That 70's Kitchen

Is still very much a 70's kitchen! I know it's been weeks and I had hoped that this post would be more "look at our amazing kitchen" and less "ummm we haven't really done anything". So let go of any expectations right here, it's still the ugliest thing ever although there are a few little changes that don't exactly change the overall effect but are definitely baby steps towards something better. Tiny baby steps. So with that disclaimer out of the way, here's what's been happening.

As a reminder, this is what we started with (yes, I'm rehashing this picture just to make it seem like we've achieved more in the past month. I know it's cheating). The wallpaper was removed on day one, and then we got the fibro underneath ripped off.

 

The panels underneath were in terrible condition so we got a builder to come in and add a new MDF panel in the kitchen, as well as adding cornices, belt rail and skirting boards to match the rest of the house and board up the exposed electrical wires. We got a couple of quotes for the work and they were both approximately $1700, including materials. Mr Fox really would have liked to have had a crack at this work himself but it would have required him buying a nail gun and a circular saw, and apart from how much that would cost... I really prefer him alive.

Here are a couple of before and after shots.

 You can see here that we moved the dining table into the kitchen to use as a temporary pantry once all the cupboards were removed.

There are a few issues with the work that was done, for starters removing the old cornices made one of the old walls actually shift a little bit, leaving a gap in one corner. Seriously it won't be long before our house is more 'no more gaps' than 'actual walls'. Overall we're so happy with how it looks and how well the cornice, belt rail and skirting boards match the others in the house. We're trying so hard to keep costs down, so even though we had the option of getting these features matched exactly and made for us which would have been amazing, that was never a realistic option (especially once I put my foot down with the nail gun and saw). We wanted a low cost option that is readily available when we need replacements or features for other rooms and these look great. You'd never know they didn't match perfectly unless you were looking for the differences.

It's just the back wall that has been replaced, the other wall has plenty of nail holes and old chipping paint but if nothing else, we're pretty handy with the sandpaper at this point so we can get those ready to paint. The belt rail isn't just for decoration either. These old vj walls don't have any studs in them, they're literally just held on at the top and bottom. Before we added the belt rail the kitchen/bedroom adjoining wall actually had a little movement if you pushed on it, so unlike the picture rail that is purely for decorative purposes, the belt rail stabilizes walls. We need to have one on at least one side of each internal wall so by adding it in the kitchen we can leave it off this wall in the bedroom. So there you go, Introduction to Belt Rails.

We also splashed out and got ourselves a snazzy little island bench this week. Even though it seems like there's a decent amount of (bright yellow) bench space, the cupboards are so low that they're a bit awkward to use, and they're almost all taken up with the microwave, toaster and kettle (obviously necessary) and the coffee machine (non-negotiable).

We LOVE this island bench, it was hand made for us and only $450. The shelves underneath are so handy - they'll probably be used for a pantry until we sort something out (yet to be determined). We just need to get a couple of little stools, you can just see there's space on the other side to tuck them in, which will make it a cosier little room since it's tucked away from the living room. The next step is to slap on some paint and we'll have half a kitchen that looks gorgeous! Let's just agree to not discuss the other half for a while. There's no money to replace it at this stage, and it's not in good enough condition to fix it up so for now we'll focus on the nice new wall and pretty island bench... ok?

Walls come down

Asbestos removal day! Well, the start of the long process of asbestos removal. It's exciting to be getting started with this after learning that our house is infested with the stuff. We purchased the house knowing that the back study area had it in the walls and ceiling, but now we know it's also in the kitchen, bathroom, spare bedroom, and both front sunrooms.

We've engaged a company who specialize in this kind of work to come and take the fibro away. We're allowed to do small amounts of asbestos removal ourselves and it would have worked out cheaper, but after reading about the process and the stress we've already had over these walls we decided to leave it to the pro's. For this stage of the work we're removing three walls, and having it all disposed of including the two pantry cupboards which are attached to the wall, and also the small kitchen cabinet in between them. The white cupboards on the other wall are just screwed on and will be taken under the house and recycled as storage (probably for Mr Fox's precious and fast growing collection of super masculine tools). This is costing us about $1500 which sounds like a lot for three sheets of fibro, but it will be worth it to not worry about appropriate handing and the potential health impacts if we were to bugger it up.

So Mr Fox and I met with the asbestos removal guys in the morning and left while they unrolled acres of black plastic sheeting in the kitchen feeling glad it wasn't us, and mighty excited (and even more nervous) to see what we'd find when we got home.

Kitchen: Before and After!

Kitchen Before: Two non-matching pantry cupboard things to dump.
Fibro wall behind to be ripped off.



Kitchen After: Original, unpainted vj boards!
Fridge against the wall instead of floating in the middle
of the room. Happy times for the fridge.

 

Kitchen After: Empty wall where white cabinets were.

Bedroom Before and After!

Spare Bedroom: This is how much wallpaper steaming
happened before we got nervous about
what was underneath.

Bedroom After: Scary electrical wire hanging.
Hole that goes all the way through to the kitchen.
Not one, but two shades of ancient green paint.

So, walls are out. We have less asbestos in the house. We also have three very ugly walls. We're happy with how it all went, and relieved to find normal vj walls underneath ready for us to work with. There are a couple of issues: there's a hole that goes all the way through from the kitchen to the bedroom like a creepy little peep hole, and also a horizontal slice into the wall on the kitchen side. The hole can be patched while we putty up the thousand or so screw holes in the bedroom wall, but the cut will be harder to disguise. We're going to (attempt) to put in a new vj wall on the kitchen side just to make it easier, and then paint both rooms to match the areas we've already done. The other thing will be getting skirting boards and picture rails to match what's left in the rooms, but that is a challenge for another day. I was hoping to put up pictures of the completed rooms in this post, but it's going to take weeeeks of work to finish.

The kitchen will look like a disaster area for a few months yet while those yellow benches still exist, but I'm so excited about finishing the second bedroom and actually being able to have people stay over! It's basically been a dumping ground since we moved in (not the only one!) and I just want to make it nice, probably still a dumping ground, but a less obvious one.

So that's where we're up to. This weekend we're getting the sandpaper out again and bulk buying the putty - and coffee!





Curtain Adventures

Honestly, who sells a house and takes the curtains?! One of the things I haven't discussed yet, is the windows in our house. Or more to the point, the total lack of curtains/blinds/anything to stop the neighbours seeing everything. When we bought the house it wasn't an issue for us, we discussed options for blinds and curtains, and basically agreed it was a good opportunity for us to choose something that we - or at least one of us - liked : )

I've been thinking though, who sells a house without at least some old blinds, or in this case, some flowery curtains from the 60's? The house was tenanted before it was sold, surely they had something then? All I can think is that whatever was previously used for modesty actually brought down the value of the house even further, which is really, really saying something.

When we moved in we realised it was a bit of an issue, but we managed for a few days just using some strategically balanced beach towels over the bedroom window. The rest stayed bare a while longer. The towels looked as trashy as they sound, but in our defence that window doesn't face the street, and disturbingly, one of our neighbours uses bright red sheets instead of curtains on every. single. window. *shudder* So by comparison our towels looked quite nice!

Before: Empty windows

I think we initially had visions of installing blinds in house particularly in the living areas, but at this stage the budget just wasn't going to stretch that far. Especially with the odd shapes of our windows - no two are the same. We agreed on curtains and last week charged down to Curtain Wonderland to see what we could get for as little coin as possible. It turns out that ready made (read: affordable) curtains don't come in the range of colours I expected. We (read: I) wanted some colour in the curtains to add some brightness to otherwise very pale rooms. Also, like with choosing the paint colour, I don't want too many neutral colours to clash against each other. I really wanted a very pale aqua colour, but the closest match we found at CW was quite a bright blue. Not exactly what I'm going for. So with our expectations set a bit lower we charged off to Spotlight. We had great luck: curtains in a nice (not earth shatteringly nice, but we're going for affordable first) duck egg colour. As we have two larger windows in the living and main bedroom, and two smaller windows in the dining and second bedroom, we're only using two sets of curtains all together. So for both sets on sale we paid $160, and another $100 or so for hooks and curtain rings.

