My name is Jon, I was a primary school teacher and a builder and this is my blog about our renovation, I’m turning our brick and tile unit into a family home and I’m going to take you along for the ride – it’s going to be interesting.
I’ve given myself two years to do it all – interior and exterior. After that, both kids will be at school and I’ll have to get a real job to pay for all of this....
13 September
When we bought our house I knew the shower area of the lower bathroom sat partially ‘inside’ the neighbouring unit’s storage area and would need to be rectified.
The bathroom was built under the front door/landing area and is a great spot for a bathroom – block walls on all sides except the one between the neighbouring unit and us. It even has a concrete ceiling (the underside of the patio) - should have no moisture issues.
I began to rip out the bathroom so I can build a block wall between the units and redo the whole space. When I pulled the shower unit apart (an old-school shub) I uncovered some black mould on the old GIB behind the shower lining - not heaps, but not nice.
From prior experience working in a leaky building, Stachybotrys would be my educated guess. There is no way I want to be inhaling toxic spores so I quickly got my 3M mask with replaceable filters. I’m not dead sure I have the right filters on it but I know they cut out paint fumes so it was a reasonable start! Check out the info on mould at
www.dbh.govt.nz
Unprotected (unpainted) MDF in a damp area
will swell. Using MDF packing in behind the shower lining was a poor idea whoever did that!
I had to give up for a while when I had a chunk of shattered plastic shower lining buried in my finger. Hmmm, gloves were about 2 metres away…
9 September
Planning to be up Mt Victoria to watch the fireworks for the RWC opening. Birds are eating my grass seed, and I can’t seem to keep it wet enough. Why can’t it rain more in Auckland?
The magnolia tree is in full bloom beside the driveway. Spring is here.
Clearing out the final weeds and mess around the new fence has given me space to throw a few seeds in the ground – carrots and beetroot for starters.
The last things are coming out of the lower floor of the house ready for more GIB removal. How much stuff can one small family accumulate?
7 September
Today I built a fence using a Mini-Corrugated Iron from Roofing Industries between the house and a neighbouring garage. The sheets run horizontally and there is just a single unsupported post in the centre.
Really happy with the results.
I made a small mistake of giving a measurement to Roofing Industries for the length of the sheets that ended up being a little too tight. Totally my fault, and one I wont make again.
Tonight I have also written an article on how to build this fence, which you can find in October’s
How To magazine.
I have a good idea what we’ll do for the decking (eventually) out from the lower floor: at the Homeshow I had a good chat with Craig from Outdure (
www.outdure.com). They have a composite decking product, which looks good, but the most impressive part was their Qwickbuild decking structure. Built of aluminium, cut to length in the factory, fitted together quickly on-site, long spans, composite decking laid on top.
I’m impressed.
5 September
Checked kitchen measurements today in preparation for getting the design nailed down. A friend has suggested buying just the carcass of the kitchen from Mitre10 and then upping the quality of the hinges, drawer runners and putting my own face panels on. I like this idea mostly because of the simplicity of the kitchen – one long run of bench top (5.5m) and one run of full height cabinetry (approx 5m if I include the scullery).
3 September
Went to the Auckland Home Show to get inspired for our kitchen makeover. Found a great solution for trying to fit a microwave into the scullery – we’re likely to get a Smeg ‘normal’ oven and a ‘half-oven’ which is an oven, grill and microwave. This will sit in a stack with the main oven, directly opposite the island bench.
Met Mark Fisher from Open Windows and Doors who will supply our joinery. Their systems create airtight windows and doors. The joinery is like two pieces of aluminium, one inside and one outside that are joined with a strip, which doesn’t conduct heat very well. Oh and it’s double-glazed. When I first heard of them I thought the whole thing would be an expensive option but apparently not. I checked and we do not need council consent for replacing the existing units – brilliant.
I was very impressed by Paul’s offering at Playzone – the outdoor musical instruments are just brilliant! The outdoor xylophone was my favourite.
The other is a tiny version of the Sibelius monument in Helsinki.
2 September
Managed to clear out the bedroom downstairs and get it into the shed for storage so I’m almost free to strip out the remaining gib. That makes it sound like a quick job but there is still more gib up than what I’ve taken to the tip already.
1 September
Put proper locks on the shed today and started to move stuff out of the downstairs area. Must go to the home show this weekend – mostly to win a free kitchen, free landscaping, free appliances … well … you get the idea.
