sleep in our lounge). Now by adding extra living space, two more bedrooms and extra bathroom and loads more storage the house feels huge but I know we will use every bit of space well.

A house much bigger to me means more cleaning, and also ones I have visited seem to often lack that homely feel I love. Instead one of my favourites is a friends double fronted cottage that isn't a big house by any means but is well designed and gives my friends and their three kids plus two dogs plenty of space to live. The house has such a warmth about it and you immediately feel comfortable.

What do you think? Do you love a well designed classic cottage or do you prefer a more modern larger house?

A meeting at The Block

I was fortunate to have good friends visiting from Adelaide on Friday and with one being a big fan of The Block we just had to go and visit.

On driving past we saw Tania and Rod standing on their front porch and so quickly pulled over and jumped out, but by the time we walked back they had gone back inside. Instead we then managed to see Josh and Jenna coming out and quickly got a photo of my very excited friend with them.

Once the main excitement was over we took time to look at the houses more closely. I must say on first inspection the houses all look fantastic and being a big fan of Katrina and Amie's style had to have my photo in front of theirs (see above).

On closer look though you can see with all of them that the paint jobs look a bit rushed, very streaky in spots but with the timeline they had I am not surprised. I just think about how long it is taking to paint our house.

I have to say though a big fan of the girls my favourite from the outside was Josh and Jenna's double fronted weatherboard cottage.

Renovation takes over!

The renovation really seems to have taken over our lives lately. I am continually cancelling on friends and our social life has diminished a lot and I think will continue to do so for at least another month.

My little boy crashing on our new rug enjoying the sun

We are nearly there but the builders are six weeks over contract and still going. They are hoping to be out of here by mid next week, that will be major cause for celebration.

Unfortunately once the builders are finished we still have a lot to do which will impact on our weekends for the next little while - cleaning, painting, painting, painting and getting the floorboards sanded and polished, plus carpets put in the two new bedrooms. Then there is all the stuff that we have decided to do on the outside of the house ourselves - painting, replacing weatherboard and putting in new base boards. Sigh!!

I am a little over it and this is why I haven't been online much lately either.

On the positive side I am loving the new space - I often sit in these cane chairs, coffee in hand and watch my kids outside jumping on the trampoline. And even better news I have been told I can use our new bath from tonight!

A days work - framing

Friday a beautiful sunny day in Melbourne saw most of our wall frames going up. I couldn't believe how quick it was, in the morning we just had flooring in then went out for an hour came back and saw this.....

The back fourth bedroom or study .....

Then a little later in the day -looking across the family room floor (will be floorboards) extension to the other rooms which include a hall, two bedrooms, laundry and family bathroom....


Looking through the laundry door to side entrance (so happy as got to keep this tree, it was a close call and so now half its original size).....

Looking through the back bedroom / study window from the back of the garden. Plan to put our desk under this window which will look out on a beautiful Orange and Japanese Maple trees.

So tomorrow I think the plan is to put up the family room walls, the room which will eventually join the kitchen (linking the extension to the rest of the house) which is just through the existing French doors. Around this will be a deck. The alfresco undercover deck on the left of the image below which we will be able to walk on through sliding doors which will be put in in place of the existing window you can see and then open deck at the end of the family room space again accessed by double glazed wood sliding doors.

Tuesday Juggle - A day in the life of our renovation

Have you ever looked at the beautiful homes in magazines and wanted to know more about the family or looked at the renovation section of Home Beautiful (which I love) seen the steps and the cost it took to get the final look but would love to know how they juggled it with day to day life a bit more? The story behind the process. Well I know I certainly have but maybe I am more nosey then most?

And this is probably why I love shows like Grand Designs where host Kevin McCloud talks to the family a lot more and often they are quite honest about how they are feeling and the impact. Even so I want to know what happens after the show and their are some Grand Designs revisited but that is more about just living in the house.

So along this vain I thought I would start a regular post - A Day in the life of our renovation - so let me know what you think (please note as first one will be a little longer the future posts).......

Site before all the rain, now very muddy

The Tuesday Juggle

Tuesday is the day I try to get into work by 8am so I can leave by 4.30 to pick up my daughter from after school care and then my little boy from childcare, it is a full on, long day. But trying to get out the door by 7.15 to make this 8am deadline was a little difficult this morning with both kids wanting Mummy and pulling on me to try and get my attention while I am trying to put on my makeup.

Then of course at 7.30 this morning there is a knock at the door as the guy to insulate under the floor (who we weren't expecting) had arrived at the same time as the plumber (who we did expect but were given half a days notice about). We were a little concerned about them installing insulation as the termite company was due to rock up as well to treat the stumps (mind you this was a last minute thing too being told the day before we needed to organise). Can all this happen at once? A call went out to the Supervisor, who by the way has been on our job for less then a week as the last one resigned.

Both Hubby and I are too busy rushing around trying to get the kids ready, marking a spot in the front for the portable toilet (also which we were only told we needed to organise the day before) to hear what the Supervisors response is to the guy putting in the insulation. My little boy is also continually opening the front door to say hi to different tradies and getting upset when we won't let him go out into all the mud to see what is happening, resulting in screaming which has the flow on effect of upsetting my daughter too.

