With a long term tenant advising she was looking to move, we decided to build down into the "downstairs" area to make it more another living area, rather than car park, daggy loo, laundry and louvre area. We also decided to ditch the badly worn and badly designed kitchen. This would mean much increased rent. I sold the worn out old kitchen on Gumtree and removed it.
Then we had a family situation arise which meant we might be better to sell the IP, so we had two agents in. Both said it was likely a buyer would bulldoze the house to build higher and get city views. Both said don't spend anything, just tidy it up.
Unfortunately the kitchen was already sold. We decided to get Tom (Arms) to make us another kitchen but realised if we sold this house in six or twelve months someone would not pay us any more for a lovely new kitchen if they were going to bulldoze the house.
I found a second hand one on Gumtree that fit like a glove with one 10cm gap behind the pantry. Hubby filled that in with a piece of timber and it looks so much better than the old one.
We closed up the door that was in the middle of the old one and meant that the kitchen was a "hallway" and also meant there was no good sized run of bench-top. Also the old vinyl wrap kitchen was wearing badly, and we could really do nothing to make it look good. Previous tenants had put hot pots directly on the laminate (thanks!!!) and the upright stove just looked tacky. The tenants said that the kitchen was unusable for more than one person and just didn't flow at all... and looked so shabby.
Hubby closed up the door and we paid $400 for the second hand kitchen to be delivered to us and installed. The cabinetmaker who took it out of the house put it into ours, thankfully he knew where things went. It all looked too hard to us. I couldn't work out what went where. We paid $3,700 including oven, ceramic hob, sink, tap and granite tops so with the $400 delivery/installation plus an almost new dishwasher for $190 we had a much improved kitchen.
At first I kicked myself that I'd already sold the old kitchen, but we wanted to get better rent, and the old kitchen was not going to get us there. It really pulled the whole house down. We also replaced the bathroom vanity for $500. That, plus grout whitening stick, new towel rails and a really good clean of the glass made the bathroom shine again.
I thought that for those who enjoy "before" and "after" photos I'd show just what a couple of thousand in paint, grout, second hand kitchen, new vanity can do. All up we've paid our painter his labour, plus all costs for kitchen, bathroom, paint, fittings, hardware, everything really - came to $9K. Hubby and I put in 150 hours of our own time, which equates to 18 eight hour days (not included in that $9K).
The rent went from $470 to $590 per week. We could have asked maybe $500 per week as it was, but the long term tenant was looking to move and we didn't want to push it too much as we really were busy on the Camp Hill renovation and hoped she would take a little while to find another house to allow us time to finish that before having to jump into this one.
Some photos -
This is the old kitchen. It looks okay in this photo, but was not nice up close. Horrible burn marks in two places on the laminex, unwrapping vinyl coming of in large slabs, no bench area larger than about 50cm, nowhere to "plate up" and just pretty bad all round. Plus it had a doorway in the middle so it was also a thorough fare from the sunroom at the front.
This is the "new" second hand kitchen - total cost $4,300 all up including fitting and appliances. Final paint coat not yet covering where the door was...
Then we had a family situation arise which meant we might be better to sell the IP, so we had two agents in. Both said it was likely a buyer would bulldoze the house to build higher and get city views. Both said don't spend anything, just tidy it up.
Unfortunately the kitchen was already sold. We decided to get Tom (Arms) to make us another kitchen but realised if we sold this house in six or twelve months someone would not pay us any more for a lovely new kitchen if they were going to bulldoze the house.
I found a second hand one on Gumtree that fit like a glove with one 10cm gap behind the pantry. Hubby filled that in with a piece of timber and it looks so much better than the old one.
We closed up the door that was in the middle of the old one and meant that the kitchen was a "hallway" and also meant there was no good sized run of bench-top. Also the old vinyl wrap kitchen was wearing badly, and we could really do nothing to make it look good. Previous tenants had put hot pots directly on the laminate (thanks!!!) and the upright stove just looked tacky. The tenants said that the kitchen was unusable for more than one person and just didn't flow at all... and looked so shabby.
Hubby closed up the door and we paid $400 for the second hand kitchen to be delivered to us and installed. The cabinetmaker who took it out of the house put it into ours, thankfully he knew where things went. It all looked too hard to us. I couldn't work out what went where. We paid $3,700 including oven, ceramic hob, sink, tap and granite tops so with the $400 delivery/installation plus an almost new dishwasher for $190 we had a much improved kitchen.
At first I kicked myself that I'd already sold the old kitchen, but we wanted to get better rent, and the old kitchen was not going to get us there. It really pulled the whole house down. We also replaced the bathroom vanity for $500. That, plus grout whitening stick, new towel rails and a really good clean of the glass made the bathroom shine again.
I thought that for those who enjoy "before" and "after" photos I'd show just what a couple of thousand in paint, grout, second hand kitchen, new vanity can do. All up we've paid our painter his labour, plus all costs for kitchen, bathroom, paint, fittings, hardware, everything really - came to $9K. Hubby and I put in 150 hours of our own time, which equates to 18 eight hour days (not included in that $9K).
The rent went from $470 to $590 per week. We could have asked maybe $500 per week as it was, but the long term tenant was looking to move and we didn't want to push it too much as we really were busy on the Camp Hill renovation and hoped she would take a little while to find another house to allow us time to finish that before having to jump into this one.
Some photos -
This is the old kitchen. It looks okay in this photo, but was not nice up close. Horrible burn marks in two places on the laminex, unwrapping vinyl coming of in large slabs, no bench area larger than about 50cm, nowhere to "plate up" and just pretty bad all round. Plus it had a doorway in the middle so it was also a thorough fare from the sunroom at the front.
This is the "new" second hand kitchen - total cost $4,300 all up including fitting and appliances. Final paint coat not yet covering where the door was...
Last edited:
