End of Week Two

It's been a productive week for the demolition team. 

 This was the hallway, with entry to bathroom and 2nd bedroom down LHS

 Ceilings gone throughout

 Looking from old hallway through 2nd bedroom, bathroom and third bedroom

A new concept in open air Toilet, Laundry and pantry

 Checkout the old boiler!

Demolition - Week 1

A full skip was taken away on the weekend so there has been quite a bit of progress this week.  Builders were only on site for one day but it's amazing how much they got through.  Check out the photos below.  They're back at it again today so will be interested to see what the next step is.  We're thinking they must be getting close to propping to allow some walls to come down.  I do love this bit of the project.

Standing in the entry near the front doors

The old lounge (will be the guest room)

Not much of the kitchen left

Green X denotes a wall to be removed

Looking down the existing hallway

Bathroom

Looking into one of the bedrooms.  This will become our WIR.

The master bedroom.  Big cupboards have been ripped out from this corner.

Looking into existing dining room, soon to be sitting room

And they're off!

Lots has happened in the last week.  The structural engineer came on site to take a look at our wonky roof and declared that it could be fixed/supported with wood rather than steel, which was a massive relief.  It will still mean some additional cost but nothing like it would have been if further steel was required.

We received the demolition quote which was all in order and so yesterday we signed the commencement of the demolition contract.  The builder is going to do all of the demolition plus some of the structural elements while we await final pricing and signing of the full contract.

On the way to school this morning, we noticed that the fence around our house was open and there were banging noise and workman ripping stuff out.  As quick as that we've started!  We didn't realise it would happen quite so quickly.  This afternoon I happened to drive past (yeah right!) and saw that there is a skip in the driveway that is quickly filling up with old bits of kitchen.  You know when the skip arrives that it's really happening.

The last mile

It's been a little while since I posted, largely because not a lot has happened the last few weeks.  It has taken a considerable amount of time for the redesign of our roof and some other bits and pieces to be completed.  A lot of the delay has been because of the inordinately slow turn around from the structural engineer.  Apparently the large, expensive commercial project take priority.  Go figure!

We happy now with the new flat roof that has replaced our previous pitched one.  It has driven a lot of complexity out of the build and with that hopefully lots of dollars too.  We've also got to a final point on the cellar/ensuite/pantry/laundry which we're quite content with now.  The cellar at one stage was going to be too small and end up just being a large cupboard so we fixed that by shaving a bit of the ensuite.  If you're going to have a cellar may as well do it right!

The builder is still gung ho about starting this week...well that was until last Friday.  He went to have a look in the roof space in preparation for the demolition and he said and I quote "I'm surprised the roof hasn't collapsed by now".  There is a meeting onsite today at 2pm with the builder, architect and structural engineer to discuss how the roof can be propped during demolition.  And, I suspect to decide whether the entire roof structure needs to be replaced.  Not looking forward to the phone call about that one.  I can't believe we haven't even started and we're contemplating having to move into our contingency money already.  

Still, we're not letting it get to us.  We're still really excited about getting the demolition started.   Then we'll have a few more weeks of iterating the overall contract so that new build can start in earnest after the Christmas break.

Good news and the squatter attempts to move in

We had some good progress on the renovation this week.  The builder as stated the 3rd week of November for the beginning of demolition.  That is great news.  We still have a bucket load of things that need to be sorted out by then but we're excited that the builder is good to go in only a couple of weeks.

In other news, the house across from our place was sold the weekend before last for a bumper outcome.  We have therefore made quite a sizeable paper profit so we're very excited about that.  We also had a real estate agent knock on our door (remember, our rental is in the same street as the house we're renovating) as they are looking for other people that may be willing to sell in the street.  I also had a neighbour ring the bell to see if we know anything about our landlord and their willingness to sell.  It is Hot Property in this street at the moment!

A side impact of the house selling this past weekend is that there has been a squatter living on their verandah for the past year or two.  The actual house as not been inhabited for at least 10 to 15 years and so this lady has set up her abode on the enclosed verandah which is quite private from the street.  We have all been quite interested to see what would happen once the house sold.  Apparently, straight after the auction, once the Sold sticker went up, she ripped it right back off.  It was put back up and she ripped it right back off again.  This week I saw a guy spray painting the word 'Sold' on the sign.  He must be the new owner.  So it has been intrigue after intrigue.

