Thursday, December 3, 2009

Move in date!!!!

I've booked the removalist to deliver my stuff on Dec 23 so I'll have my new apartment as a Christmas gift!!!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

$24


From bunnings, Monda brand - a bargain at $24. I can't believe people pay $100 for these at Harvey Norman!!

$20


Monda brand from bunnings a bargain at $20.

New things!

Curtain rods, bathroom cabinet,loo roll holder and brush holder go in.

Curtain rods were $85 each from bunnings, installed by my Dad

My bedroom


Needs a bit of a clean

Friday, November 27, 2009

Sun filled room....


Time to choose a tile for the green wall


Which one gets your vote? The little squares that I have been keen on since June?

Or the new wild card contender stripey green tiles from rivoland?

New Floor!!!!!!


Saturday, November 14, 2009

Floor part one

As you can see from the pics the guys from Amandla Flooring have begun laying the floor, and I've mostly finished sanding the feature door frame.

Downers are that the paint on the skirting boards seems to chip easily, possibly I didn't sand them enough and Cebo from Amandla says I should have used a gloss paint which would be more durable. Think I'll just live with it though, at the moment I can't bear to think of ever painting again.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Tiles

.....getting pretty sick of going to tile shops and not being able to get any help from the staf...

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Hot Tip for future renovating chicks

You have to be there when the tradies are there.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a tradie. They do great work, and are often pretty cute.

But - there are so many little decisions that might need to be made and if you arent there, an executive decision might be made in your abscence.

For example my security door got installed while I was away, as well as the locks changed and all keyed-alike.

Unfortunately, the tradies got paid before I had a look and when I turned up, all excited with my new purple front door key (I had it cut in several colours!!!) - I discovered that the screen door opens opposite to the front door and the back end of the screen door makes it impossible to hold the key in your hand and turn it in the lock.

Um, FAIL!

Fortunately they came back to have a look and are trying to come up with a solution.

So, now that the floor is looming, I am planning for a full weekend to hang out with the Jamaican while he puts the floor in!

Cuppa tea anyone?

Sunday, November 8, 2009

New bedroom light fittings

Yay aren't they cute?!

Ben from Canberra Electrics did a FANTASTIC job!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Bathroom Before





So there isn't a whole lot I can afford to do in the Bathroom. The tiling quote I got to re-tile the whole thing was just under $10,000.00 which is totally and utterly out of my price range.

So, I have done a few little things here and there to make it bearable.

Here are the before shots to give you an idea of what it looked like to begin with.

Bathroom before shot


First breakfast in the flat


Mmmm coffee

My sexy weekend outfit


Talk about style.

New floor


Thursday, October 8, 2009

All the women, who're independent - throw your hands up at me.....

Well I have decided in this global economic financial climate with increasing interest rates I am going to do the bloody tiling and flooring myself.

I have googled DIY Tiling and DIY floating floor and downloaded a few manuals, now all I need to do is buy/hire the right materials from bunnings/kennards and I will be on my way.

I'll be taking photos and blogging the process so you can see whether this turns out to be a great money saving endeavour through which I affirm my place as an independent, self reliant, 21st century woman - or whether it turns out to be a really stupid idea.

Oh, and any women interested in helping................?

Friday, September 4, 2009

Only a Sadist would choose to put Vermiculite on a ceiling

I am reaching that point where you just cant paint anymore.....

The walls are primed, the ceiling is finally finished - I have 9 walls to do two coats of colour to finish wall painting then its onto the floor and the bathroom.

Found out today from Ultraglaze that its not worth re-glazing - he suggested I just rip the whole bathroom out and start again...

Sigh.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

RIP Wacky Clock & More Asbestos Woes

So firstly I'd like to offer a little rest in peace to Wacky Clock who departed this earth a week ago at the Mugga Lane tip.

In a fit of rage at having tripped over it a number of times and just generally being sick of all the stuff in the apartment, it went to the tip along with a table, 6 chairs, the curtains, the blinds, two mattresses and other bits and pieces including - the evil pelmet of death - a 2.5m long, 10cm wide piece of wood that you can see in earlier pictures above the windows, which spontaneously detached from the window in one of the bedrooms and knocked me out with a large whack to the head.

