The home stretch?

When the aluminium window frames went in it really started to feel like we were on the home stretch. And just quietly so it should have, it was only about a month until we had to get out of our rented house.

As the frames were going in, the sheeting was being done so that the glazier could come back and do the glazing. It really was starting to come together and feel like the house we had imagined.

While all of this Puddleduck and I went shopping for our temporary kitchen. Apparently this wasn't as exciting for a three year old as it was for me!

Here's a picture of our kitchen in boxes in the middle of the floor of Puddleduck's room. The new timber is Blackbutt and is all ready to be sanded and polished.

I also went shopping for an oven. It turned out to be too big to fit through the front door. Oops. Although, given it is very pretty and cleans itself from top to bottom, I have to confess I didn't really feel as guilty as I should have about workmen and delivery men having to hoist it over the deck wall.

Frames

Next step was the frames. The timber for them had been around for ages and I have to confess I was incredibly keen to see them finally go up and get a sense of the rooms - especially the two front bedrooms downstairs.

So once the frame went up in between them we spent a fair bit of time stepping out how big they were and working out what might go where. Needless to say we didn't really reach any firm conclusions and furniture will no doubt be moved around countless times before we are happy.

It was also really great to see the wooden frames for the kitchen windows go in. As the kitchen windows and door to the back deck are a big feature of the house it felt a little as though we were a little closer to actually having a finished space.

It was a slightly bittersweet moment when the floor upstairs was pulled up. I had really wanted to keep it in all its wonky and dilapidated glory. Especially knowing it was original and had been there when the house was a Cartwright's. However, the builder promised me he would find equally imperfect, yet structurally sound timber to replace it. So I said goodbye to the floor.

Rebuilding

So it's been a little while between posts - it hasn't been from a lack of progress or a lack of enthusiasm, but rather a lack of hours in the day and a tendency to procrastinate.

Once the slab was finally repoured we were able to start getting some frames up and the brickwork started.

This is a shot of the hallway going past the main bathroom on the left and with the courtyard on the right.

Kitchen

Much to our builder's consternation, we've decided to postpone our permanent kitchen until after we have moved in. I finally broke the news to him this week. I'd flagged the concept previously, but had never been definite about it so I think he always thought he'd talk me around.

I know it must seem a little ridiculous to completely gut a house and rebuild it only to put in a makeshift kitchen for six or so months, but bear with me. We've always maintained that this rebuilding process was just to get the perfect 'shell' for our new home. A blank canvas if you will. From there we will turn it into a comfortable and fun home for the three of us (well, six if you count the dogs).

One of the primary reasons for this is because we haven't ever lived there and believe we need to get to 'know' the house before we start doing anything that might be considered more decorative than functional. Obviously a kitchen is functional, but it's also decorative - in fact, it's quite a big design statement, especially in an open plan living space like ours will be. It will be highly visible from our main indoor and outdoor living area and will quite possibly dominate. For this reason we had initially planned just a very simple white kitchen.

However, while I don't doubt that would suit the blank canvas brief and wouldn't dominate in a bad way, I'd really like to get a feel for the type of kitchen the house tells me it wants and needs. That might be open shelves like the one in my picture (my current favourite) or it might be traditional cupboards above the bench, or it might be floor to ceiling cupboards with hidden workspaces. We just don't know yet.

Full steam ahead

THIS is what the courtyard, downstairs living and hallway looked like a week or so ago.

THIS is what it looks like now! A slab - a big, solid slab ready to be polished and for louvers and doors to go in.

Finally the downstairs is really taking shape. Even though we knew where everything would be once the slab was poured, it's so much easier to get a feel for things when you can walk up the hallway or step into the courtyard just the way you would when it's finished. It feels so much bigger - and I can almost smell the roses climbing up the courtyard wall!

In the immediately foreground of the picture is the living area (I think it will become mainly a TV room), the sunken area behind that is the courtyard and off to the left of that is the hallway and bathrooms.

Believe it or not we're only about a month away from moving in. We. Can't. Wait!

Secret of the slab

There's been a huge amount of neighbourhood interest in our renovation. Far more than we, or our builder, would ever have anticipated. We've all been incredibly surprised. It's flattering but also slightly panic-inducing. What if the end product doesn't end up meeting their expectations? I'm confident it will meet ours - in fact I know it will - but neighbours and members of the wider community? Eek!

However, one enormous benefit of this interest has been the ability to piece together some of the history of our new home.

Since finding out our slab was basically floating on air, we've just assumed it was a dodgy job done decades ago on the cheap. It turns out though, it's like that because there used to be fish tanks under there! That's right, fish tanks. In the 1980s our downstairs living area was on top of fish tanks. You walked across a combination of floor and reinforced glass and could see the fish swimming underneath.

No wonder everyone is so interested - they want to know what the heck we've done with the poor fish!

ps the image is of the 116 bags of cement needed for the new slab.

Can of worms

Noone wants to hear their builder utter the phrase "can of worms" in relation to their renovation. Especially not at 8:30 in the morning with a three year old dolled up in her tutu (since 6am) in eager anticipation of seeing Angelina Ballerina at the Opera House and completely unable to comprehend how a trip to the new house to talk to the builder will fit into the morning schedule. By 'completely unable to comprehend' I mean 'sent into total meltdown mode at the very thought'.

So when we finally turned up at the house I was apprehensive to say the least. Our builder revealed the problem - a hole in the floor. Hmm. There was more. The hole essentially extended underneath the entire slab in the downstairs living area. Sigh.

Don't get me wrong, it's ultimately a good thing they found it under the layers of tiles they were lifting up, but a new slab won't be cheap and will delay things. Given we're being kicked out of our rental in a frighteningly short amount of time, delays are less welcome than ever.

On the upside, it's going to be cheaper to polish the new slab as the downstairs floor than it will be to have wooden floors, so I'm definitely going to get my polished concrete floors downstairs!

We do have our footings finished now so at least we're still moving forward. Let's hope that the house has no more floating slab-like surprises for us. I'm all for quirky and imperfect, but dangerous and expensive quirks aren't the type I like.