We have been a little concerned that the lady squatter would move her digs across the street to our house.  Our tenant friends moved out at the beginning of October so the place has been empty for a few weeks.  It is only a few weeks more before demolition commences.  But she doesn't know that.

This afternoon we got a call from one of our neighbours saying that the squatter was moving her mattress and other goods and chattels across the road over to our place!  It seems the real estate agent leant on her pretty heavily and so she made a show of moving her gear onto our front verandah.  He must have then left and so when I got a chance to go down to the house she had moved back to her original house.  The poor lady is obviously not well so I hope that there can be some better solution worked out for her.  I know that an outreach agency has been trying to make contact with her.

In the meantime, we have ordered a fence to be erected across the front of our house.

Getting there slowly but surely

Things have slowed down a little bit in the design stakes.  The architect has been on holiday and is now busily finalising the latest version of our plans.  We've also had a beautiful week off on the gorgeous Sunshine Coast.  I think we managed to get the only 4 day stretch of sun they'd seen in a long time.  So very thankful for that.

But now it back to business time.  Below you'll see a new version of what our back extension will look like.  We're now going with a flat roof rather than the former pitched one.  It works out to be much simpler design from an engineering perspective and of course that means a lot of cash saved.  We still need to work out the back section.  I'm not happy that there are no eaves so we are awaiting a further revision to see what suggestions the architect has.

Timeline wise it looks more likely that we'll start in November now.  The builder will get a finalised set of documents by the end of October for him to price.  Then we'll just need the building permit and a signed contract.  Simple....sigh.

Based on our understanding of the timeline, I requested a 1 year extension on our current lease which would get us (hopefully) close to the finish date.  However, because of the frail health of the landlord we have only been offered 6 months.  So long as the landlord is well (read: alive), they are more than happy to have us stay longer.  We are sending her all our good vibes and positive thoughts.

Chop Chop

It's been a roller coaster week.  We have been trying not to get too depressed around the prices we've received.  But last night we got through some feedback on costs savings from 2 of the builders.

One builder has pulled out.  He has just won 3 jobs and wouldn't be able to start our job until March.

The good news is that the 2 builders came back with a bucket load of cost savings based on the list we sent them.  It really cheered us up to see that we are now getting very, very close to a price we can move on.  One of the big changes we've instituted is to remove the area along the side where we were building out to the boundary.  This is the wall that has caused all of the angst with the next door neighbour.  We have looked at how to redesign so that we work within the existing structure of the house.  It means a smaller laundry and cellar.  It also means the Butler's Pantry is really more of a walk in pantry.  The ensuite has changed (but I actually prefer it) and strangely the Walk in Robe gets bigger!  Overall, we are quite happy with the outcome and if it saves us money and we no longer need to deal with the neighbour then win-win.

After conversations with the architect today we have narrowed our selection down to one builder and we're now going to work with him to whittle the last few dollars out of it.

And guess what?  He can start at the end of October.  I can't believe that my October plan might actually come to fruition.

Ch-Ching

Tender quotes came in on time last Friday afternoon.  Within a short space of time our architect sent us a comparison work sheet for all of the costs.  After I fell off my chair we then looked at them in detail!

Unfortunately, despite all of our cost cutting measures during the remainder of the design process, the prices have come back in the same as the preliminary costs.  Not quite what we had in mind.

So the process begins to shave at least 20% off the prices to enable us to start.  I guess at least with some real costs in front of us it has galvanised us into action around making some key decisions that will influence the price.  We're trying very hard not to compromise the overall design but it's proving to be quite tough.

We now have quite a long list of items that is going to be presented back to the builders around cost savings.  This will certainly work out who is keen for the work.  Stay tuned.

Update

This is the last week for our builders to work on their tender pricing.  It's been busy having various builders and their sub-contractors running through our house.  Great that they are taking the time, so hopefully that bodes well for the final prices.  I have a number in my head and I'm just praying that the total price is close to that.

As for the neighbour....her objection was bundled up and sent to the Council as per procedure.  There has been a bit of back and forth with the Council and now we sit back and wait.  Will hopefully have their decision by the end of next week.