After a brief stay of three hours in a bed at Calvary Emergency Department, 'because i was a-talkin funny and laughing at everything the doctor said' I came upon the following wisdon:

Everything in Your Renovation is Dangerous.

Case in point - my earlier concern regarding asbestos in the Vermiculite ceiling, which fortunately tested negative, has re-emerged following media reports in the last week that pre 1970's carpet underlay may have been made from recycled hessian bags, formerly used to transport asbestos by James Hardie.

I ripped up the carpet, and got covered in dust....With any luck there might still be a piece of this stuff somewhere in the apartment I can take to the ACT Health Lab to get tested.

As I discovered the first time around neither your building inspection that you pay for, nor your conveyancing solicitor, nor the state health authority who signs the asbestos certificate that comes standard with your contract in the ACT will say a peep about potential Asbestos dangers.

So for future reference, if you are renovating or planning to, treat every surface, every material and every task as if it were f#@ing toxic.

I will update the blog with the results if I can find a piece of the underlay and get it tested...

NEw KITchEN!!!!!!





W00t W00t!!!


Looks good huh!


...well as always with this renovation there are a few niggling izsues...


Turns out the new loo I bought which I triple checked was a 'Back To The Wall P Trap' is in fact, not. And will have to be returned to Bunnings.


The light fitting I was assured was adjustable is, sadly, not and the electrician has already installed it. Its sort of weirdly in the exact centre of the room and even if you are only at my height you sort of get the urge to duck when you walk in...


The sink (you might have spotted is missing from this image) was ordered the wrong way round and isn't coming until Friday...


And I am sure I remember several conversations with the designer about my cupboards that would go all the way to the ceiling...as you can see - that didn't quite get through.


Which means there is a bit of wasted storage.


I also asked for there to be room to stick a mop/broom/ironing board down the side of the fridge...sadly there isn't.


There may not be enough room to install the floor under the white goods (dishwasher and washing machine) and there is this weird big space above the fridge...as you can see marked by the pink circle the cupboards dont line up. I think this is because in the original design there was a giant fridge space which I asked to be reduced to fit my fridge and a broom (and no, I didn't measure the broom because I thought that would be a pretty straight forward request). So the width was reduced (not enough space for a broom), but the height wasnt....so you'll see in the image the cupboards don't line up. and there is a huge space above the top of the fridge.

I guess my main gripe is that the whole reason I went with the expensive Kitchen place was that they provide a fancy two hour design service with a design expert, which I would have thought would avoid these issues...but there were problems the whole way through.

The initial design was done following an onsite measure which didn't pick up the problematic location of the hot water heater and water pipes and subsequently the design was wrong and had to be re-done, by which time I felt pressured to just sign on the dotted line and I didn't go over the designs with a fine tooth comb and didn't pick this stuff up. I didn't individually check each measurement with a tape measure because I figured - well thats what the designer is for and if I was going to have to do it all myself, I could have just gone to IKEA....


Anyway, my previous gripe about being disappointed with the colour isnt so much of an issue now, I managed to find colours that work with the beige and its come off looking really nice - its just still a little disappointing to have so many niggling problems. I guess you live and learn, and hopefully other renovators reading this blog will avoid stuff in the future in which case - my hot tip is: GO TO BUNNINGS for your kitchen. You'll get the better materials, for a cheaper price, and because you'll be doing all the measuring yourself, you'll probably pay much more attention and wont rely on a 'professional design service'.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Kitchen Day

the Painting is finished and the Kitchen is going in right now!!

and, I discovered this morning that at the local shops across the road, they are building a cafe/BAR!!!

yippee...

The painting was nearly going to be a disaster because the creamy paint i bought for the walls i thought would be too creamy to go with the beige colour of the cupboards.

But I bought just enough of another colour called Princess Bling (?!?!?) to go on the walls directly behind the cupboards to lighten it up a little, then put the cottage cream on the remaining two walls.

Altogether, with the Rainsong colour on the feature walls, and princess bling on all the skirting, it looks lovely! the bling and the cream actually go really well together and create a light but warm feel and all the colours now work well with the cupboard colours - which redeems them from being an awful beige to quite a nice almost pale pinky colour!

The painting has nearly killed me trying to paint around the kitchen which was delivered and stored down the middle of the room as you can see - rolling the walls has been a bitch of a job with all the stuff in there....

but - live and learn...

I'll post a pic of the installed kitchen tomorrow!


