Windows!

Great news, we have some ACTUAL progress here in the house. The new Jarrah windows have been installed! We installed four windows and a sliding door. Lets start with the sliding door.

Before:

After:

I had to take the photo outside because whenever I try to take it from inside, it is really dark. Do you like the wood? We both LOVE it! The back of our house isnt currently rendered but will be in future when we do the back yard. That paving will also be replaced eventually.

Now the door was not without issues. Check this photo out:

See the one-brick height gap? when they knocked out the old one, there was some weird issue in that the door was a brick lower on the outside than the inside! They used foam to seal it then went away and got more wood to box the outside to cover it up.

Next up is Emma's bedroom. It has a weird, high window that was absolutely the most rotten wood in the house. When they took that one out, they discovered the lintel had rusted and was pushing out the brickwork and they had to remove a row of bricks! So right now the new window is fitted and on the outside of the house, there is an open gap between the two rows of brick! It needs fixing ASAP! Such is the way with an old house that no-one has bothered to repair! These windows wind outwards to open.

Before:

After:

The yellow bedroom. When they knocked out these windows, they discovered that the wood shelf above it, was built into the window frames so when they knocked those out, down came the shelf! As a result we have some patching up of paintwork to do but nothing major. Note how these windows have a vertical half and half and lots of wood surrounds? Wait until you see how wide the new ones look in comparison!

Before:

After:

I did have to get the man to do a few things since the photo above was taken. I had him remove the foam stuck on the lower right corner and put a wood trim along the bottom to hide the surrounds that he chipped during removal. If you look, you can see the thin line where the shelf was.

The spare room was the third room to get a new window. Outside, the brick had crumbled so we need brick work done to that window too! Oh well, at least then it will be done lol. The 'after' photo was taken from the outside, hope you dont mind!

Before:

After:

As you can see, they have fly wire on the outside. VERY necessary in Western Australia!

This is a photo I took just to show you how they open. They meet in the middle and allow a breeze above and below the glass. That breeze is heavenly compared to how the old ones opened, they never created through-draft and these are fantastic at it!

A side view down three of the windows that were replaced. I have no idea why half the house is rendered and half you can see bricks but we will remedy that lol.

Next up, will be the big windows in the lounge. They are likely to be about $20,000 so I am not especially looking forward to the bill, but am looking forward to the end result. The front door is being quoted on right now and will take 4-6 weeks after we confirm the quote is what we want and pay a 50% deposit.

Pool update:

The pool plans finally got submitted to the council for approval today! Due to the design we want, they have to go through the planning department (for the wood decking and retaining wall). Once that is *fingers crossed* approved, we then apply for the actual building department. How fast the planning stage is, depends on whether it is required to go through a council meeting (only held every 8 weeks) and whether they require us to get permission from our neighbours. We'll just have to wait and see!

An update

• Plans FINALLY came back from our engineers this week. We need to choose a pool builder and then those plans can go to the council for approval.
• The bedroom windows have been officially measured and will be ready to install in about four weeks. 
• The lounge window turned out NOT to have enough strength above our current window ins the lounge. That means we will either have to swap styles (no more bi-fold) or pay about $10,000 to install a beam across the top of the current window. It seems a lot of money when we can find other styles that can go in now.

This is what we want to put in, bi-fold doors. They'll slide to one side (in our case, the opposite side to this). The weight of these doors hangs from the top and thus we would need a big beam for strength above the windows.

This is kind of what we are now considering. Only our room is longer than this. Each of our panels will be about 1.8 metres wide. It will still open the room up a lot, just less than we originally planned. We'll research and see if we can find anything else suitable.

The back yard

The back yard is neglected. Two dogs and three cats ravage it and nothing has been done to it for 22 years. Yes, 22 years! So though the initial plan was to put the pool there, now the plan is to replace fences, retaining, replant etc and make this more of a nice back yard for us to entertain in. 

It is currently on hold because the new kitchen wall must be in place before we can pave up to it. But it is nice to have before pics and videos, right?

The kitchen

The kitchen was really what started the renovation concept off. It is VERY dated and I have no storage. Any new kitchen things I buy, get put on the floor because I have no storage space. What could be nice kitchen cupboards, are in open shelving where people can see things such as tea towels and cook books and I'd like it all put away tidy!

So this is my kitchen, as you can see I didnt clean it up before I took this photo. I'm real like that lol. This kitchen is so run down and awful that it doesnt matter anyway. Ugly flooring (with Jarrah floorboards underneath), laminate cupboards and benchtops, no work space etc...

And at the other end of the room, it gets wider (we will be moving the wall out so it is wider the entire way across) and was intended for a dining room but only would fit a table for four people in it. For a while I had our oval dining table in there but it was just too claustrophobic. See what I mean about things being dumped because there is nowhere to put them away? Messy shelving to the right? It drives me INSANE looking at this mess each day!

But this is where the kitchen is moving to! It will be a sort of u-shaped kitchen and will have cupboards top and bottom so I will have plenty of storage and space compared to what I have now. 