After (but before splitting the curtains)

We used them with one curtain on each window, until our Sewing Guru (my Ma) came to visit with sewing machine in tow. She's a whiz and seems to be resigned to the fact that I'm not even capable of sewing a hem. It took a while to cut all the curtains, pin them and then sew the new hem in place, but my sister and I did what we could to help and it was so much cheaper than getting custom curtains, which we were quoted $600 each for. EACH! Ma also showed me how to pleat the curtains to make them look pretty (I seriously don't have a clue), and the final look is great and really fits in the house nicely. The colour is almost exactly what I wanted and I'm glad I took the advice of Sewing Guru and didn't choose curtains with patterned fabric, it's nice and simple this way and easy to accessorise with other colours if we choose to one day.

After we got the curtains finished, we also put our first hook in the wall for the clock (below). This is a big deal after so many rentals and making our pictures fit on the existing hooks in each house. It is actually super easy to use command hooks to stick on and remove when we leave a house, but it still felt soooo good to just decide where we wanted a hook and not ask for permission. My sister gave me this clock about eight years ago and it has probably been dragged to as many rentals since. It finally has it's very own hook (it doesn't have a battery yet though, if you're wondering about the interesting time on it, one thing at a time)! I'm also pretty sure that Mr Fox enjoyed an opportunity to use his (borrowed) drill.

Bad photo of the curtains, but you get the idea.

Meanwhile, we've been deciding how and when to deal with the fibro asbestos in the house. We can't afford to redo the whole kitchen yet, but we really need to fit the fridge into the room better, so this week we're having two walls in the kitchen removed, and the one fibro wall in our spare bedroom. Now it feels like the reno is really starting!

The Painting

Hello! We survived! Here’s how the rest of the painting adventure went:

The priming was definitely one of the most time consuming jobs imaginable. The house was so old that we needed to make sure that all our hard work wasn’t for nothing and so we primed all the trim, any vj panels that had been sanded down to bare wood, and the first coat of the ceiling. It took a ridiculously long time (actually, so long that Mr Fox suggested he really liked the primer colour and maybe one coat of primer was all the place needed. And I agreed). 

Priming Complete

Once that was done we really started steaming ahead (ahem, in comparison to the previous few days). The time spent priming the architraves and ceiling paid off when we just needed one coat of white to make the ceilings look spectacular. It's a bit hard to see in this photo because we finished this job LATE at night, but trust me, our ceilings look hot.

Ceiling Done!

And then, we finally, FINALLY got to crack open the main event: our wall colour. Now, the colour was chosen quite quickly, but the decision followed many conversations about the right shade of neutral. The guys at Resene straight away pointed out the shades of Resene Tea, and it was exactly what we wanted. We got a test pot of the Half Tea, and straight away decided on the Quarter Tea. It’s a fresh shade that isn’t too grey or too brown or too close to white or too anything. We wanted something that wouldn’t make it feel too hot in winter, and definitely wouldn’t clash with the collection of neutral tone furniture we have. As soon as we started cutting in the walls with it, we were so happy with how it looked. Two coats later and the rooms were really looking good. The final touch was the enamel white for the trim which really transformed the windows and especially the pelmets which were previously a delightful brown (vomit). The final touch (and best in my opinion, since it took me eight hours to complete on Friday night) was the skirting boards. Changing them from dirty pink to shiny white really made the room look amazing. It was totally worth the back ache I had the next day! Here's a before and after to show the difference:

Before

After! So happy with the final look.

With the removalists arriving the next morning, I’m sad to say we didn’t really get to finish the painting. So basically, we didn't really get close. The doorways didn’t get any paint, and there are a few areas that need a touch up and now will have to wait a couple of weeks while we work on getting the house unpacked. On a positive note, our removalists were AMAZING! One was a kiwi, and once he and Mr Fox got through the obligatory process of “where you from back home, bro?” “do you know - insert name - ?” The bro- per-minute” rate was out of control and they absolutely smashed out the packing. As you can see with some furniture it's really starting to look more like a home and less like an abandoned slum, so happy days bro!

With some furniture (and unpainted entry in the background!)

We also got the results from our asbestos testing this week….positive. Sigh. We really need to remove some kitchen cupboards so our fridge can actually sit against the wall and to do that we’ll need professionals to manage the asbestos. Since it’s already quite a lot of work, we think it’s probably best to just remove all the asbestos in the kitchen at once, along with the kitchen. So, in addition to unpacking our three gazillion moving boxes, finishing up the painting and all the other adventures that come with moving (new phone line, getting internet, redirecting mail; all the fun jobs) we’re now planning a kitchen renovation. To be continued.

