Renovations from start to finish Part A

Now three-quarters of the way through the plastering. Putting the sheets up, is relatively straightforward. Although it is at least a two person job. Even with the sheet lifter, I bought for $400, I still need someone to help me lift the bigger sheets onto the lifter.

One of the harder parts of plastering is getting your basecoat right. If you muck this up, it is much harder to sand off than the top coat. Buying all the right tools helps, but if your worried just get someone into do the finish plastering. A professional is quick and neat.

When you put the top coat on, make sure it over coats the base coat by around 50mm. And then when you sand it, you need to feather the edges of it so it creates a smooth interface between boards and doesn't show up when you paint the place.

The pics here show some of the plastering we have done. I have included the before pic of one of the entries into the kitchen.

In reference to Number 14 in my list of tips for Owner Builders, make sure you read the instructions.

Eventhough I had correctly put plaster sheets before, I should have refreshed my memory.

I've attached pics of two sheets I put up, one the right way and one the wrong way.

Basically you put the glue everywhere throughout the middle of the sheets and are sparing with it towards the edges. And vice versa with the nails/screws. What I have done in the first photo, may down the track lead to the glue popping the nails out.

I mentioned earlier that I would try and post some pics to show how well the windows work.

We think they're great, but they definitely need blinds at night.

Things are moving at pace now!!!

Floors were sanded today. And they look a treat.

The timber is Northern Beech via Studley.

I got in a professional sander for a few reasons.

He uses a twin motor 6hp sander which runs 40 grit over the floor like its butter. But then finishes it with a wide disc sander, and I always think this creates the difference between the punter doing the floor and the professional.

He coats the floor with poly, they reckon water based stuff isn't upto scratch. It takes stains from blu-tac and so on. He also reckons if I clean our existing floor with a mix of water and turps, and hot water and soap - then they can do a clean up to minimise the scratches and other sundry damages.

To get Neil in, will cost $27 per metre (inclusive of everything and GST), which will be a total of close to $2000. For me to do it, will cost about $500 for sander hire for five days ( I would need to sand between coats as well). About $400 for the finish. And another $100 for sundries. So it cost me an extra $1000 to get it done professionally - but we reckon it will be money well spent.

The timber itself is Northern Beech (which I think is a mixture of light coloured hardwoods such as blackbutt, spotted gum, rose gum etc). It cost around $2.90 per lineal metre (about $3.10 delivered) and is feature grade. The floorsanders commented, quite a bit, on how hard the timber was. And this is from guys who spend their time sanding Cypress, Vic Ash and Jarrah.

The floor all looks the same, it is just different light which makes it look darker.

The rooms are a bedroom, TV room/4th bedroom and main living area.

The photos are only after 1 coat, when the other two coats are done I will post up some more pics.

Love the Thread keep it going give us more imfomation on your project

Best Regards

Peter

Thanks,

I have a few more photos on the way of the finished floor and the new portico.

However in the meantime, I have created an updated budget. I will wait until the whole renovation is completed before I post up a copy of the final budget. The short story though, is that upto this point we have spent $92,692.06 and we budgeted for $85,821.95 For those interested in the cost of extensions, we are looking at 90 sqm of extension, including three new holes in the existing house (lintels etc) plus a 15 sqm portico. The 90 sqm also includes 25 sqm of deck.

In all our renovation worked out at $1029 per sqm. or about $9559 per square.

This is slightly misleading as a budget because I have included some $4,000 on tools I purchased which I didn't budget for. I also haven't included paint or render which I haven't got to yet. We have spent up pretty big in doors, windows and a new fireplace. Those items alone put us about $5,000 over our budget - however we are pretty happy with what we got. Another item that knocked our budget about were all the extra doodads. Battens, glues, screws, nails, tape and so on all add up extraordinarily quickly.

I will post up a couple more tips in the tips for Owner Builder threads shortly.

Cheers

This is half done at the moment, if I get around it to it I will roof it and line it my self, otherwise it's just another job for the plumber. I am going to set down lights into it right at the front so we can point them down onto the garden.

The pictures are all pretty self explanatory, the roof, fascia and gutter will be the same as the existing house

This is the ironing centre we installed.

It's a robinhood IC 300 and is wired at the back to a power point. We could have hardwired it, but we felt it gave us a bit more flexibility if we stuck a double power point in the back of the linen press. One word of warning the centre is too narrow to store our existing iron so we still need to stick the iron in a different cupboard. We will just need to make sure that our next iron fits.

Over all though SWMBO is very happy with it, as it has a very small footprint and is very simple to set up.

This is the almost finished front bedroom, just skirts and wardrobe to go.

