Our current renovation - before photos

Update...

Floors being sanded, kitchen was to go in tomorrow, but floors are taking longer than expected to dry in the wet weather, plumber comes in Friday to hook up kitchen and laundry and electrician also.

Tenants move in Saturday, but we will still have more to do. However, we have a lovely relationship with the tenants and they are very happy that we have finishing off to do, and the front patio has yet to be levelled and the garage yet to become a living room.

The patio has been propped with steel beams and concrete, signed off by builder and engineer. It was decided that rather than try to jack it back up, which would cause damage to the walls and glass windows and roof, it would be fully supported by steel and we would pour a topping slab to level the floor inside. (When I say "we" I mean "hubby" :D.)

This patio had been falling probably for years, but the tenant never told us there was an issue. He had been there 15 years. The edges had tipped up and water ran back into the house via the rotten timber. This will all be fixed (is being done as I type). Hubby is forming up a new "edge" and will cement it with a slope away from the glass. The glass will be sheeted to create more privacy inside, so bottom glass totally disappears.

 
This is the inside of the "fishbowl" patio, facing the street, very little privacy. It is being clad with VJ internally to give a "1930s pavilion" feel and externally with sheeting and strapping to suit the era.

 
Tenants moved in last Saturday. They were very happy that we go back inside until things are finished, and very happy to pay rent, but I didn't think that was fair, so we are starting the lease today.

Hubby has one more full day of refitting door locks, front security doors, grouting splashback etc and putting glass into the kitchen doors.

The shame of not being totally finished prior to tenants moving in is that I didn't get good shots of "after" but I'll post up what I did get.

Main bedroom... what a difference a coat of paint and freshly sanded floors has made...



Bathroom - we moved the toilet so it is tucked behind the door, replaced the bath with a shower (much to the horror of our real estate agent friend) and put in a poly marble shower tray and DIY shower screen (total $525 for both). We would have liked a seamless floor, the our tiler vetoed that for this house due to a few issues.

 
We would have liked rectified tiles on the floor as well as the ceiling, but the tiler also vetoed them for the floor.



This is the small third bedroom with six ugly hopper windows. One of the "unnecessary" jobs but one that has improved things is that hubby closed up two of the windows and installed windows from elsewhere that match the house. Rather than patch the bessa block construction of this room (which was once an external patio) he made bookshelves. Once they are gloss white, they will look good.

 
Unfortunately, we don't have a "before" photo of the kitchen. Hubby took to it with a sledge hammer when I wasn't there with the camera. But "Arms" from Somersoft made a new kitchen for us. Looks fantastic, and he's a lovely chap too.

We paid extra to have it assembled and installed, but the kitchen itself was about $7K, two pack with laminate bench top, quickly made and Tom is a bit of a card. I reckon he was a naughty boy when he was in school. I can recommend him (and his kitchens) :D.

We did look at cheaper kitchens that looked pretty good, but I don't think the quality would have been the same, and I'd rather pay a little more for better quality.

We are organising another kitchen through Tom right now for another reno we are jumping into.

Because the kitchen went in Thursday, plumber and sparkie on site all day Friday and part of Saturday finishing up the hook up, and the tenants moved in the same day, I don't have any "finished" kitchen photos, only what I could quickly snap when the room cleared of people for a split second.

Before the half wall came out -



After -

 
Those photos above are before the ceramic cooktop, stainless canopy range hood, stainless Bosch oven and stainless dishwasher went in. We used the same rectified 600mm x 300mm tiles for the splashback. It looks fantastic finished, and I'll try to get a finished photo if I can.

This is the other side of the kitchen -



We would have polished the boards in the kitchen but the end that is not seen used to be a separate laundry with a concrete floor, so we decided to use tiles.
 
The breakup of costs looks like this...

Kitchen (cabinets plus appliances) came in at the $10K budgeted for but we did pay $1500 to have it assembled and installed. That was money well spent because we had run out of time and Tom (Arms) took all the hassle out of it. I hate putting flatpack furniture together, so a whole kitchen was enough to make me shudder.

I think Tom did it with his eyes closed :D whereas had we tackled it, there would have been blood on the floor.

We hadn't planned on tiling the kitchen floor, but when we pulled up the vinyl we found half was cement and half pine, so we tiled over the whole floor. The bill for the kitchen and bathroom floor and walls, including waterproofing, came to $5,400 (not including the tiles themselves, which cost $750, and we have some leftovers).