30 August 2011
Found two more avocados hiding in the tree this morning. The last ones, which means I’ve been picking avocados since mid April, so I’d call that good value!
Last night I picked up a replacement second-hand mower off Trade Me, I’ve been trying to keep my old mower going for some time, and finally gave up last week. So I looked at it yesterday and decided to give it one last shot, in order to get the lawns done before the forecast rain.
Primed, first pull, it started with a roar. Quickly grabbed two sets of earmuffs, one for the 3 year old too. Expecting it to quit at any second, I raced around the lawns with a toy lawnmower following me. When I had finished the mower was miraculously still going so I decided to use it as a chipper on a pile of branches – brilliant, however not so brilliant for the mower. It can now be retired having only served 4 years from new on reasonably light duties (apart from the wood chipping yesterday). You get what you pay for!
27 August 2011
Cleared the remaining muck from the base of the long wall and planted the 30 ficus seedlings – the boys were really good at getting them out of the pots! I hope they all survived!
Protected each seedling a little with pavers that were buried in the lawn.
Had some fun pulling out a post so I can get the camping trailer out! I used a ‘half-round’ post and put a strop over it and down to the post in the ground, then used the car to pull up the post (well, mostly up). Success!
26 August 2011
Sanded down the top band of the shed to prepare for Karaka paint. I used a
belt sander with coarse grit for speed and then painted with speed brush.
25 August 2011
Applied the second coat of paint on the side of the shed.
24 August 2011
More paint purchased – a repeat of
Resene’s Hi-Glo. I also grabbed another
PAL speed brush to avoid washing out the Karaka green which was still wet in the pail.
I added another coat to the neighbour’s garage and finished the long wall. Also applied the first coat of grey to the side of our carport/shed. The mistake I made here was to use the PAL ‘fence and deck’ speed brush without washing it out first – the coarseness of the
Shadowclad meant I lost a bit of the fluff on the first sweep of paint. Minor, but a bit annoying.
23 August 2011
Painting. Neighbour’s garage on the side boundary had a first coat on today. Then our rear boundary wall – until I ran out of paint. A good start though. I’m using a coarse roller on a pole for this. I find rolling with a pole much easier than holding the roller’s handle in my hand – even if it is all within reach. I then use a brush to tidy the remaining gaps where the roller doesn’t get into.
21 August 2011
Paint chosen!
Resene Hi-Glo waterborne gloss, colour Grey Nickel, which is kind of whitish silver. I want to reflect light back into the house, well, until the ficus grows across it, but anyway I want to see the Ficus growing on it!
20 August 2011
Water blasting is totally addictive and satisfying. In the last couple of days I’ve prepared two walls on the boundary for painting. While I had the water blaster I also cleaned the underside of the spouting, which makes a huge difference! Probably should stop and close more windows next time…
Speaking of ‘lack of planning’, the funniest thing I’ve done so far is to close in the carport and forgot to move a small pop-top camper from beside the house. Thankfully, I can pull out a fence post and remove a gate to get it out. Silly me.
19 August 2011
I met with a builder this morning to finalise what to do with the steel beam span downstairs. He suggested sliding the stairs back a metre, putting the ‘winders’ (steps on the corner) at the top instead of the bottom.
So simple, it sorts out two issues.
Now I will not have stairs spanning across a window which was OK but not perfect (not to mention additional cost) and now the main load bearing beam downstairs will be a metre shorter - meaning it sits within the
Standards NZS 3604 and doesn’t require an engineered solution – special timber or steel. Fantastic!
18 August 2011
Went to the launch of the
Passive House Institute of New Zealand tonight. Very interesting. ‘Passive House’ is a performance standard for houses that measures energy input (how much energy does it take to heat and cool).
It is totally achievable on a new-build, a little more challenging on a renovation. Most importantly for us, it will not take silly amounts of money to achieve. Almost all the things needed we were doing anyway. The main difference will be in the energy efficiency of the appliances we intended to use.
17 August 2011
Painting today.
I think the only ‘fault’ with
Shadowclad is its ability to take lots of paint, and this can be a little tricky to get into the grooves. I used a PAL Speedbrush for ‘Deck and fence,’ which made things really easy. It is quite a bit thicker than a normal speedbrush and seems to push the paint into the rough surfaces better than a roller would – I think so anyway!
16 August 2011
No building work today, but I did manage to pull a couple of sets of venetian blinds down in the bedrooms and clean them out on the driveway. They were mouldy and revolting.
