Our latest Reno- OUR place.... LOL! Pics.

[Ruff investment]

Yep, after doing so much for our IP and tenants we are finally doing something for our own place. It feels good. However it is much harder when we are living here. That would be my DH, Myself, my 6 year old daughter and 4 year old son with one on the way.

Anyway, we own (scratch that) the bank still owns our place. It's a 70's wonder, and not a lot has changed to be honest. I do like retro, but this girl was in need of a revamp. It's a 4bdr, 2 bath family house. With no dishwasher! Yep, dishwashers were even present at caravan parks now, but I've been hand washing for more than 6 years now. We would like to stay another 2 years or so, then sell. So, I'll be presenting it as a family home.

It's a process and I get that, so this is how we are going.
This picture was taken when I went and took my DD to a 30minute swimming class... My 70's kitchen and very much dated and used.


As you can see, no dishwasher. Ok, no cupboard door that broke about a year or two ago. And the bottom two draws always fell apart when you opened them and had been repaired beyond their livable years.


When I came home after DD's swimming lesson, I no longer had a kitchen and DH said "I hope you were serious about doing the kitchen up." So the next day (Thursday) saw me travel the 2 hours to get to our local Ikea store, with my DS. Sunday saw the kitchen being delivered. Got to love Ikea efficiency.

No kitchen. Lots of things to do.

 

[Ruff investment]

Work, work and more work. I was happy to put in my hours. I organized the flooring to go in the laundry as well. Then the thought sprung to mind. Why shouldn't we do a laundry too while we are at it.

Pregnant and unable to sleep anyhow, I put those hours to good use between 2 and 6am while my family snoozed. I quite like demolition.... LOL! So I ripped out all the cupboards in the laundry. We had massive overheads and under bench cabinets and the laundry trough was painted a lovely shade of pink..... why on earth we buy pink houses is beyond me! (Yuck)

So here is the laundry. After demolition and a little work.

No back door... crazy but that lasted 2 weeks. The old one was fairly crap. So we brought a new one. However, being pregs it is a bit difficult to paint and I had to keep the house warm. So the old one was put back on (for now).








Yeah, as the laundry was a last minute decision we decided that Bunnings would be fine. I've seen smaller kitchens to be honest. But I love storage. As a family home, I'm hoping that the storage issues families face will be addressed and it will eventually sell for more and quicker.

Laundry has glass splash backs now as well. And a range of built in drying racks, and hooks for kids bags or helmets. The bench is usable, with power so you can put an ironing board on there and iron. Then you can hang the ironed clothes on the racks opposite. These racks also double as storage and drying racks. I'll need to do an update pic of the laundry.

 

[Ruff investment]

Back to the kitchen.
After getting the Ikea stuff;

Me again- Hello... very pregnant, and putting together the rotation shelving for the corner units








This is how where we are up to at the moment. Yep, it's not styled or tidy. We are living amongst it at the moment. Dishwasher is not on yet, or splash backs. Oven/stove is also not working yet. Hence, all my bench top hogger appliances.



Still some way to go!

 

[Lil Skater]

It's looking great so far!

How long til it's finished do you think?

 

[wylie]

What a difference! Looks fantastic. And I love the laundry too.

Is the kitchen benchtop granite?

Keep up the photos... love them.

 

[Ruff investment]

Thanks people

The bench tops are Caesar stone in a color called Ice snow.

A little while to go. The splash backs will be the last thing really, and will be installed in around 2 weeks. Then there is potentially going to be a few odds and end jobs.

It's been just over 1 month since kitchen demolition day.

 

[moyjos]

Awesome to see the pics

 

[westminster]

You are brave!

A vast improvement. Love the laundry - simple yet very effective and the wooden bench gives it a nice sense of warmth.

I can't wait to see the kitchen finished

 

[bob shovel]

Great job!!

We have a similar 70s kitchen and doing our kitchen too

How did you find the Ikea kitchen installation? Did everything go together easy???

 

[neeko]

Back to the kitchen.
After getting the Ikea stuff;

Me again- Hello... very pregnant, and putting together the rotation shelving for the corner units

View attachment 10954

View attachment 10955

View attachment 10956


This is how where we are up to at the moment. Yep, it's not styled or tidy. We are living amongst it at the moment. Dishwasher is not on yet, or splash backs. Oven/stove is also not working yet. Hence, all my bench top hogger appliances.

View attachment 10957

Still some way to go!

so like my old house in Somerville, layout of kitchen laundry total exact!!!!! looks great champ

 

[Pianissimo]

You are pregnant and still got the energy to do the renovation!

