Lee and I did our first full day of work on the new house on Saturday, and jeeeez, I have a renewed respect for tradies. It has been a long time between renovations for me (um, plus I had a baby in there too) and it could be said that I have spent more time than necessary in the top paddock and not in the gym, and have gone to fat. Or at least, scrawny muscle-free flab, instead of the Crossfitting powerlifter I was when I was renovating every weekend. Anyway, I was totally and completely drained on Saturday afternoon and could hardly stand up. We went HARD and got heaps done.
We demolished the rickety carport/garage in the backyard, hacked down half the fig tree, ripped up the carpet and underlay in the front rooms and hallway and pulled off the skirting boards, de-nailed them and stacked them in the lounge ready for repainting. Pulling down the carport was actually pretty fun. We ripped down all the walls until the roof was being held up just by two big timber poles, but we couldn't pull them down because the whole structure would have collapsed on top of us. So obviously we did the safe thing and piffed bricks at the poles until they broke and the whole roof came crashing down in a heap. The job satisfaction was extremely high.
I planned on getting more proper Yakka workwear but I am realising that I already feel blokey enough wearing Blundstones and a toolbelt, waving a chainsaw around. Sometimes I catch sight of my reflection and think that wearing black skinny jeans is the only thing stopping me turning completely into a bloke. I do need some better gloves because I have lady hands.
We have done a proper budget for the renovations (oh dear lord) and finalised the layout and interior fittings and fixtures. There was a bit of a debate about heating and cooling, with so many options available. We have decided to go with hydronic heating throughout, which I know nothing about and is megabucks to install but better in the long run apparently. Lee reckons he can do most of the plumbing himself, but we need to get it sorted soon because we need to run the pipes through the front bedrooms ASAP.
So, here was last week's list...
- Rip up the carpet and underlay in the front rooms
- Rip out the skirting boards in the front rooms
- Round-Up the crappy garden - We didn't have any Round-Up. And this is a bit of a shitty job that can be done whenever.
- Pull down the ceiling in the lounge - No point yet as the roof leaks.
- Clean up the carport
- Start pulling the carport down
And this week's list...
- Draw a floorplan with the heating panels marked out so the hydronic heating guy can estimate what kind of unit to get
- Dig footings for the posts for the new carport (not looking forward to this)
- Get new internal doors from Bunnings
- Sort out the planning permit
- Run wires for the GPOs in the bedrooms
- Draw up the cabinetry plans for the four wardrobes, kitchen, bathroom, laundry and ensuite
Fingers crossed for good digging weather!