Selleys sugar soap is just the business. I
I’m looking forward to eliminating mould with proper ventilation. Can’t wait. I discovered aluminium blinds are sharp, but blood washes off with the hose. Got carried away and then washed the steps, the car, washed down the driveway.
Watered the Ficus seedlings sitting in the shed waiting for planting.
What to do? Paint the wall black before planting the Ficus? Leave it unpainted knowing the Ficus will eventually cover it anyway?
The cold snap dropped a few avocados from the tree - a new phenomenon. Only 7 left now.
13 August 2011
Finished shelving in the shed – I used the off-cuts from the Shadowclad plywood to make two more shelves along the back wall, spanning the full width made it very easy to frame. You’ll also see in the photos more off-cuts being used to create some small up stands at the back of the shelves to stop stuff falling off. Job done. Almost zero wastage. Sweet.
I also started painting the outside, but a few spits of rain meant packing that in and getting stuck into the garden. I need to make room for the Ficus I’m going to plant all along the block wall on the boundary. It meant moving the compost bins behind the shed (permanent home). I dug out a guava tree and replanted it beside the garage along with some small flax bushes.
12 August 2011
Shelving is pretty simple. I had a sheet of 20mm thick ply sitting around (and being used as a ramp for riding bikes on), so I cut it into three pieces gives me shelves 2.4m long and 400mm wide. Attached directly to framing (rimu) and then attached at a few points along the wall gives me lots of storage down one wall.
The next time I go through immigration at the airport and fill in the ‘Occupation’ section, I’m going to write “Professional Dad”.
I think being a professional Dad is highly under-rated!
How many of you Dads get home after a hard days work with more jobs to do around the house? You know, fix this, fix that, move that thing, gardening to be done, lawns to mow, cars to wash, gutter to fix.
Imagine being able to do that as your day job and use the kids as your help. It doesn’t matter if they are useful or not – if you get the job done - they helped and you’re a legend. If the job doesn’t get finished, well, they slowed you down a bit. You win both ways!
If you really get it right you get some fishing time too.
5 August 2011
Action stations.
Got cracking with the framing and cladding of the carport for storage today. Feels good. I finished putting the rails and top and bottom plates in the framing and then needed to rack the whole carport to make the post vertical. Twenty plus years of standing there has made the whole carport a little soft in the legs.
So, a couple of tensioning straps to the front corners, then attached to the towbar of the car worked a treat.
I had to laugh at myself though … I wasn’t keeping an eye on the time and had to get cracking on my bike to pick up the youngest boy from preschool at 1pm … the car was still attached to the carport. Classic. Thankfully the rain had eased by that stage.
Once I had completed the framing I used a couple of longer off-cuts to brace the walls.
With the weather so changeable still I’m not sure when I’m going to get the job finished so I wrapped the framing in some building paper I had left over. This will keep the framing dry but isn’t really necessary for the final product.
So, end of the day, I’ve got 3 sheets of Shadowclad on, the whole structure is nicely vertical again, the roller door (yes I know, on an open sided carport!) is now sliding very easily. Lastly, the carport is not attached to the tow ball of the car anymore.
If anyone is wondering about needing consent to close in the carport, I am purposefully making sure I can disassemble the structure if need be. The ‘carport has a council permit, but it is called a ‘Begonia house’ and somehow escaped regulations of the time!
I think I’ll call it a shed.
3 August 2011
Love it when things fall into place…
I’ve worked out that cladding the carport gives us ample storage, even though it won’t have a dry floor! So, I’m going to frame down to a point level with the highest corner. This will allow me to pour a flat concrete floor later on … much later on!
I’ve measured up for the materials and will use standard framing (H1.2) for all but the lowest pieces (bottom plate/rail). Then I will clad with plywood … Shadowclad groove which, I think will look a whole lot better than smooth ply.
I’m going to fix the ply with stainless screws so it will be possible to remove sheets easily. Why? I might put in a side door, and may need to modify a bit of the framing when I pour the floor.
I must paint the sheets before I put them up too as it’s easier to get full coverage on the edges of the sheets. And especially the edges of the new cuts.
The small pile of rimu lengths I’ve had lying around should make for some simple shelving.
2 August 2011
The need for storage is growing!
I’ve spent a couple of hours shifting stuff in the house in the hope of creating space to keep pulling off sheets of gib, ready for moving a few walls. I should have known better.
Shifting stuff (again) is just not smart.
So, I then spent some time measuring up for materials to close in carport. The only limitation there is the slope of the drive where the carport is means I can’t keep the floor dry without major work.
The storage really needs to be temporary.
Other options: hire a 20’ container for the duration, or, build a small shed on a drier corner of the property that will become a useful garden shed for the lawnmower.
In other news today, I sheared off a brand new bolt when ‘improving’ a bike rack on the roof-rack. Hand tightening with a very short ring-spanner should not have had that result. Slack.
13 July 2011
To get a better idea of what we’re creating I’ve taped out the plan outline on the floor. It’s useful to walk through the design and get a better feel for the space.
The pictures I’ve taken show the island bench with a timber mock up of the table which I plan to have on lockable castors (it will slide partially under the island bench overhang when not required), the other picture looks from the hallway through hall cupboards and into the scullery.
I guess architects are able to visualize this stuff!
The boys are starting to get it too. They know where the doors will be through the wall into their bedrooms…
20 avocados left on the tree…
11 July 2011
The final touches made to lower level design. I need to get the plans drawn up so the ventilation system supplier can design the in ducting and then I can go to council.
Getting excited by the progress made.
Tired of looking at a dirty block wall on the boundary so a friend has suggested a complete covering of Ficus– it’s a vine/ivy which spreads out in fingers and doesn’t seem to require a lot of maintenance!
I like the sound of that.
8 July 2011
Planning to contact the experts for air tightness for some assistance – Proclima (NZ) -
www.proclima..co.nz I’m trying to work out how to ‘connect’ the bottom level (block walls) with the top (timber and brick veneer) to create an airtight building.
I’m really hoping there is a simple solution!
7 July 2011
Pulled out a copy of the Standards document for residential building (NZS 3604) to check on beam sizes. Doesn’t look good for the spans I want (for timber), so it looks like steel will be required.
Rock and roll!
6 July 2011
Yesterday I met with a retired engineer who designs houses for friends and enjoys juggling spaces and constraints within buildings. I’m quite encouraged with his suggestions for the windows – the two I want to open up by removing a row of blocks is unlikely to have steel.
He also pointed out the span of another beam would need the loads to be calculated by an engineer and probably require steel. I’m about to check with NZS3604 (standards document) for what size timber beam might work.
Options here are possibly LVL (laminated veneer lumber) or steel. I’m guessing it will be cheaper to use steel, and the beam won’t be exposed so a section of steel is fine.
Stairs, a stringer of LVL might be very useful, and look good! As I’m planning to line the walls with triboard I can screw stair patterns directly to this. Then I need a full support on the other side. LVL sounds like a good option, as I can’t think of a better way right now.
1 July 2011
No demolition today.
Dumped the load of rubbish sitting in the trailer. Met with Jeff from Fantech in Albany. Talked through ventilation system and size of ducting, radius of bends, airflow … not stuff I had thought about too much.
The system of heat exchange ventilation is pretty straightforward as far as choices go. Most of the companies are actually stating on their websites that
positive pressure systems do not heat your house.
Balanced pressure systems don’t actually heat your house either but at least what you do put in (heat) mostly comes back in the fresh air.
There is a simple diagram showing this on
www.fantechplus.com (go through the “Envirovent” option).
The
ducting plays a huge role in the performance of the system. The smoother the internal surface the quieter the air movement is, and the less the fans have to work (meaning lower power consumption and quieter). It’s the same for the size of the ducting, and how tight the bends are although the systems work under such low pressure that this last aspect doesn’t really come into play. So the Fantech ducting is pvc piping, with as little flexible (meaning not smooth internal surfaces) pipe as possible. It is a little more expensive than flexible pipe but why not do it once and do it right?
I’ve spent this afternoon tidying up a set of plans to submit to them for designing pathways for the pipework (especially important for the lower floor).
I’m meeting with a recently retired engineer next week to talk through what I’ll need permits to do, and what stuff I can get cracking with.
30 June 2011
I love it when everyone else in the family is sick and is off work and school. I got heaps done today downstairs while the sick ones looked after each other upstairs. Bliss.
Earmuffs on, hammer in hand.
I removed a few more sheets of ceiling Gib today, exposing three types of
insulation in the mid-floor:An area with some thin sheets of polystyrene below the existing kitchen.
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An area of soft-board under the lounge (all pieces carefully cut to fit).
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And below the bathroom and bedrooms a double layer of fibreglass batts, which pretty much fills in the 250mm depth between joists.