Below are some 3D images of what our eventual house will look like externally.

And no, we don't own a Porsche.  Just the architect's sense of humour.

View from the side.  This side faces North.

This would be the view if you were standing in our neighbour's yard (not the objecting one) and there was no fence between us.

And this is the other side.  Again, this doesn't show the fence, although you can see the bit of wall at the front which is the contentious point with our neighbour on this side.  What this does show is our long glass window in the open plan area that also doubles as a splashback.  We will be able to look out onto some lush foliage and a boldly coloured fence.  Just need to pick a colour!

And finally an elevated shot depicting the rear of the house.  You can see our garage door which is accessed via a ROW.

Glass magnetic whiteboard

My architect recently showed me this new whiteboard product.  It's called Chat Board.  It's made of glass and the big news is that it's magnetic.

In our new place we have designed a workstation area in the walk in pantry.  This is a place which will be used for all the messy stuff that normally clutters up the kitchen bench tops such as junk mail, correspondence, kid's school notices and the like.  It will also be a place where we can plug in phones and laptops all the while keeping them tucked away.  My plan is to have a big white board area that I can use for calendar notes, shopping lists and anything else that might normally end up on the fridge.

So I'm quite excited to see that I don't necessarily have to end up with a boring white slab of board but instead can now choose from a range of colours.

At the moment I would love it in bright red just for something nice and bold.  I'm thinking those white markers that write onto glass will be just the ticket for a very functional and good looking work area.  Will wait now to see what the price is like.  Unfortunately, we need a custom size (isn't it always the way!) so I'm not going to get too excited until I see the price.

The inevitable objection

So, just as we thought, the neighbour has submitted an objection to our side wall. The most pleasing thing (if there can be anything) was that the objection was submitted well before the deadline. So from a timing perspective we didn't have to wait the full 3 weeks. Despite the shadow diagrams showing absolutely no impact on the neighbour's window she has used her rights to object to us building it - fair enough. She also went one step further and 'put us on notice' that she refuses to grant permission to us replacing any part of the fence! Not sure why this is. It's not a particularly new or well maintained fence and it would be done at our expense. Anyhoo, I think we can avoid any fence replacement and that might cheer her up a bit. Not sure that we're going to be life long friends. I just hope that we can get through this next approval stage and get building. From here we have to wait up to 3 weeks for the Council to review all of the information and hand down their decision. Seems ridiculous that this couldn't have all been done at the same time as our last submission. In the meantime, the builders have been reviewing our tender and we had one builder come and have a look at the place last Friday. They have 2 more weeks before the resulting prices are due. We are hanging on with our finger nails to an October start.

Tender issued

Last Thursday our tender was formally issued to builders. They have 3 weeks to respond so we're hoping they get to it!

Our neighbour has until 7th September to respond to our request regarding our wall on her boundary. If we hear nothing then we're all good but if she objects we then have to wait up to a further 3 weeks to get a ruling from Council which could then be further appealed. It would seem to us that if she objects we could be in for quite a delay which would really put in doubt whether we would be able to get building this year. We're very conscious of getting to close to the ramp down pre-Xmas so are fervently hoping this doesn't happen.

Just when you thought it was safe....

So it turns out there's another twist in the planning process that we need to go through. Apparently, the building surveyor doesn't review the plans until a Planning Permit has been issued. So, now that we have our permit, the building surveyor has taken a look and informs us that we need to ask the neighbour for permission to build our side wall as it's within 3 metres of her north facing window. Ok, fair enough...I just wish I understood this process a bit more so that we were more aware of what we have to go through. The neighbour gets 14 days in which to object or consent, then Council gets up to 3 weeks to make their decision. Sigh! More time to wait. If there is an objection then there's a possibility of further appeals but I'm not even going to think about that right now.

In the meantime, we've agreed with the architect that we're going to move ahead to tender this week and hopefully by the time the builder's have had their time to price and we've gone through our various iterations and chosen a builder we will hopefully have our permit! Our October start date is looking decidedly shaky but still possible. We are going to stay glass half full on this one for now.

