who knew there would be so many decisions about timber?

Architraves. After a while they all look the same, but somehow we narrowed the choice down to these three, and then even further to the middle sample.

Skirting boards are similarly varied and confusing, but we're thinking of going with the second sample from the right.


Our opinions were influenced by Bart, meticulous installer of doors and windows, and soon to be the person who attaches the architraves and skirting boards that we choose. His preference on the skirting boards was the same as ours, but motivated more by the relative easiness of attaching that size to the walls! At least he was honest.

We also like Bart because he has a sense of humour, although I'm not sure that Theo felt the same way when Bart, in his heavy European accent, proclaimed him a bludger.

Our photos of the new doors and windows don't mean much without context, so below is a photograph of the typical condition of the woodwork thoughout out house. The windows upstairs were barely able to stay in the wall.

So now you can see why these new ones make such a difference to us!

waiting for our DA

We need to have an approved Development Application, a Construction Certificate and an Owner Builder's License in order to do most of the big ticket work on the house.

The official line is that council should approve or decline an application within 42 working days of lodgement, however our council is notorious for taking much longer. The neighbours immediately behind us had plans lodged at council for two and a half years, the people accross the road for three and a half but theirs involved a little Land and Environment Court action.

We lodged our DA in December and whilst it hasn't been without hiccoughs the latest news is that it should be approved during the April council meeting. We've been lucky that there have been no objections lodged relating to our plans, the council itself (now) has no objections, so we are optimistic that it will be smooth sailing.

What we haven't needed approval to work on is the upstairs bedrooms. There are no structural changes or developments, just the replacing of what was damaged and broken.

Rahul has done much of the work upstairs himself, with Theo as a consultant. Taking down ceilings and walls has proved to be very messy, and unfortunately for me whilst I don't do the hard work upstairs I do the cleaning up downstairs. We've worked out that the cat wee smell is associated with old plaster walls, so we've had to deal with a very unpleasant odour while the skip has been sitting outside. It left last Friday and we breathed a sigh of relief.

The next tradie to visit will be a gyprocker which we're really excited about. I think new walls will suddenly make us feel like the room is progressing forwards, not getting more and more destroyed. It's amazing how you have to trash something before you can make it new again.

The doorway to our bedroom (taken from inside the bedroom)

The doorway to the second bedroom, again taken from inside the bedroom. You can see the crappy wall filling.

Evidence that ceiling removal really is dirty work (but happy work)!

Skip 2/3
These doors will be replaced this weekend. Once we have our DA approved we will be able to remove the enclosed balcony and have a pretty proper one.

Ceilingless and old roof. We have a new Colourbond roof now, it looks hilarious as it's the only new thing in the house.

cat wee smell

An unpleasant odour, and the best word to describe the ambience of the house immediately after the house purchase was finalised and we had the keys in our hands.

There was an incredible amount of rubbish. Most of the floors had multiple layers of different flooring, carpet upon lino upon carpet upon older lino upon wood. No wonder it stank!

One of the first things we (i.e. Theo, Rahul and Ben) did was get a skip in and clear out the bulk of the rubbish, and remove the hideous palm stumpy thing in the front yard. The palm was enormous when we bought the place and when it came time to pull it out it didn't want to budge. In the end of took a car pulling and two men pushing to get it out. Relief!

The plan was to make the downstairs part of the house liveable, so that 'proper' renovations could happen upstairs and an extension out the back. The work will happen in phases so that we can stay living in the house throughout.

The empy kitchen space also needed a lot of work. Within days we'd noticed that whenever anybody walked in the room upstairs the ceiling was crumbling little by little, so down it came. Ceiling plaster also smells like cat wee.

We found out that a coat of paint and some polished up floorboards make a world of difference. But you still need someone to actually put in the benches, sink and cooktop.

Dad did a great job of knocking up a kitchen in a day, and then Rahul stepped in to build some cupboards.

Our living room was pretty bleak when we moved in. Why anybody would paint an already dark room sludge green I do not know. Actually the previous owners had a fixation with the colour green, it's all over the house in various incarnations. The lime green enclosed balcony is particularly alarming.

Again, paint and polish proved to be magical.

The wood around the fireplace has been half eaten by bugs and had to be taken off. Apart from that the room scrubbed up pretty well.

The room that we're currently using as a bedroom has a beautiful fireplace, which makes up for the uglies in the upstairs bedroom and living room.