I think I got stitched up on the door. Normally I shop around for everything, but I just decided when I saw that one I wanted it. Cost me $760 - which was probably about $300 over priced. The glass is etched, and the door is solid timber but still.....

The rails were too narrow for a mortice lock, and the door handle barely fitted.

The blind on the front window is suede. We think we did alright there, the three blinds cost $560. We were after a contrasting effect in the two bedrooms, and rather than put sills in the windows we actually framed the window completely with architraves - a bit different but I like the look of it.

This is the fireplace side of the new lounge room.

The room is all but painted and plastered. It's come up all right considering the number of butt joins in the ceiling. And if you are doing butt joins - then do them by the book - it actually works, my only difference was to really spread the top coat out past the flat - just to give me something to work with.

We have used downlights through all the extension because the ceiling is slightly lower than the existing house at 2700mm and we felt hanging lights would crowd us a bit. Sadly we couldn't use the fluoro downlights because they just don't pump out enough light.

The unpainted and uncorniced bit is where we are waiting for the new fireplace. We paid for it some 10 weeks but are still waiting for it to turn up. Because it is new fireplace in Australia it still needs some official approvals which are a bees dick away. Either way I felt it better to wait until I actually had the thing before I tried finishing off the plaster, cornice and paint.

The fireplace is an Escea 850 and is made in NZ

Everything has come to a screaming halt for the last few months. SWMBO was floored with an unknown virus, which kept her more or less bedridden for 2 months, and turned me into a carer - then I came down with the flu' - sort of been one thing after another lately.

However, I am just starting to get back on track. We are doing the rendering at the moment, we are using an acrylic render which amongst other things ' sticks like the proverbial to a blanket'. The render has gone over both the existing rendered wall and the new Hebel powerpanel walls quite well. So well in fact that we'll only need one coat.

A tip for the DYI'er.

The Hebel needs top be wet before application, and it absolutley soaks up the water. Which in turn means that, if the ground around the house is still dirt it will become a quagmire, which can make it a bit problematic to work in. :rolleyes:

It's a bit hard to get a photo of the render that does it justice, as it is a bit overcast here.

But I have included a before photo showing the existing house and Hebel join prior to rendering, and the front of the house showing how it is coming up. The photo of the front also shows up the new portico, which I just need to run some cement sheet into.

When the corner where the join is between the old and new is I'll post it up as a comparison.

As it stands at the moment 90 sqm of rendering has cost $1320. This includes labour and render. All up to get the whole house done will cost just on $2000. Or about $15 per sqm.

I have managed to save a little bit by doing as much of the prep work as possible - making sure all surfaces were ready and keeping lunch and coffee up to the renderer.

To put this price in perspective, we had a quote from a professional rendering company who quoted (using a sprayer and acrylic render) just on $12,000 or about $90 per sqm.

Another tip from the renderer was not to use coloured render. But rather render the house and then paint it. He reckoned that if we rendered with a coloured render, then if there is some damage you cant just re-render the damaged bit but the whole panel because it is too hard to get a colour match.

Hi Namtrak,

This is a great thread and I must congratulate you on your work and also on your ability to keep writing about it.

I usually try to keep a journal of my reno's but then the entries start trailing off becuase you are just too tired.

How long do you estimate is it going to take to get it finished from now?

Doog

Thanks Dirty Doogie Howser,

Final rendering, and general tidy up around the yard 1 week
Finish skirts and archs. 2 days
Paint Ceiling in loungeroom 2 day
Paitn walls in loungeroom 2 days
Paint Skirts and archs 3 days
Lay insulation 1 day
Finish extended kitchen bench 3 days
Finish builtins 5 days
Final plaster sanding painting 3 days
Install fire place 1 day
Finish cornice and sanding around fireplace 5 days
Paint internal doors 5 days
Cement sheet on portico 1 day
Concrete patio 2 days
Concrete around new extension 5 days
Stormwater 1 day
Paving and Retaining wall 3 days
New front gate 1 day
Paint outside 5 days

Easily 55 days, given the 3 to 1 ratio I have been working on then around 150 days - December - all said and done!!!

Lets see how that pans out then eh?

It is all those little finishing jobs at the end that seems to bog people down - I still havent managed to get all the skirting boards on 1 year later LOL!

MY tip ; cut and scribe the skirting boards and test fit them - then take them outside and finish them before fixing. Especially if they are being stained and or painted. Trying to finish them in situ kills the knees and the neck.

best wishes Doog

Rendering is all done. Looks great and come in at $2330. Which was a bargain compared to the $10,000 + quotes we did have. I haven't bothered with photos, as they don't do it justice. Maybe when we've finished the painting.

Another couple of little jobs which we have almost got through are the glass 'fineries' cabinet and the fireplace.