Today we went and did some further selection and research into sanitary ware and appliances. There's a great E&S Trading showroom that has opened in Moorabbin. It has all the major brands of kitchen appliances, tapware, baths, basins, whitegoods, dishwashers. You name it, they've got it. We compiled our massively long list with a sales guy and he's now going to get back to us with their 'best price'. Should be interesting. Our plan is to buy all of this stuff ourselves and avoid the builder mark up.

Planning Permit has arrived!

After a very long wait we finally have our planning permit. We weren't sure whether our neighbour was going to appeal the original decision so had to wait a very long 21 days and then another 2 weeks of further bureaucracy before it was finally issued.

We popped the cork on a bottle of champers last night to celebrate. Nothing can hold up the start of our build now unless it's us taking too long to review documents and make decisions.

Next stop is the tender. The architects have been working furiously to get all of the paperwork together. So after some review time we will be ready to put it out to the 4 builders that we have lined up. Hopefully we have changed or pulled out enough things that the budget will be more in the range we are hoping for. The timeframe also is the other unknown.

Yesterday, I was at the house with the architect to review a few details for the demolition spec. It turns outs we are really only keep about 5 walls of the house (3 external and 2 internal), the rest is getting bull dozed. This house really won't know what hit it. There won't be much left at all to begin with.

Planning approval

Yay! Finally heard back from the Council (after repeated phone calls and follow ups). They have issued a Notice of Decision with a whole bunch of conditions. Took us a few read throughs before we finally understood it all. So, basically they are planning to give us a permit so long as we remove the widened driveway and the skylights (we'll appeal on this later in the process). We now have to wait a further 20 days to see if there are any appeals lodged to VCAT about the decision.

I called our neighbour a couple of days ago to see if she would get together with and discuss her objection letter. She said that as the Council had made their decision she didn't see the need. Which leaves us in a bit of limbo as we're not sure whether she plans to lodge an appeal or not. In any case, even if she does, her objection has no Heritage grounds so it would be thrown out. Problem is we would have to wait 4 weeks for a time slot at VCAT for them to tell her that. We're hoping that she is smart enough not to pursue things any further.

So it's a tentative celebration. We haven't broken out the bubbly but we are very close.

Design has continued. Last week we saw the first of the concepts around colour, floor coverings, tiles etc. It's all looking great. We weren't much of a fan of the initial concepts provided around the kitchen but I'm sure with a few more iterations we'll be getting close.

Our architect says that we're still looking good for the documentation to be completed by the end of July. I'd say we're probably pushing this a bit. There's still quite a lot to got through. Haven't even started talking about electricals and there are a billion and one little things that we need to be sure of.

Today we went and visited friends of ours who have just moved in after a big reno on their place. It looks fantastic and we got a lot of ideas that we might use for ourselves. We also got the names of the 2 builders that they used (and highly recommend). I'll ring them next week and fingers crossed we may be able to add them to our tender roster.

We're still trying to work out what material to use on our kitchen benchtop. With the benchtop being 3.6m there really aren't many choices that wouldn't require some sort of join. We really don't want to have to deal with trying to join something like Caserstone after our experiences in the warehouse. As much as we love the surface I really think that could be problematic. So the options are to redesign the bench to design for two smaller pieces of Caeserstone (maybe a two level bench somehow) or go with Corian. What we really need is to be able to see some decent installations of Corian rather than just a small sample. We were discussing this with our friends today and they remarked 'Don't they use Corian at McCafe's?' We reckon they do, but unfortunately after a trip to the nearest McDonalds and a strawberry thickshake for the kids we found only Caeserstone. We will continue to visit Micky D's till we find something!

Detailed Design

The last few weeks we have been knee deep in detailed design. With the floorplan largely complete we have moved onto each internal room. This gets us down to the detail of wardrobe placements drawers, basin etc etc.

It's been a fun process but it's amazing just the amount of decisions and choices that need to be made. All in all though it's been pretty painless. The kitchen has required a fair bit of thought. We have so much space, which is great, but we want to make sure that it is all still accessible and easy to use. For example, you don't want to have to walk into the Walk in Pantry just to put the kettle on. Our architect has come up with a great appliance cupboard solution for all of the commonly used items which we thing will work really well.