So finally rushing out the door (having to leave Hubby to deal with everything as his turn for dropping off the kids) and getting on a packed train just after 8, I get a call from the Supervisor on my iPhone ( a bit of a plug here as an invaluable tool in the whole balancing thing), which I try to answer while not falling over onto the business man next to me, to be told " I hear you said the installation of the insulation had to stop because of termite treatment.' My internal thoughts were screaming, no, no, no, we just asked if it was a problem as hadn't been warned at all that this was all happening today. Communication people!

All this to then find out later in the day that Hubby had spoken to the plumber who said the floor insulation can't be put in anyway until he does pipes. And on top of this the builder was talking about putting in the rest of the frame and roof first. Kind of makes sense for protecting it.

So glad that things are moving along quickly (especially after having the ensuite take twice as long as expected) but sometimes feel even with a Supervisor we end up doing a lot of Project Managing and wish we could be on site more. Especially when I had a day like yesterday where I got calls at work and had to rush around organising last minute things in my lunch hour.

Thankfully tomorrow I am at home for the day and have a meeting with the new Supervisor first thing so will have to reiterate the importance of keeping us in the loop and maybe giving us a timeline more then a half day in advance (especially as we are living in the house with two young children). They haven't knocked through yet and I would like a bit of warning before they do, is that too much to ask? When they do that, that is when the real mess and difficulties are going to start.

View from the kitchen tonight, in a few weeks these doors will be taken out once the back is at lock up

This renovation gig is a little like having a third job, first being looking after the kids, then my paid office work and then the reno.

My Hubby makes me smile

I told my Hubby the other day that I was taking part in Blogtoberfest and so was writing a post every day in October on things that make me smile. He naturally said "are you going to write a post on me then?"

In all honesty I hadn't planned too, not because he doesn't make me smile but because I was trying to keep the posts in the theme of the blog - relate them to design, creative things or our renovation.

Then after some thought I realised talking about Hubby is very relevant to our renovation. As many of you would know the whole renovation / build process can be very stressful and put strain on relationships and the household. Well luckily for me Hubby and I have very similar tastes in style and are on the same page in what we want from the renovation / extension. This really helps and what has made me really smile is when Hubby said 'I trust your judgement on interior design so will leave it up to you' - though I do know that means once I have discussed it with him.

Change of plan

It has been an interesting week, following a visit from our Construction Manager hubby and I have discussed changing the order of our renovations. Initially we were going to make our current bathroom into a ensuite later this year then do the extension after Christmas to make it easier to live in the front of the house.

Now we are considering flipping it, as love to get the main part done before Christmas. The question is with our current toilet being in the back half of the house which is being knocked out, how long will we be without a toilet in the house, can my four year old survive using a portaloo?

The other big question is around timelines. We haven't got our permits yet but here's hoping they come soon and we can move forward.

Should make for an interesting extremely busy end of the year.

Extension - construction manager visit

I have just said goodbye to our designer, Robert, who today brought along with him a draftsperson and construction manager. Things are really happening! They were here to check measurements, levels, take photos and have a look around. Next steps will be for the technical drawings to be done and apparently an engineer will be over in the next week to do soil testing.

This has been so long in the planning for us, living in the house for over six years, with the last two with two small children and everything that goes with them. The good thing about this is we really know what we want and what we need. We have also had the opportunity to watch and learn from friends renovations.

If you can, I would highly recommend living in a house for a least a year, seeing what it is like in every season before doing major work.

Just an aside - it was fun watching my almost two year old and four year old following the site manager outside and watch what he was doing. We plan on living in the house while the build is going on and I am sure the kids will want to follow builders around and be involved - should be interesting to say the least!

Starting Point

Six years ago we bought a 1950's style two bedroom weatherboard (with brick casing, weird I know) house in a beautiful green suburb of Melbourne. When we moved in it had green carpet with brown swirls, first thing to go - it now has beautiful hardwood polished floorboards. We have also done a lot of other cosmetic work like painting, painting, painting, oh and doing up the front garden including putting in the prerequisite picket fence.

So as it stands we currently have two bedrooms (so our two kids share one), one falling apart bathroom and (the thing that drives me nuts) a toilet through the laundry, inevitably the messiest room in the house thanks to two kids and two cats.

To add to the mayhem we also have regular family visitors from Adelaide sleeping in the lounge / study and not much space for all the toys in the other living area.

So over the past six year as our family and therefore the amount of 'stuff' has grown, I have enjoyed coming up with storage ideas that fit into the style of the family area, trying to avoid too much clutter making the space seem smaller and looking at how we can multipurpose rooms.

I am starting to feel like the house is at bursting point though and so the plan is to do a renovation / extension over the next year. We have just started the design process for this.

What we have to work from - the good thing is the open living space, though a little odd in shape and so a bit pokey, does face North so gets great sun and the best aspect from an environmental design perspective. The flip side to this however is the South facing lounge/ study and main bedroom have thin windows and little insulation. The kids room faces West and is a heat box. All things we want to address.