Welcome

Welcome to our blog! We've just bought a house in the suburbs of Perth, West Australia. It was originally built in the early 1960s, and there have been lots of additions and renovations over the years, although not all of them were done well.
Over the next weeks, months, and years, we're planning to slowly but surely turn this old house into our dream home! We've started this blog as a place to document all of the changes as they happen...kind of like a scrap book! We hope you enjoy!

Saturday, 23 March 2013

23 March Update

Less than 1 week until Easter holidays and to our agreed deadline with Summit...and we're still not quite there yet...to say there's a little stress is an understatement! I am sick and tired of living in a dust pit of a work zone! I think I need a vacation from my life! :)
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, though...at least for the Summit scope...until the house is completely finished...now that's another story!
In the past week, the only progress they've made on the hole in our wall is to make a bigger mess to cut it even higher and put in a lintel...to say I was a bit disappointed is an understatement!
The lintel I've waited a week for...and the vacuum cleaner that crapped out and overheated because of all the dust it had to vacuum up!
Can you see the progress here? Notice that the shelves are empty because I've actually started moving into the kitchen...almost 4 months after it was installed!
The pile of boxes is the wrapping for my new cookware...it was like Christmas today!
Bedroom furniture for one set of parents...check!
The bathroom doors have moved from nasty scraped paint to 2 coats of gloss...not a good paint job, but good enough!
The gyprockers have finished around the staircase...I'm quite happy with that.
Downstairs bathroom complete & cleaned (by the Summit cleaners anyways), but still has to be painted.
Toilet complete and cleaned...just needs some major paint work!
And my kitchen with drawers and pantry filled...what a wonderful feeling!

Sunday, 17 March 2013

17 March Update

Another day closer to being finished, and it still seems so far away! The Summit team seem to be pretty dead set that they will finish up this following week. It's definitely possible, but going on their work rate to date, I find it a bit hard to believe...but I'm trying to remain optimistic :)
The electrician has been in and has installed a lot of the lights we recently bought, which is exciting...it makes it feel like things are really coming together.

The entry way with our new crystally light installed.
I decided that the only way to protect the stair treads would be to wrap them up, so I used up all of our big black trash bags, and it was definitely worth it...I just hope they can stand up to the tradies walking up and down!
View of the open plan area, although it doesn't look that different from last week.
Bedroom 3...Lights installed
Bedroom 4 with the lights installed.
The "theatre room"...or Andy's billiards room.
The downstairs bathroom almost done.
Our cool eBay light fixture in the hallway.
They finally managed to cut out the doorway between our bedroom and walk-in robe...which is currently our living area, as you can see by the couch above & below.

I've also managed to make a bit of progress of my own over the past week. Since I took off the upstairs bathroom doors to paint the trims, I decided I should also sand and paint the doors themselves. Well, what I thought would be a simple 1-hr job to sand 3 doors turned into about 5 hours over the course of about 3 different days...it was a never ending job...once a bit of paint flakes off, you're screwed! You end up scraping off that entire coat of paint...oh, it was exhausting!
Two of my doors...the one standing up has all of one layer of paint scraped off and the beginning of the second layer...
Not sure if you can see the pile of massive paint flakes that came off the door laying down in this photo...uuggghh!
The other job I did this week was to paint the primer on the balcony ceiling...that was another job that was a bit bigger than I initially expected. I never realized how exhausting it would be to spend over 2 hours looking up!
But...we're making progress...inching forward! Check back next time to see what else happens! :)

Thursday, 14 March 2013

14th March Update - 2 weeks past due!

It's now mid March, and the builder was supposed to be finished 2 weeks ago according to their schedule with lots of fluff...hmm...
Needless to say, we've had to severely cut short our expectations, and now we're just hoping and praying that they finish before we leave for our wedding! I CAN see the light at the end of the tunnel, though. We are slowly getting there. The beginning of this past week showed lots of promise. We had stair installation guys, electricians, plumbers, and gyprock guys in all at the same time...it was like a little beehive of activity. And then it crashed...only the closet door people came on Tuesday and the plumbers on Wednesday to install the toilet. I guess I can't complain too much, though...we are getting ever closer. And they have finished some parts enough to allow us to get our own work done. Last weekend, Andy and a friend finished laying the bamboo flooring in the upstairs living area so that the stairs and ballustrading could be installed without causing problems for us later. And I managed to get the future study painted last week as well...so we trudge slowly along...
The study is painted...only thing left is for the electrician to come and install the power points & lights.
Flooring laid in the stair landing area, and the stairs & ballustrading are installed!
Finished flooring in the open living area.
Toilet installed in the downstairs powder room. Now they just have to patch the hole in the wall and install the sink.
Tiling and plumbing in the downstairs bathroom is finished as well.
We have closet doors in bed 4!
Can you believe how much better this room looks than it did before?!?! Just wait until it's got paint and carpet!
Bed 3 has closet doors as well...getting ever closer!
Nice LED spotlights for our theatre/billiards room.
The opposite view...gotta love that peach door, eh? :)
And we've got stairs!!! They look really good...or I think so anyways :) 
The laundry room has lights now too...
Our future walk-in robe covered in preparation for knocking out the doorway to the bedroom.
The bedroom covered and prepped as well...it's going to be a massive mess!
More updates to come shortly, I hope! They say they'll be finished in about 10 days...oh boy, I can't wait! :)