15 December 2018
Two years, 2 months and twenty-two days after we bought our house, we received our consent from council to renovate. Mind you, the council consent only took about 3 of those months, the rest was process. Assessing, drawing, rejecting, arguing, re-drawing, agreeing, changing, etc etc. This is how it works when the national accident insurer is involved. We still have months before it will be complete and ready for us to move in, and to be honest, we are dragging ourselves toward the finish. Both of us are tired and just want it to be over.
I don’t know whether you remember what the original house look(ed) like (see post from August 2016 … even typing that makes me annoyed. seriously? two and a half years ago?) but it is a small 1950’s built bungalow on a rear section (also called a battle-axe block). The light blue house on the left in the picture is our neighbour and our new fence leaves us a little bit of room to plant something nice along the drive. Also, the driveway will be one long bit of concrete, not split like it is currently. The paved bits we have now are only just wide enough for my wheels, which is fine if I’m sober, it’s broad daylight and I’m paying attention. Realistically, I won’t always have all three of those things on my side.
The northeast corner of the house will include the kitchen and laundry. There is new double glazing and some pretty sweet appliances yet to be installed. There will be decking and ramps for my access at this end of the house.
Where Steve stood to take the picture, there will be a storage shed for sports gear (Steve’s bike and my hand cycle, for example). There will also be a garage of some description in that area.
Below is a picture inside from the dining room through to the lounge and front door. Part way along on the left hand side, you can see a little folded down shelf, which is the fold down door of our drinks cabinet – so ’50’s, so cute. The other good thing that you may be able to see here is the floor – they’ve pulled up all the carpet and the floorboards underneath are nice enough to polish. Hooray! easy rolling flat surfaces with no carpet!
I won’t spoil you with the other 60 ‘during’ pictures I got carried away with. I just wanted to share a bit of progress and let you know it has finally started in earnest. The builder’s contract says they will finish at the end of March, but I’m hopeful we will be in by Easter (end of April). The house warming party will be visible from space.