The fireplace is an Escea 850 which we bought from this mob. We had all sort of diffculties, well not difficulties as such but just a long delay. It seems when we bought the heater (paid up front) it wasn't approved for Australian standards, and that took almost another 6 months. As far as we can tell, it wasn't the fault of the supplier, but more the manufacturer who was a bit liberal with the facts. Either way, it is now in and is exactly what we were after. I am still waiting on the sparkie to connect up the bypass, but other than that all is good and works a treat.

The cabinet was an afterthought, and was put in for two reasons. One because we had nowhere to stick wine glasses and such (like all married couples we have cupboards full of crap no-one has ever seen - figuratively and literally :rolleyes: ) And the other reason was because, when we cut the two holes in the existing wall it effectively created a free standing internal wall - albeit loadbearing, however I felt better having a cupboard built perpindicular to the existing wall.

And for Ozwinners benefit, the back of the cupboard includes a small offcut of one of the mirrors we picked up from his joint (photos of the framed mirror to come)

I love those recessed niches in gyprock. It looks sexy IMHO :)

Just wondering what render product you used, how much it is, and how hard is it to apply?
Thanks

The house is now painted in a colour called Weathered Cedar. In total I used 2 15litre drums of primer (tinted in the cedar) and 2 15litre drums of exterior paint. The total cost for the paint was $360. I also used some 5 cans of etch primer to paint the pipes and downpipes. And one can of touch-up paint in the same colour as the colour bond.

The paint is actually a Solver brand, but I wanted to use the product that was designed for the render. So i just took a swatch to the company that supplied the render and they tinted the paint and primer to exactly what we wanted.

The render was EuroTac 2000 acrylic render and covered our house in one coat. That was over the existing render and the new hebel. The render cost about $20 per bag. It is relatively straightforward to apply, but you do need to keep the surfaces wet, very wet.

The colour of the house doesn't show up too clearly, but you get the idea.

PS....

All the images in this whole thread were accidently deleted, and sadly for the first year and half I dont have any copies as I lost a lot of pics with a hard drive crash. I will try and restore the pictures that I do have so it makes a bit more sense.

Looking good. Shame about the earlier pics, it was a good record.

It's not all bad news :D

That render looks fantastic. You've done a great job, and I love the colour choices. :2tsup:

Bummer about the HD crash. It's always a good idea to back up occasionally. :wink:

Hi namtrak,
Has been great reading of your progress with the owner builder project. I'm currently starting off down this path and am drafting a budget. Would you be able to send me yours, or do you know of any other good examples?

Thanks,
bazza123

Bazza123, not that I think you'll be back, but I will eventually get around to posting everything back up this thread including my budgets and stuff - so stay posted (so to speak)

Just resurrecting the list I wrote up about 3 months ago - to see what jobs I've got through.

DONE Final rendering, and general tidy up around the yard 1 week
DONE Paint Ceiling in loungeroom 2 day
DONE Lay insulation 1 day
DONE Install fire place 1 day
DONE Cement sheet on portico 1 day
DONE Stormwater 1 day
DONE Paint outside 5 days

Finish skirts and archs. 2 days
Paint walls in loungeroom 2 days
Paint Skirts and archs 3 days
Finish extended kitchen bench 3 days
Finish builtins 5 days
Final plaster sanding painting 3 days
Finish cornice and sanding around fireplace 5 days
Paint internal doors 5 days
Concrete patio 2 days
Concrete around new extension 5 days
Paving and Retaining wall 3 days
New front gate 1 day

Oops still a bit to go.

Mainly the landscaping I suppose.

Here's a new pic of the front of the house, after I finished the gardens. I wanted to get a few new plants in and some mulch down asap, particularly once we had a fair dumping of rain!

I have lost a bit of time, because we have just learnt that SWMBO has a new job in Canberra! Frig! So now I have to complete the house, ready for tenants :doh: and look for a new joint in Canberra - back to square 1. Get ready for that blog - not much good news in there I think. Very darn expensive. :weeping2:

Thanks to some inspiration from some sutff on WWF, I have got around to getting the built-ins sorted, almost.

At this stage, I have built them simply as shelves. I won't be putting drawers in until we either sell the place or move back from Canberra.

This built-in is the one in the TV room, and the timber is blue gum from Studleys packs I bought earlier in the year. The holes have been filled with Car Bog, tinted with black (it looks a lot darker in real life) and is finished with Minmax wipe-on.

To build the three sets of built-ins (photos following for the rest) cost about $250 for the melamine and screws. Curently I am working on the laundry, also courtesy of Studley.

Working on the laundry now. Our theory has always been, that where space is tight laundries are a luxury, and as such, we felt we got more bang for our bucks by converting the old laundry and outside toilet into an ensuite and building a new laundry on the deck.