So where are we at with kitchen plans? Our architect has drawn our house plans (we lost all plans in a fire at our local council in the 1960s) and drawn up an idea for our kitchen. Those plans went to the drafties and are now at an engineering firm. When they get done, they should be ready to head to council for building approval! Then we need to find someone to actually do the build.

Bye pagoda!

The overhead structure came down during the week. Step one! The men accidentally cracked one of the glass panels of the balustrade so all the citrus are piled in front to keep it safe for the kids.

I love the un-impeded view but the house looks ugly! I keep forgetting to take a photo during the day (from the road) but will endeavor to in the coming week.

The pool goes here

Our front lawn slopes down to the road. Right now it is this half alive (it is hot here, this is how it looks with three waterings a week during summer) and fairly un-used. Those two bushes essentially mark our boundary. More specifically, if you can see the two retaining wall heights down the bottom of the photo, that is the boundary.

The pool will be at the height of the other balcony (off the master bedroom) and from the height I was standing when I took this photo, that means two steps downwards will be pool and decking height. We are hoping to be able to hide all the pool equipment underneath. I have wanted to live in a house with a pool for a LONG time!

Looking up towards the house from the boundary point:

Let me try to explain it a little with a video. 

Step one-the balcony *edited*

As with all renovations, you have to start somewhere! Our step one is the balcony.

Below is a photo of the front windows of our lounge (ie between lounge and balcony). We don't know how old the windows are but the house was built in the early 1950's so it is possible they are that old. The glass in them is 3mm thick which would  be illegal if you were now building a house and they aren't safe for our dogs, who jump against them while chasing flies. Not only that but across this 8m stretch, we only have one (very normal) door to access the balcony.

So we have just had a quote to replace these with bi-fold doors that will fold back all the way across to the far side of this picture but we will also be able to simply open one door, the way we do now. They will also have rolling fly screen doors (which sadly, have to meet in the middle). 

The reason these are step one? Because the installation of these doors could damage the balcony tiles or lounge floors and both need repairs-we might as well cause any new damage then repair both at the same time. The cost of these doors is approximately $12,000 Australian. 

The current problem? Each door will weigh 42kg and there will be about 8 of them and almost all bi-fold doors carry their weight on the top. We have asked an engineer to come by and see what support is above these windows currently and test whether the support (we are hoping there is a steel beam) already in place, can handle 400-500kg of bi-folding doors! If not, we will need to retro-fit before the windows can be ordered and then wait 4-6 weeks for window manufacture.

If you look above our balcony, you see this kind of...pagoda? It is a wooden structure that my MIL put in place (my husband assures me the house looks better with something there so we will need to replace it). I am not sure how many years it has been there (possibly up to 20) but it is now leaning forward. In this picture that means it is leaning towards the right of the photo. It could theoretically fall off and land on a car/person down on our driveway so we've found someone to take it down. He will level it off at the height of the balcony railing/balustrade. His price is $800 and could be done any time, we're waiting to hear when he is free.

We have a few issues to work out in regards to the balcony. Where the pagoda joins the house, is a poorly placed rain gutter. TWICE in its life, it has let water back into the house and caused about $8000 of damage to our wood flooring each time. So we need to find a way of roofing over this balcony that creates a peak (as mentioned above, it suits the house) but draws water further AWAY from the house. 

We are planning to acid wash these tiles (as they are still firmly grouted) and tile over the top with a tile that isnt porous nor slippery. To do this properly, the balustrading needs to come off but it is very dangerous to have it off for long (dogs, cats or children could fall off and there is a one story drop to concrete below). So we need to get the tiling and balustrade replaced at the same time (or as close together as possible). But there is one other issue. Right behind where I am standing, is exactly the same as the far end of the balcony you can see. Two panes of balustrade. At the end behind me, we will be putting in a gate instead, because it will soon lead down two steps to our new (soon to go in) pool. So we can't do the tiling/balustrade until we have the plans back from our pool engineer so we know what kind of gate we need there (pool gate/any kind of gate?). Those plans were due in two days ago but haven't arrived.

Are you beginning to see how renovations work? LOTS of timing issues! So let me summarise this post in the way I see this should be happening:

1. Structural engineer to assess whether bi-folds can go in the existing support or if we need to retrofit a beam
2.  (maybe) retrofit beam
3. Order bi-fold windows for the lounge (will be Jarrah-a dark red hard wood)
4. Pool engineering plans arrive and we: 1. check what kind of gate we need on the end of the balcony and 2. send pool plans to council for approval
5. Remove overhead pagoda
6. Remove balcony balustrade
7. Acid wash and re-tile the balcony
8. Replace balustrade with (pool?) gate
9. Repair lounge floors (damaged from last gutter leak)

*edited to add infobelow*

This is the downstairs area of our house. The wood is Jarrah so I'm sharing it with you to give you an idea of the wood we will be using up above it on the second story (for the bi-folds).