It’s so incredibly good to finally be living in our own house!!

The Panic

Pop the champers – we’re homeowners!! Settlement went perfectly to plan and on Friday afternoon we picked up the keys and had one blissful evening walking through our new house and imagining all the changes we were going to make. We really should have enjoyed that time more…

On Saturday morning the work started. With only seven days before the removalists arrive and an entire house to sand, prep, prime and paint, the pressure was really on. Luckily we had some fabulous, worth-their-weight-in-gold family and friends who came and got us started with the work. I’m pretty sure that if they hadn’t arrived, Mr Fox and I would still just be sitting on the floor crying about how impossible it all was. In hindsight, we should have been more worried. On the first day there were eight of us, on Sunday we were down to four. Last night it was just the two of us, and at 8.30pm – 36 hours after getting the keys, we had only just finished sanding, filling holes in walls, more sanding and an epic clean up. By 1am there was primer on the walls, but not all the walls. With four more days until we move in the panic is starting to set in.

 

 

The time pressure hasn’t been the only problem – on other teensy little issue that arose right after we finished stripping wallpaper – asbestos. Or maybe I should say suspected material that could potentially contain asbestos. We already knew that there was asbestos in the study, and we very intelligently closed the door to deal with that one later. What we didn’t expect was to strip (the world’s ugliest) wallpaper and find sheets of something suspiciously fibro-ish. Cue panic stations. I’m still face palming about not investigating before we started work on the wallpaper in the kitchen and the spare bedroom. There’s still a paper layer over the board (Masonite? Fibro? We still don’t know) and none of the boards are broken. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t go home on Saturday night and spend a loooong time with Dr Google looking up asbestosis. We’ve booked in the pro’s to come and have a look and take samples on Friday, so obviously those rooms won’t be painted when we move in, but that’s ok.

As for the rest of the week, we do our eight hours at work, put in eight more hours with the paint brush and wish that there were more than 24 hours in a day. Tonight we really, really want need to get the ceiling done to have a chance of finishing by Friday night. Now, time to bulk by the caffeinated beverages and smash out the rest of this week.

Meet Our Fox Den

Hello!! Welcome to my little blog! My name is Margaret and I should probably start by mentioning that whilst this is planned as a blog to capture the highlights of a house renovation, my husband (Mr Fox) and I aren't exactly experienced renovators (unless bellowing advice at contestants on The Block counts, in which case we're seasoned experts).

Mr Fox and I have been trying to buy a house for a long time now and after years of job uncertainty, crashed contracts, more rentals than I'd like to think about and what feels like thousands of inspections, we have actually done it - we're the proud new owners of a mighty large mortgage! Our little cottage is a not-so-grand old Queenslander, built in the 1920's.

We initially fell in love with her when we realised:
1. She's right around the corner from where we live now
2. We could actually afford her
3. She's right around the corner!!!! Hello!!

We love the suburb we've been renting in and really thought that we'd never afford a house without moving considerably further from Brisbane than we are now. I knew when this house was advertised that there must be something wrong to be affordable to us. Our first inspection was at dusk and with the power at the house already switched off, within a few minutes of arriving we were all using torches. In hindsight, this was probably a very clever move by the agent - it's a lot harder to see where the wood borers have been when you can barely see where you're going!! Mr Fox and I fell deep in L-O-V-E with the location, the work that needs to be done at the house started to seem more do-able. The next day we made an offer, and by that night the deal was complete.

Here's what we got: two bedrooms, a kitchen straight from the 70's complete with yellow bench tops and very stylish flowery wall paper, one bathroom, and a decent size yard. The house is actually in pretty good condition, but there's still a mighty long list of jobs that need to be done.

We haven't moved in yet but the first part of the transformation has already been decided. The entire interior is getting new paint! The current colour scheme of pale pink with dark pink trim is just a teensy tad outdated, and the years as a rental has left it... well, it's gross. The house still has the original vj walls. Don't know what they are? Neither did we... turns out that while they're a gorgeous original feature of Queenslander's that look fantastic when cared for, they're a real pain in the backside to repaint. And we haven't even started yet!!

Right now we're busy booking removalists and cleaners and keeping our fingers crossed that settlement goes as smoothly as we're assured it will. Wish us luck with the move!!!