Friday, August 21, 2009

Yay for Bunnings weekend sausage sizzle

Feeding the renovaters

Let me tell you bout Vermiculite...

So there's this stuff called Vermiculite which looks kinda like gravel stuck to the ceiling and its commonly found in old units because it hides uneven ceilings and apparently reduces noise. Unfortunately it is a total BASTARD to paint. It's especially difficult if you get bad advice. The first paint shop I went to, after a long discussion they sold me four litres of acrylic under coat and a short nap roller. This was supposed to cover all 50m2 of ceiling and ended up covering about four. In the end, it would have been smarter to put in a false ceiling, which was my original plan but I got talked out of it as over-capitalizing... Something like $600 later I have finally done my final ceiling under coat in oil paint which, it turns out is the only thing that really seals vermiculite. For future reference - if you ever consider buying something and someone mentions Vermiculite- Run RUN as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

.......Don't even get me started on the asbestos scare...after I had already swept the ceiling in preparation for painting - getting covered in loose vermiculite in the process- I read online that this stuff sometimes contains asbestos. Fortunately a test at the ACT health labs came back negative but FYI - neither a standard building inspection report nor the local government certificate nor my conveyancing solicitor had even mentioned this as a possible risk so Buyers Beware!!!!!

In case you've googled Vermiculite and stumbled upon this page- in the end what worked best for me was Bunnings Tradecote Interior/Exterior Oil paint - in the Tradex range.

Two coats of the oil under coat then one coat of pink to white ceiling paint. this ends up being the cheapest and least painful way of painting Vermiculite. dont even bother with fancy expensive acrylic water based all in one primers - they are a bitch to roll onto the rough surface - you will use a TON of paint and need to do three or four coats.

Make sure you have the longest nap roller as well - I think mine in the end was about 3oml....

Monday, August 3, 2009

So Disappointed

Well, the kitchen arrived yesterday and it turns out that "Antique Pearl" which I was told was an off white, is actually quite a dark beige.

Its neither white, nor antique, nor pearl.

Beige. I can't think of a worse colour for anything. Beige is synonymous with yuppie, boring and the 1980's.

What on earth am I going to paint the walls now? (bearing in mind I already bought 15 Litres of a creamy paint that was supposed to work with a white kitchen).

Beige......

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Now you don't!!! Go Team

So, in a relatively short amount of time, the whole kitchen was out, the tiles were off with only a little damage to the render and it was time for the next few steps.

One of the super-grads arrived to help remove and deliver the kitchen, which was sold to a fellow renovator for $150, and the whole kitchen fit on the ute!












More Super-Grads tackled the lino which was very well glued to the floor
...Houston, we have a problem. the tin of undercoat for the vermiculite ceiling that was supposed to cover 42sqm covers only half of one room :(


The Courageous Team!
The best thing about the Shoebox Makeover so far has been the amount of help from my great mates! Thanks Guys!

Going going....


Substantial parts of the kitchen are gone in only a couple of hours...ahh the joys of a crowbar!

getting the tiles off proved to be reasonably simple

Now you see it....



The before pictures! ...As you can see the original kitchen design has a roof and floor mounted island that cuts out the light and cuts the room in half....

it had to go!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Other Units in the Complex

Here is a link to another 2 bedroom unit in the complex currently for sale for $285,000

They have an interesting configuration of the lounge right up against the kitchen...I am going for a stickybeak on Saturday.

I called the agent selling it and he said he wouldn't recommend I live in that complex on my own...hinting at safety concerns.

Great.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Wacky Clock


Question is...will it blend?
http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=iphone

Reality Bites

So in my hastiness to become a fully fledged adult, I purchased a 2 bedroom shoebox in an old apartment building in the suburb of Hackett - about 4 kilometres from the centre of Canberra (which is the capital of Australia for my SF/NY buddies).

This weekend is scheduled for the kitchen rip-out which in our infinite wisdom, bf and I are doing together along with some help from the grad girls who will be braving the shoebox.

Issue #1 occurred when I discovered that the furniture I had thought would be removed is actually now mine....I was momentarily elated by the prospect of selling it, I will be particularly proud if someone buys the world's wackiest clock....(video to come!!)

So I am going to try to make the best of it and try and turn this shoebox around into a clever, Carrie-style abode.