We're now getting to the point where we have to start deciding on things such as taps and basins. There are just so many to choose from but we really just need to buckle down and pick a few. That's my job for the next couple of weeks!

Still haven't heard from Council regarding our planning permit. They said it would be 2 weeks which would have made it arriving last week but as yet no news. Guess they're working on Council-time; a very elastic thing!

So far we're sticking to our schedule. Hoping to wrap up the majority of the detailed design by the end of this month and then use July for documenting and final decisions on colour scheme. Still heaps to do but I think we can make it.

Catch up

A bit to catch up on since my last post. The advertising sign has now come down and has been returned to the Council. Still will need to wait a few weeks before we hear what the outcome is. The architect will be giving them a call tomorrow to see what's happening. We're really hoping that we can have our application 'fast tracked'. Watch this space.

In the meantime, we've moved on with the detailed design component. We've now talked through the master and guest bedrooms, walk in robe, ensuite and yesterday we tackled kitchen, walk in pantry and laundry.

Lots and lots of decisions to make. Need to decide whether to go with a linear or triangluar workspace in the kitchen. We're much more familiar with triangular where the sink, fridge and stove make up a triangluar shape. Linear (where they're all in a row) might be all the rage in Europe right now but we suspect they'd choose triangular if they had the room.

I've also started the spreadsheet (it had to happen!) for tracking the appliances and prices that we're looking at. Definitely going with Ilve for oven and cooktop and Asko for the dishwasher. I've also started to look at taps and other bathroom fittings. There are just millions to choose from. In the interests of saving wherever we can we plan to buy many of these items ourself which means we won't have the builder's margin tacked on top.

Here's an image I found of a kitchen we really like. The sink is in the island bench with oven and cooktop on the back wall. I really like the additional splash of grey colour under the bench. Also, below is an image of a kitchen that shows what our glass splashback is going to be like. The splashback will stretch all the way along the open plan area in our house and have plants and a coloured fence to look out on. It should really keep the place light and bright.

Image courtesy: Collaroy Kitchens




Image courtesy: BG Architecture

How much?

Got an email through today from the architect summarising the costs that we received from the 2 builders. The good news was that both quotes were within 20K of each other, which gives some confidence that both estimates are reasonably reliable. The bad news was that they are quite a bit over our budget. Surprise!

We will need to shave quite a bit off to get them back into the realm of sensibility. In order to start that process we really need to get down into the detail of the design. This is a process we've been anxious to start for awhile now so it will be great to finally start to the see the interior take shape.

One things for certain, the pool is looking like it could hit the cutting room floor. We haven't fully made that decision yet but we will need to soon.

Below are some pictures we took the other day of the interior of the house. Our friends are living there at the moment so it's been interesting to see it with furniture rather than empty.

Soil investigation and other stuff

Today was a busy day at the house. The soil investigation was done. Nothing of great note was found other than the house it built on rubble. Don't really know if that's a good or a bad thing, doesn't sound brilliant does it?

The structural engineer also came through and had a good look at all of our cracks and our rollercoaster floor. On the whole though he thought the place was pretty solid which we were very happy to hear.

Finally, we have had a couple of builders providing order of magnitude costs for us based on a high level spec supplied to them by the architect. We just want to make sure the project is feasible and to provide us with some guidance for the next round of design. One of the builders wanted to have a look around the house so we headed over for another visit. Glad we live close by!

Sign is up

Yesterday, I went to the Council and picked up our advertising board. After quite a bit of mucking around I managed to wire it quite securely to our front fence. 11 properties are also going to get a letter in the mail to let them know what we are doing.

The sign stays up for 14 days. Fingers crossed that there are no objectors. Really we aren't doing anything that would cause any of our neighbours any concern so we are quietly hopeful that we can zip through this stage. Only time will tell.

We're really starting to get anxious to move on with the internal design of the house. Based on our very broad calculations we need to have all of the house spec'd and design by the start of July to stay on track for a move in next April. (I know...it takes a long time this house renovating stuff!).

This Friday we have someone coming to do the soil investigation and the first onsite meeting with the structural engineer.

Town Planning is submitted

The Town Planning submission has been sent to Council. This will provide all of the details to get approval for the Heritage-related changes that we're making to the house. We're not doing really much that requires approval. Widening of the front gate so we can a car off street more easily and gates on either side of the house. We're hoping that it will be a straight forward process, but you never can tell with these kind of things.