I got no excuse not to do mine!

 

[Ruff investment]

I'm back! Sorry I've been MIA for a little while, I've been in and out of hospital after catching a nasty pneumonia. I'm starting to get better now.

Since the last lot of photos I've taken some with appliances and splash back in the laundry. We decided to go for glass splash backs, and they feature along the whole wall of the laundry.

I also popped some drying rails in, for convenience and so that I could save space in the rest of the home. These have butcher hooks that currently hold all our bike helmets. The top rail can be used for drying things like bathers that don't do well in the dryer. It's also a impromptu shelf and stores our beach tent. Oh, and when I'm folding washing on the bench between the dryer and sink it allows me to hang up school dresses as I go.

The laundry so far;

 

[Ruff investment]

The kitchen has also had some work done to it...... and I've got a dishwasher that works. Our sparky came over and did some power points and some lights for us. These were relatively inexpensive, but I think they look great.



This light was just plain fun. I love putting stuff like this together. It was really simple, and cheap. However, I really like it.


OMG! The difference a dishwasher makes is amazing! The kitchen is so much easier to keep clean..... LOVE IT Just saying it's a major change in time spent on cleaning in our family life.

 

[Ruff investment]

Bob shovel- I found the whole exercise through Ikea was easy. You do have to carefully read the instructions and follow them to a tee. But once you start to master that it is easy. One thing is that the Ikea kitchens are generally have a standard height to bolt the cabinets to the wall. This can be an issue if you don't have the wood behind the walls in exactly the right spot. If you have the plaster off you can place the wood in the walls, but if not you can use special bolts.

As a standard I'd say that the Ikea cabinets are a couple of levels of difficulty harder to put together compared to Bunnings Kaboodle range. So if you have never done a kitchen before, I'd start with the super simple stuff from Bunnings, especially for IP's. The Ikea stuff is a little more fancy with the metal draw runners, soft to close hinges and rotation sections in the corner cabinets.

 

[Lil Skater]

Love it! Looks fantastic!

I especially love the hangers you've put in there for washing. We have a small laundry, most of it taken up by the portable drying racks.

 

[travelbug]

WOW! You are doing a great job.

It's so rewarding isn't it! Seeing it all come together. Especially the kitchen. It makes such a huge difference. It looks great.

Can I ask how much the kitchen cost?

Ours is 40 years old and has similar cupboards and bright orange wall tiles. It's the last job of our reno. Can't wait. The drawers are stuck partly open. The oven is JUST usable. YUK YUK YUK!

 

[Ruff investment]

Hi Travel bug. I'll try to do a breakdown of the kitchen, but some of this stuff was used in the laundry too, like the flooring, paint ect.

Kitchen cost- including lights, fitting out the internals with bins, dividers and buckets, ect. $5700. This included the stone, sink, tap, range hood, cabinets.

Delivery fee to get it all here- $300.

Stone installation fee and extra bit because we live in the country- $726.18

Flooring- $1650

Dishwasher- $899

Paint- around $500

Sparky- Haven't received Bill.

Plumber- Haven't received bill.

Splash backs- Quoted around $2100. (Both the kitchen and laundry, I think the laundry was around $800 of this)

Total = $11075.18

It's a lot of money to us! Ouch. But I'm loving the results. We could have done it heaps cheaper by using laminate bench tops and tiled splash backs. We could have also gone cheaper on the dishwasher. But in the end I'm hoping that it will be a little extra touch of luxury.

We kept the fridge and our free standing oven.

 

[bob shovel]

Bob shovel- I found the whole exercise through Ikea was easy. You do have to carefully read the instructions and follow them to a tee. But once you start to master that it is easy. One thing is that the Ikea kitchens are generally have a standard height to bolt the cabinets to the wall. This can be an issue if you don't have the wood behind the walls in exactly the right spot. If you have the plaster off you can place the wood in the walls, but if not you can use special bolts.

As a standard I'd say that the Ikea cabinets are a couple of levels of difficulty harder to put together compared to Bunnings Kaboodle range. So if you have never done a kitchen before, I'd start with the super simple stuff from Bunnings, especially for IP's. The Ikea stuff is a little more fancy with the metal draw runners, soft to close hinges and rotation sections in the corner cabinets.

Thats sounds great! Its what I wanted to hear! we sre upgrading our PPOR and from the research and quotes its hard to beat Ikea. And with the positice feedback for the quality and construction its definately looking like the way we'll go!

Great job!