So in March we finally moved into our home (yeah!) and started renovations. I've never been through reno's before so this was a new experience for me. We went through with the builder exactly what we wanted and he assured us they'd be done in 2 weeks. Ha!
We moved all our stuff into one room, which became our complete and total living area. I mean it was our storage shed/kitchen/bedroom/loungeroom all in one! This is what it looked like ...but only for a week. Then we emptied our storage shed and filled up most of the spare space in the room. Plus, renos started, so we had builders going in and out constantly, dragging equipment and sooooo much dirt through. This was as tidy as it would ever look during renos.
Mostly, it looked like this....
It was so noisy with all the renos, we ordered TJ some child sized sound proof earmuffs.
This is where TJ had his naps...
We only had electricity on one side of the house, which included Tat's roo (which was having a wall moved so we couldn't use it anyway) the boys room, which is where we had all the kids sleeping on one bed while the rest of the room was stacked high with the rest of our furniture, the bathroom and tiolet, which had been gutted and was un-useable, and the living room which is where we all currently lived! So we had no electricity in out kitchen. Which meant i cooked for a family of 6 every night on a single camping bunsen-burner, on the DIRTY kitchen counter, in the dark. Lets just say the meals while we were renovating weren't very special at all. We would sit as a family on the floor with a towel over the dirty dirty floors (yes, we swept....but there was this never-ending cloud of reno dust/dirt that just NEVER went away! It would get on/over EVERYTHING!) and eat with our plates in our laps. There was no tiolet downstairs, so we often found ourselves out and about using public tiolets, and we had to plan our showers at mums house. Lets just say we weren't the cleanest family that month ;). I shipped the bigger kids between my mum and their dad's place as much as i could to save them from having to deal with the renos, but then it was hard not just having my family together. I felt like i missed out on so much of thier lives during this period!
So first step was to change where the stairs went, and get rid of the bar in what would be our diningroom/ sitting room.
We did keep the old bar top, and i'll show you why later.
This is what it looked like when they tore the bar out...
Then they tore out the wall (that backed onto the laundry). And then the stairs were gone all together!
The Mr and I had decided early on that we wanted to recycle and re-use as much as we could in the house. Much to the builders dismay, i made them tear out everything with care so we could re-use as much of the original wood as possible.
This is the view from the kitchen . Previously there was a wall there with the stairs on the other side.
It had looked like this (facing to the kitchen, stairs on my right). Such a waste of space!
This is the view of upstairs, which you can see as the floorings all gone!
We pulled out the stairs, keeping them in tack and re-used them, just moving them to the other side of the room, as opposed to having them sit right in the middle of the room. Alot of freinds and family questioned my decision to do this, as it was an expensive move. But if you could see what a difference it makes to that space! It allowed us to eventually fit in a dining table, which would have been difficult. Although i will post pictures, i not sure they ever really capture the what a difference the changes make!
This is the view from the other side of the room. My backs to the kitchen, stairs on my left. This is as tidy as it ever looked....it only got worse!
A couple of weeks in, they opened the roof in our kitchen. Not that we were really using the kitchen much, as there was no electricity in it, but with all the shaking from the reno's, our floor would be filled with rat and cockroach droppings from the roof. And at night you could hear the rats running around! We had traps and baits everywhere, but the house was infested when we bought it. And we were told there was no point getting a pest control till the renos were over. So we did our best to keep the pests at bay and the kitchen clean as possible, and did my best not to be grossed out every minute of every day ;P
Needless to say, i hardly ever put TJ on the ground. He had one tiny tiny little area set up with toys, and otherwise he was carried ALL DAY LONG. It was simply to unsafe to put him down. Which also meant he couldn't learn to crawl as most baby's his age did. So he was a late bloomer. And not surprisingly the first time he did crawl was on my friends very spacious, very clean floor! I became a master at doing everything and anything with only one hand, as i constantly has a baby in my arms. In fact, i remember when our floors were finished and most of the renos done, and i could finally put him down, i was AMAZED at how much easier my day was and how much more i could get done! Haha ;)
So thats Part 1 of the March installment of Home Sweet Home!
What a nightmare. Can see the benefit of the renos though, makes a big difference.
Posted by: lisavc | August 26, 2012 at 12:38 PM
That was one dark house! Looking so beautiful now though. Don't ya just love a before and after?! x
(Wanted to let you know too - have just done a blog post on making your own chalkboard paint using products here in Oz. Thought you might be interested - so easy and cheap. aussiemaven@blogspot.com.)
Posted by: AussieMaven | August 29, 2012 at 06:22 PM
Wow! Thats awesome! ill have a look :)Have a lovely weekend !
xx
Z
Posted by: zina | August 30, 2012 at 06:07 PM