Day 9 – 22 September 2020

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As the summer solstice kicks in in our hemisphere and autumn starts in the north the weather just keeps getting better. Although overnight we had some massive thunderstorms. We discover a leak from where the old rangehood was installed and go on a hunt for some spare roof tiles. We find one.

The team get to work building a new wall, which will separate the bathroom and spare bedrooms from the newly designed area. The house will now effectively have three areas. Our bedroom suite to the south, the central part of the house, mostly north, living dining kitchen, sitting, and the east side, spare bedrooms and bathroom. The new layout is much more functional and gets rid of the pokey two hallways/thoroughfares we use to have.

New wall and sliding door frame to break the area in two.

We meet with Chris and discuss some finer points of the joinery finishes. There are some changes as a result of the structural beam work that we need to work through.

Apart from that it’s a busy day of carpentry work for the team. Installing a new sliding door. Adding flooring for the kitchen extension and removing old Gyprock to allow the electrician access for the electrical rough in.

Each another piece of the puzzle is completed and despite the mess, dust, noise and interruptions our new space is going to be wonderful.

Day 8 – 21 September 2020

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The morning sun is slowly consumed by a thick fog that rolls in as tradie’s cars roll into view. Trailers in tow they pull up and get stuck into work. This week’s schedule includes plumbing rough in, electrical planning, building the new internal walls and hanging a door.

They have a little bit of structural work to do and knock that over before the fog clears.

The plumber arrives and the plumbing rough in is completed. The old pipes, hot and cold water, are cut off and new pipes are installed for the two wet areas in the kitchen.

Pipes and drain for the new sink

Working around the plumber, the carpenters continue with a host of small fiddly tasks. Straightening the new roof beams and fastening them now that they have all been installed. Other demolition work, we are moving our linen press, fixing holes in the floor where once walls stood.

Now that all of the walls have been removed the area is quite large. After work we walk around, all we can do at this stage is imagine what the new kitchen and dining room will look like.

Weekend two – 19 and 20 September 2020

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With some ordered chaos now becoming the norm in our lives and a beautiful morning, we cook bacon and poached eggs on the BBQ. We sit in our courtyard and enjoy the balmy morning.

After breakfast we continue the exercise of some final decisions on paint finishes in the pantry. Our original plan was some pink shelving and marble bench tops and splash backs. We’ve reimagined the space and think this area is more of a utilitarian area and so are thinking about a more subtle and practical finish.

We head into Bunnings to get some sample paint colours and come home and do some painting.

Which one’s Pink?

We decide to go for simple white shelving, with a glass splash back in a subtle pink, with some similar coloured overhead cupboards. The bench, instead of a marble look, we opt for a white. Many of our decisions are based on my need for good light, contrast and easy to see surfaces, so we are opting for function first, with good design. Plus the pantry will be largely hidden, we can bling things up in the other part of the kitchen and dining room.We also do an electrical walk through. Where to put switches, lights, power points. Our designer, Elaina did a great job with the preplanning, so this task isn’t very hard. We do some walk throughs and think about the functional use and area to ensure switches end up in logical places. 

Day 7 – 18 September 2020

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The great reinforcement process continues. Progressively throughout the day 50 year old roof beams are replaced with modern laminated wood, twice as thick and four times as strong. It’s an arduous process as piece after piece is measured and then cut in to the existing roof structure and fixed.

Day 5 – 16 September 2020

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A gorgeous day dawns in Canberra as we get up at 6.00am, ready for the barrage of builders to arrive at 7.00am. You could set your watch to these guys. By 7.02am they are into it. More demolition, then a meeting to work out what needs to happen to keep our roof from collapsing. Then the rest of the day is pretty much, bang, bash, saw, hammer, nail. Slowly but surely our roof is reinforced, major structural beams are replaced and major load points are realigned. We are taking out three walls, so this work is critical.

Roof works

The complexity of the task is amazing.  First the roof needs help to stay up before removing any structural elements.  So large metal struts ae placed in key locations. Then, once secure, parts of the old roofing structure are removed. Next comes the installation of new hard wood large pieces of wood. Very solid and very secure.  These are affixed to the old roofing structure left in place. Once done the old walls are removed. Then a lot of checking and confirmation before the metal support struts are removed. A few creaks here and there as the new beams take the full load for the first time and Voila, and open floor plan is achieved.

The space is starting to open up and we walk around after the builders leave and imagine the new kitchen. We are only a week into the job and so much has changed and things look so different.

View to office

There is an ordered randomness to the works. Parts of Gyprock have bene removed here and there, but the new ceiling beams are perfectly aligned and straight. A part of a new wall has been erected, while other parts are partially demolished. A large jigsaw puzzle is slowly coming together.