Bathroom fittings came to $2,700. Plumber's bill for bathroom and kitchen rough-in came to $5,100 and we don't have kitchen fit-off bill yet (guessing $1K). There were plumbing issues that needed sorting out due to the regulations having changed and needing to move a DT from under what was once an open porch but is now a bedroom. We also decided to upgrade the copper which was too narrow and meant terrible water pressure, and also moved the HWS outside. We would have to do that when it goes kaput, so better to do it now rather than have to mess about and move it later.

Electrician's bill not yet in - guessing $1K?

Floor sander quote was $3,300 but once sanded the beautiful floors had some issues. There were bad marks all over the main floor that looked like someone had squirted oil in squiggly lines all over the place. He could not get them out with several different methods. He said he had never seen this before except one house where a motorbike had been dismantled on the timber, and thought it was either some sort of ancient pest treatment or some type of oil. To disguise the marks, we paid extra for him to stain the floors very dark. They look fantastic and the stain has hidden the marks, so his total came to $3,700. Great floor sander, highly recommended.

Painting came to about $7,500.

We paid the builder $11,200 but what he did was able to be done by hubby. However, the fallen patio will always be the "elephant in the room" in any future building inspection, so we have paid not only for the work, but for the bit of paper signed off by the builder and his engineer, saying it is fixed and that is worth money to us in any future sale.

So, total came to $48,850 due to the extra scope of work not planned (closing in doors and windows, replace dining room ceiling, new bearers, joists and yellow tongue in bathroom, building out bathroom walls to take sheeting for tiles... lots of other little problems that needed fixing).

The other cost not included was the hardware items, versalux, plasterboard, bags and bags of cement for the new patio external ledge, timber ($5000) needed to do all the closing in, plastering and general maintenance that had not been done for 15 years.

So, all up it went from budgeted at $35K to actual cost $54K. A big jump, but considering we took a very shabby and seemingly unloved old house and have made it shine again, we are happy.

Hubby did a LOT of hours there, and I did a fair bit too, and all of the project managing of the trades, calls, organising and buying. Plus all of the trips to buy lunch and drinks :D.

Hubby is not working, so he could spend time making things up to his standard, which a builder would not have done, or the cost would have been higher again. But we do realise that we need to take our hours into account if we look at this in regard to "was it worth doing" and "will the extra value and/or rent cover the cost of the renovation".

I'd say yes, that even if we were paying a tradie to do hubby's portion, we would still be ahead, but we would not have made any profit, only made our wages. But we would not have paid a tradie to do the same level of finish that hubby lavished on it, because that takes time and time is money.

Rent has gone from $350 per week (but should have been $400) to $500. The cost to us for the work is $62 per week, so we are ahead, but I will rein in the spending next time.

And we are jumping straight into another renovation, so it will be good to see if I can manage our costs better. This next renovation is similar... new kitchen and new second bathroom in an attempt to get top rental return. This next house is a 50s brick house, so we don't need to match the same quality and the 1929 stucco we just did.

Unfortunately, with the old houses, especially when they have not been maintained, walls and floors are never straight, and hidden problems seem to be lurking around every corner, so time will tell whether I can manage this next renovation better and keep the costs down.
 
Just an update on this renovation. Tenants moved in mid February and oldest son has been living on the front patio (glassed in) since then. We did commit to turning the garage into a bedroom and hubby started this week. It is just a floor, and roller door making way for windows and french doors to the back yard. It can all come out if anybody wants to use it as a garage again (but I cannot imagine anybody wanting to do that).

This is the garage that has been there for many years. It is too narrow to be able to open car doors comfortably and had two very steep steps down to it and a roller door at one end, and step up to the laundry at the other end.

He will build a wall where the post is now and this will become a small store room that can easily become a second bathroom down the track, but not now.



Looking the other way



Hubby has put bearers, ant capping, joists and yellow tongue (I was his labourer today) to raise the floor so it is a comfortable one step down from the living areas of the house

Back in January he closed in the windows which were just the right height to bang your head on as you walked past the car in the garage, and hardly any breeze made it through the breezeblock wall, so they will be used when the roller door comes out and we'll put french doors into the breezeblock wall (with a steel lintel) to open to the yard. This way, this room can be a bedroom, a living room or a home office with separate entry.



Will put up more photos as it progresses.
 
This was half way through turning the garage into a living room or bedroom. Current tenants will use it as a bedroom.

Facing towards where the roller door used to be -



Standing where the roller door was, looking back towards the laundry. Hubby put up a wall to create a store room large enough to one day be turned into a laundry. Behind that is the laundry with entry to the new store room. Hubby installed french doors to the yard -



Another photo of facing the street with windows instead of a roller door. Tenants chose this colour and painted it, but have offered to paint it a light colour before they leave if we want that -



Flooring looks great and easily laid.
 
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