I think this little tour brings us almost up to date. Next stop bedrooms.

lights, beautiful lights

It's time to think about what lights we would like in our bedroom. Naturally after visiting multiple lighting shops, my favourite lights are all from Mondo Luce and Euroluce.

Our bedroom is the typical terrace house bedroom, balconied and located upstairs at the front of the house. Having said that, the room will be more new than it will be 'restored' so with new polished boards, gyprock, windows, doors and a contemporary wardrobe I think it could suit something quite contemporary.

Interiors that mix old and new are beautiful, but getting the right composition of items looks challenging so I'm not feeling that confident about attempting it.

We originally planned a pendant light in the centre of the room, but with out recent interest in hanging and highlighting a feature art work I'm worried that a pendant light might obscure it.

I have always loved the 'Lucciola' lights at Mondo Luce but I'm also quite partial to the 'Milly' pendant. It's smart to have options isn't it?

What's your favourite?

Oluce 'Sonora' Glass Suspension

Sogno flushed light

Flos 'Romeo Soft 2' Suspension

AxoLight 'Milly' Pendant

Vistosi 'Lucciola' Pendant

Oluce 'Lanterna' Suspension

Studio Italia 'Criss Cross' Pendant

Rotaliana 'Calli' Pendant

art

Jumping ahead a bit from the photos I posted yesterday, our bedroom is almost* completed. We've gutted the room, had it rewired and yesterday had new windows put in.

Instead of focusing on what needs to be done to finish the bedrooms I am unhelpfully shifting my attention to how we should decorate the room.

After years of suspecting that all Aboriginal art involves orange 'U' shapes sitting around 'O' shapes to represent sitting people and campfires and the like, I have been proved very wrong.

On our honeymoon at Bannisters recently Rahul and I fell in love with a painting in our apartment. The light's not great, but from this picture you can see that there are no organge 'U' shapes in sight.

When we got home we wandered up to the Kate Owen Gallery to have a look at her collection and fell in love with many many paintings. She has a huge range in her gallery that is reproduced on their website. If you're having problems choosing a work they will bring a selection of your favourites to your home and see how they look on the wall.

Our current frontrunner is this Evelyn Pultara work 'Bush Yams'. I'm trying to show restraint by waiting until we have at least finished the gyprocking before we try it out in the room but it's hard...

* Bedroom To do list:

1. Have doors installed
2. Electrician to finish wiring
3. Gyprocker to do put up walls, cornices and ceiling
4. Choose wooden floorboards
5. Have existing floors removed
6. Have new floorboards layed and polished
7. Choose lights
8. Have lights attached to wires
9. Design wardrob
10. Order wardrobe
11. Install wardrobe
12. Choose skirting boards and architraves
13. Attach skirting boards and architraves
14. Paint walls, ceilings, skirting boards, architraves and windows

at the time of purchase

why 'minus a kitchen'?

Our house originally had two kitchens.

Once was downstairs:

I'm not really sure that you can even call it a kitchen. It was a carpeted room with a sink and a fridge.

The other kitchen was on the upstairs balacony off the master bedroom:

Pancakes in bed anyone?

Even more interestingly, aside from running water, neither kitchen worked. Broken stoves, broken ovens. It all had to go in the bin. We were minus a kitchen.

Maybe there were a few families or even a few generations of one family living in the house at some stage.

(I should add that we are now PLUS a kitchen, well, a temporary one cleverly constructed by Theo.)

where it all began, our 'renovator's delight'

Our house hunting story is short. We spent a rainy Saturday looking at apartments in Potts Point (too dark, too expensive), town houses in Balmain (too modern, too souless) and a house in Camperdown (too scared of walking home through the park at night.) After that we randomly looked online for a home in our price range, just dipping our toes into the idea. Then we forgot about it until one Saturday we decided to look seriously at buying something.

The following week Rahul found a deceased estate online which happened to be located about 500 metres from the semi we were renting in Rozelle. A free standing double brick terrace, fairly untouched since about 1900 (possibly an exaggeration, but do understand that it was pretty rough.)

The whole concept of renovating a terrace house just seemed so romantic and cool (I should have known better being the child of two prolific renovators!) We wanted it.

We were egged on by Theo, prolific renovator 1, my dad, our architect. He went with Rahul to the first open house to assess 'potential', put off other buyers by loudly identifying (imaginary) structural problems with the house (to the point that Rahul became disheartened and began mourning the loss of his dream.) Not fifteen minutes later we were all sitting in a cafe while Theo was sketching up plans on a napkin.

Three weeks later we won the auction. Three months later we settled and moved in.