If possible I’ll leave it all in place. The batts I mean. No point in leaving the polystyrene and soft board in. Replacing it will be for sound deadening between floors, not trying to stop heat transfer, as there will be an open stairway anyway.
While removing Gib around the windows that I want to turn into external doors exposed a bond-beam in the block wall. This is good news as there is already one wide sliding door right up to the bond-beam in this wall so council approval should be easy. I need an engineer’s report on these openings anyway, for council, and because I’m not an expert in load.
What I was happy to do today was remove a partition wall in between the old kitchen and the lounge. I was 100 percent confident it wasn’t load bearing.
A couple of things I’m doing on the way… One is to remove light fittings as I go, remove the Gib and then rewire the lights so I can actually see what I’m doing as the light goes down in these shorter days.
Of course, I flick the power off at the switchboard first. There are some pretty clear guidelines for what you can and can’t do at www.energysafety.govt.nz for your own house.
The good part of opening out some of the walls is seeing the space, having a look at rough measurements and realising we’re on the right track with space.
It is so much easier to see it for real and not on paper.
A satisfying day.
28 June 2011
Got a bit of demolition done in the weekend when the kids were with their grandparents.
A trailer load of Gib, part of the kitchen, and a few doors – gone!
Discovered a few walls are just partitions rather than load bearing – great news.
I’ve been redesigning the kitchen layout a little bit because of a load-bearing wall. This has meant pulling the wall of cabinets forward by about 350mm. It makes the kitchen slightly narrower but only really affects the size of the island bench.
The length of the walk-in pantry/scullery is increased by the same amount. The upsides of these changes are: Space created behind the wall of kitchen cabinets gives storage space in the short hallway for vacuum cleaner/ cleaning gear.
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Because the scullery just got longer, there is now good space for a freezer unit without it encroaching on the ovens and fridge facing into the kitchen. (In case you missed it, the plan is to have a full height freezer in the scullery, and a full height fridge in the kitchen).
I’ve been online for several minutes today just checking on dimensions of these fridges and freezers. It’s not the cheapest option buying stand-alone units like this. Contemplating what is suggested in
Consumer – instead of a ‘pigeon pair’, it is possibly better/cheaper to have two common fridge freezers. I’m not so sure we need two fridges like that but it is a consideration.
The important aspect for design at this stage - we will have two units around 600mm wide.
Must leave room for a wine cabinet under the bench somewhere too.
Right, more demolition to do downstairs…
Ok just one more coffee first.
24 June 2011
Today I’m chasing up leads on ventilation systems.
Ventilation systems I’m looking at are a Christchurch based
Cleanaire heat exchanged heat recovery system (no roof space air) and Titon (similar concept).
I’m deliberately avoiding the ‘heat recovery’ systems, which push air from the roof space into the house.
A cheaper way of achieving the same result is to reverse the direction of the extractor fan in your bathroom. This will do the same pressurising thing and will be closer to meeting the building code requirement for fresh air (not roof space air).
A lecturer at the School of Architecture at Auckland University told me that the only reason the positive pressure systems are allowed to be installed is because the requirement for ventilation (a percentage of your floor area expressed in opening windows) has already been met. The problem is, people don’t use windows to ventilate (at least not in winter).
Warm air in the roof space? Yeah right - not today, and not at night.
I also need to book in with an engineer to assess what is holding the floor up and to look at the window openings, which I want to change.
Plus, I need to create some serious storage so I’ll be closing in the carport as a temporary measure. Looking at some security mesh fence from Eurocorp called X-Fence, but this won’t stop any wild weather. I could cover this with clear corrugated roofing like
Ampelite Sunclear, but this doesn’t seem a cheap idea when combined with fencing, especially knowing it will only be temporary.
By the way, the bread being brewed today is sundried tomato with some pepperdew peppers chopped in. Must go and pick a couple of avocados. Maybe when the rain eases.
I started pulling off
Gib today and it makes me laugh when you see those TV programs where internal walls are attacked with
sledgehammers. Great TV? Maybe.
If you’ve ever tried that I’ll bet you didn’t do it for long. I reckon pulling out a few nails around the perimeter of the sheet and carrying the whole piece of
Gib intact outside or standing it up in the rubbish pile is a much better option.
A few days have passed and I have met with the architect this morning on site.
A few minutes before he arrived I suddenly had doubts about where the stairs should be going. I was sitting at the table with my computer looking at the view when I realised this was where I had planned to put the stairs.
Have I done the right thing?