Day 4 – 15 September 2020

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It was a quiet date on site yesterday. Chris was meeting with allied trades to continue the works, first an insulation company to upgrade and improve some of our insulation and then the engineer to finalise the engineering needs.

The insulators are here and gone within twenty minutes.  The engineer spends a couple of hours working out exactly what needs doing. In the process we lose part of a cupboard, a new steel beam will take its place. 

Mardi and I then spend some time with Chris going over the plans and some choices we need to make. This is where decision fatigue starts to set in. There are a host of choices to make. Some are binary choices, some linear and some just take you down a rabbit hole.

Decisions made, Chris heads off to buy the necessary materials for the engineering works, which start tomorrow. After Chris leaves, Mardi is in need of some cat companionship so she brings Tommy into the office. Tommy isn’t as keen as Mardi is though. Sadly for Mardi Tommy escapes and disappears under the house for the afternoon. Luckily we re-capture him at around 6.00pm.

Day 3 – 14 September 2020

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After a busy weekend, where we spent most of the time sorting stuff out to make life a little easier, Monday was a quieter day.

Over the weekend we placed the dishwasher in a better, safer space, tidied the temporary kitchen and sorted out utensils, food etc.

Although we were up early Monday, Chris, our builder, didn’t arrive until around 11. He’d been trying to resolve our engineering requirements all morning and had been waiting on the engineer. He spent some time with us going over our plans, discussing electrical layouts, lighting solutions and joinery. Finally, the engineer rings and Chris discusses our needs. In good news the engineering requirements will be resolved tomorrow with works starting on Wednesday.

We are removing three walls, one is a load bearing wall, the other is at the rear of the original house and needs some work to carry the new load. I’m not an engineer so I just nob my head as Chris is telling me what needs to be done.

He leaves and we get back to work.

Struts holding our roof up

Weekend one – 12 and 13 September 2020

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The house is eerie this morning. The noise of hammers, drills and saws is replaced with a stillness as the naked entrails of our house are on show. It reminds me of looking at a T-Rex‘s skeleton at the Museum of Natural History in New York. The old bones of our house giving hints at to what was once there. Pieces of Gyprock hang uneasily where they once stood proud and defiantly. Cables hang, like veins, as they snake their way through the dark spaces of our roof cavity. Holes in the floor bear witness to plumbing fixtures now discarded. We bring Wigi, the cat, up with us for a look. He quickly disappears down one of these holes to the subterranean world below our floor. Like Indian Jones, he dives down a hole in search of a hidden treasure.

We continue walking around. The morning sun streams in through the windows as we step over pieces of wood, tools and rubbish.

Wigi reappears. He is covered in dust and spider webs. His survey of the under floor world now complete. We grab him and return to the unaffected part of the house. Our kitchen is still in disarray as we continue working to get it functional. So we opt for a quick pre-prepared breakfast burrito, one of 60 or so I pre made.

We work hard over the weekend to get more functionality in our makeshift kitchen, do some more sorting and tidying up. We also look over our plans and continue to make decisions and consider finishes.

Day 2 – 11 September 2020

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We are up at 6.00am, builders arrive at 7.00am. The morning routine is a bit ramshackle as we try and work out the best way to feed and medicate cats and Dahlia, get ready for work, and sort ourselves out with a cup of tea. Countless trips from the back of the house to the makeshift kitchen, back in and then to the front of the house where our office is. We have no access through the house anymore, so everything is across and through the courtyard. We planned for an spring renovation knowing the level of disruption, but it is still cold in the mornings!

And why do builders start so bloody early?  At 7.00am they are here, large four wheel drives and trailers adorn our driveway and street.

Today they remove the old gyprock from the walks which are coming down and 
“drop the ceiling”.  The ceiling comes down in a cloud of 50 year old insulation. Crumbled insulation covers everything, about three inches thick. A haze of dust hovers in the morning light as it streams in through the front windows. Light rays dance through the leaves of the trees outside creating an internal ambience much like an underwater scene. Dust floats slowly through the air and its very quiet as everyone takes in the scene.

A few minutes later the blast of an industrial vacuum cleaner breaks the silence as 50 years of dirt, dust, insulation and who knows what else is sucked up. Thirty minutes later our floors reappear, a littler worse for wear, but devoid of half a century of scum.

The teams spend a couple of hours finishing off little jobs here and there before calling it a day.

When they’re gone Mardi and I walk through the desolate space. We try and imagine our new space. We look in the ceiling where the electrical spaghetti monster’s tentacles finger their way in every direction.

After finishing work in our office we move into our apartment, our living room. We grab one of our prepared meals and watch some TV for a while.

We have sorted out our temporary kitchen and the builders have re-connected a dishwasher for us in our laundry. It’s a bit crammed, but its functional and will certainly do us for the 12 week build.