Being on the deck, we figure the laundry will also double as the wet area for any outdoor entertainment spectaculars we may throw.

All up the laundry cost about $350. This included the new sink, runners for the doors, poly and assorted screws and stuff.

I am still waiting on the plumber to connect up the taps for the laundry and put in the mixer tap above the sink. The area above the laundry will eventually be rendered and the existing window replaced with a glass brick window.

The timber is all from Studleys packs. The lighter coloured stuff is some of the leftover from the Northern Beech flooring and the darker benchtops are blue gum from his reject packs! The two posts are some spare redgum I had lying around.

The whole kebab is finished with Cabots Marine Poly (I still have a few coats to go.

That looks great.
I love the look of the 'reject' timber you're getting. The 'flaws' give it character that it otherwise wouldn't have. I like the top that you've put on the built ins on the previous page as well.
You're doing a great job of the finishing, and I'm following your thread with interest. :2tsup:

A couple of quick updates.

Firstly the paving. I have paved the side of the house and a portion at the rear, all up it was about 50 sqm. I used a brand called Trojanstone. The main 400 by 400 pavers were $40 per sqm. The edging pavers were seconds and cost about $35 per sqm. I bordered the paving down the side of the house with ‘rumbled sandstone’ .

In total the paving cost about $2500 including buckshot, packing sand, aggiepipe and aggregate. When I have finished the renos I will clean the pavers and seal them with a semi gloss paving finish.

I have also included the concreted front patio, which I will paint with straight paving paint, probably a dull red.

I have also been working on the final rendering and the ensuite.

I dont have an old photo of where we started, but you get the idea.

The first pic shows the newly installed glass brick windows, and the fresh render. The window on the right was the old external laundry and the window on the left was the old outside toilet.

Firstly, I alomst copied everything from Juan's thread on his bathroom renos!!

Dug up the old concrete floors, relaid two new slabs - one either side of the inlaid steel drains. Water proofed the walls with damp course material.

Lined the walls with AC sheeting, and then waterproofed the whole ensuite.

The tiles and grout were done last week and now I just need to sand paint the top half of the walls and the ceiling.

Costings to follow!!

And finally a checklist of my mini list of jobs.

Finish skirts and archs. DONE
Paint walls in loungeroom 2 days
Paint Skirts and archs 3 days
Finish extended kitchen bench DONE
Finish builtins DONE
Final plaster sanding painting 3 days
Finish cornice and sanding around fireplace 5 days
Paint internal doors DONE
Concrete patio DONE
Concrete around new extension DONE
Paving and Retaining wall DONE
New front gate DONE

wow ive just read your blog over a couple of days wanted to take as much in as i could your costings are way off what we have budgeted for our new house we are owner building very soon ( i have started a similar blog to you on www.byohouse.com.au) you have definately got me extremely worried lol but ive loved the read and have picked up a few tips so thankyou very much.everyone is welcome to read my ob project as its just starting and i was hoping wouldnt take as long as yours i was planning on retiring before i hit 50 im 42 now so that might be a pipe dream lol i love this site had heaps of help and heaps of reality checks.thanks again:o:doh::2tsup:

Well it is finally all said and done. And here are a few post scripts!!

The house was completed in a hurry, because we have moved to Canberra and after all that work are now renting the house out to students.

From the time the first hole was dug to completion was around 16 months. Although I did lose 3/4 months, so to say it took a year would be reasonable.

In that time we added an extra 95 sqm of floor space, which made up 2 bedrooms, a large living area and new deck. The roof was trussed to match the existing house and was externally finished so as to look like a seemless extension. We also installed a new kitchen, and created an ensuite for one of the bedrooms. And finally I landscaped outside with around 50 sqm of paving and 50 sqm of turf (Buffalo).

The house is exactly how we want it (and I am sure the students will love it :( )

Cost wise, I havent completed the final budget but it cost very close to $140,000 - which was $80,000 cheaper than the next comparable quote.

The ensuite cost $4,500, the kitchen cost around $11,000 and the landscaping cost $3,500. Which means the extension it self cost $1,270 per sqm or about $11,200 per square.

Was it worth it? In a fiscal sense, the house cost $88,000 to buy in 2002. When we started the extension in 2006 the house was worth about $180,000 as is. We spent $140,000, which puts the actual value of the house at $320,000. In todays market, the house would sell for about $400,000 - a nett increase of $80,000 for a years work.

Would we do it again? In a heart beat!! As a matter of fact we have just purchased a house in Queanbeyan and will start again - and hopefully apply some of the things we learnt from this renovation. Stay tuned for the next House Renovation blog!!

Cheers

congrats on a great job, it was nice to follow it along. lets hope you get to enjoy the current one a bit longer :)