When I moved half a metre away and ‘off the stairs’, it didn’t actually diminish the view out past the house in front. Sigh of relief.
The time with the
architect was invaluable. He seemed to think I was on the right track with the overall layout.
Stairs don’t need to be quite as wide as I had designed them. Enlarging the external windows downstairs is likely to be straightforward but I’ll still need an engineer’s recommendation for
council consent application.
I hadn’t had a chance to pull
Gib off the walls downstairs for a look at the load bearing elements, but I need to get on with it now in order to submit accurate plans to council.
Some of the smaller details are the best, like the suggestion to recess the washer and dryer partially into the block wall to gain a fraction more space in the bathroom. I’m not so sure about the suggestion to reduce the thickness of the
strapping and lining over the block work downstairs (currently 60mm and on one wall 130mm). In saying that though, it will be airtight so at least the insulation will be working properly.
I was keen to keep our existing
gas hot water cylinder because I think it is great, but we are going to have an external instant
hot water califont unit instead.
June 2011 has snuck up rather quickly and I’m starting to get a little nervous. I’m going to book in with an
architect to have my design reviewed. I think this step is critical; It is going to cost me an hour or two of his time, but I need to know if anything I’m planning is just plain dumb.
The way I look at it, spending a few hundred dollars now should save me from a more costly error. I’m not an
architect, I’ve taken six months to come up with some ideas, which I think might work, but that doesn’t mean they will work well … time to find out.
It’s May 2011 and a little work in the
garden is required, so I have trimmed the feijoa trees away from the house to let more light in. I hope I haven’t cut too much as it produced a huge crop over summer. The persimmon tree got a heavy prune too. I discovered I don’t really like persimmons, but the Tui’s love them, so it stays.
My brother in law showed me the basics of
Google Sketchup, a free modelling software, which I played with for several hours.
It’s now late December 2010 and we’ve realised we might be wrong about where to have kitchen and living as we keep ending up downstairs eating alfresco whenever we have friends over – it all just seems to work better for space. Big rethink required.
I’m still working on how to gain an acceptable
access way/front door downstairs, but everything I do with the stairs coming over that area seems to hem in the living room … hmmmm.
From the ‘learning from the past’ file:
Of course I would like to make the house warm and comfortable, so I will be pulling off all linings and insulating fully, not just the ceiling. In our last place, we spent hours and hours stripping off wallpaper, then plastering and getting frustrated, then wallpapering again. I vowed to save time and effort in the next renovation by stripping the
lining and insulating.
It’s mid December 2010 and several sketch plans show the entranceway and kitchen working reasonably well on the top floor, but we have changed our minds about which floor to live on. So we’ll enjoy the view upstairs and renovate the bottom.
Ok … we’ve worked out we’ll live in the bottom half and renovate the top half first.
I haven’t figured out where to put the stairs, as all possibilities seem to be compromises at best – maybe pushing a stairway out from the side of the house could work, but this is looking costly.
I’ve given myself two years to do it all – interior and exterior. After that, both kids will be at school and I’ll have to get a real job to pay for all of this.
You see, we were starting to run out of room with two growing boys it was time to move.
We like the area, but finding a bigger place in the same area meant more money … money we just didn’t have. The houses in the market at our price range were old, with rotting weatherboards - an everlasting project!
A friendly real estate agent from Premium (
www.premium.co.nz) had our crazy wish list:
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More space.
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Close to school for work and the boys’ school.
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Not on a main road.
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It had to be a ‘add value’ renovation.
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Able to be lived in while we renovate.
We were amazed when our agent found us something that ticked all the boxes … twice!
It’s a two storey brick and tile unit built in the early 70’s, comprised of a two-bedroom unit with another two-bedroom unit on the storey below. As a condition of purchase, we also asked that the land would be divided into exclusive use areas, so now we have a decent piece of grass as well!
We now have the option of living up and renovating down and then connecting the two levels later, or vice versa.
Can you believe it? : Two kitchens, two living areas, four bedrooms, two bathrooms and the ability to renovate in stages.
Wow!
Did I mention we have a view of Rangitoto Island and only a five-minute walk to the beach?
I can’t believe how much time it takes chasing kids between kindy and school, and how short the window of opportunity is to actually work on the house during a week.
Time available without kids:
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Three hours on a Tuesday morning;
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Three hours on a Wednesday;
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Three hours on Friday.
On the plus side, the vast majority of what I will do is internal so, theoretically the weather won’t hold me up.