Next step is to get some preliminary costings from a couple of builders. The architect has put together a list of the all of the things that will affect cost as well as supplying a range of prices for items such as the pool etc. It will be very interesting to see what comes back.

The architect says they'd prefer to wait for the Town Planning permission to come back before moving on to the internal design. Not sure why we can't get started with some things now but in the meantime we're visiting lots of showrooms and compiling pictures of all sorts of things.

Further update on the renno front. The Town Planning submission is coming along should be completed by next week for early the week after. We now need to talk with the neighbours to let them know what we are planning on doing and see if we get any comments. The plans really don't impact anyone at all other than a few points where we're building out to the boundary. So fingers crossed that we don't get any objections. Once the submission is into Council the big yellow sign will go up and neighbours will have a formal opportunity to object or comment.

The architect also gave us a massive checklist that provides room by room all of the things that we now need to start considering. Everything from what sort of lock on the front door to where all of the power points will go. It's going to be a big job...but fun!

Moving forward

A quick meeting with the architect this week. Getting down to just a few details concerning the exterior of the house. We’re not still not sure where to put the pool. We were presented with another plan which provided more of a free flow between the various areas of the backyard but it would require a number of other compromise and it would really dominate the backyard (even more than the previous designs). So I think we’re going to stay with the current designs for now. Still thinking….

The good news is that we’re moving forward into Town Planning! Yay! This involves preparing a range of plans, elevations etc to describe our design and completing the appropriate documentation. Not sure how long this will take, forgot to ask that directly. But hopefully we’ll be able to push forward to Council soon and then get onto the internal detail.

Further refinement

Another Thursday another session with the architect. This time we went through the plans that had been further refined based on our feedback. We talked about 2 possible roof types for the rear of the house – a flat roof or pitched roof. As always, the one we liked, the pitched is likely to more pricey. We’re going to go with it for now and see how things go once we go out to tender.

Still debating on where we’ll put the pool. The latest round of plans has it turned 90 degrees to the way it was before. It still means that you have to go through the pool area to get to the grassed area. Not ideal. We’ll keep plugging away on it though and hope that we can land on the most elegant option sometime soon.

On the weekend we went to have a look at some pools. Firstly, to get some idea of sizes and secondly to see whether the fibreglass pools look any good. We have agreed now that 7 x 4m is the way to go. The extra width is important, especially with the kids wanting to jump in. From a materials perspective the fibreglass looked ok. Ballpark price is about $40K though. Given I thought that concrete would be around $60K then the savings aren’t as big as what we had thought they might be.

Let's talk money

Met with the architect today where we reviewed our feedback and had a look at some potential changes to the designs. The most significant decision was to take the 2 storey option off the table and move forward with the 1 storey design. Based on some back of the envelope costs the 2 storey options would have blown our budget to smithereens. Even the 1 storey option is beyond it but with some further iterations hopefully we can work on that.

It’s still going to be a big house. About 270sqm of undercover area. In thinking about it more, I’m quite happy not to have to be traipsing up and down stairs. We’ve done enough of that in our time.

Design - Round 2

So after much discussion, measuring and even Simon downloading some drawing software to do some design of his own we sent off a page of notes to the architects. Hope they’re ready for us!

Our biggest concern right now is the cost. We love the 2 storey option but we need to be realistic about what we can afford. Next week’s meeting will be of great interest.

It's starting

Well after a long wait over Christmas our renovation plans have finally kicked off.

Met with the architects on Thursday and they had a range of different conceptual designs to look at. Apparently they had about 16 options and then whittled it down to 4. Two are all on one level and two plans have an upstairs.

To give you the background, we have bought a 1930s art deco style California Bungalow. It hasn’t had much love in the last 10 or 20 years so it needs a lot of work. They do say to buy the worst house on the street don’t they? Well we’d be pretty close to that.

Our brief to the architects was for 4 bedrooms, 2/3 bathrooms, lounge, dining, kitchen, walk in pantry, rumpus and to maximise the amount of backyard space. We’ve also decided we are going to include a pool, so that’s in the brief now too.