Day 19: Last day's work for 2013

Builders put in a full day and we can really see the shape of the rebuilt back end. The framing has been changed for the last section of the brick wall, lowering it to minimise the overshadowing of our neighbour's yard. Here are the last photos for 2013.
Looking in...

 ... and looking out.

Days 16-18: More framing

Bricklaying finished for the year on Monday. We are waiting for an answer from the architect on whether our parapet wall can drop down at the end of the neighbour's building, in order to given him more light. It will all get resolved next year.
The sound of saw and nail gun continued on Tuesday and Wednesday as the more detailed framing was done: eaves, gutters, etc. Discovered that the architect hadn't allowed for the width of the box gutter and that the skylights will therefore have to be smaller. Decided that the room will still look OK with one larger skylight in the kitchen area and two smaller ones in the living/dining. They will not line up, but we think it will all still work. This kind of issue at least justifies our decision to be on hand as the building went up.
Heat stopped play on Thursday.

Day 15: Framing nearly done

Both walls (ours and the neighbour's) are up to head height, and the scaffold is up to take them higher on Monday. (They have to go up considerably further because our neighbour is having a 12' ceiling in his extension, and we have decided to match our wall to his so that they can be capped together, rather than flashing ours to his.)

With most of the framing in place we are getting a real sense of what it will look like -

both from the inside, looking out...









...and from the outside, looking in.

Day 14: It's all happening now

Bricks arrived, and the brickies. By the end of the day, our wall is up to a bit above head height. Meanwhile, the carpenters were working away on the roof, and Tony made an appearance to weld the roof truss.

Day 13: the house takes shape

Despite rain every other day, the house is beginning to take shape. at last. Now that we can tell where the new back door is going to be, I have had to take the shears to the plants along the side of the house in a big way, so that when there is a door, we will be able to get out it. Think the builders will be grateful that they no longer have to fight their way past hibiscus and bougainvillea branches.

Day 12: Steel!

Big steel frames start arriving...

Day 11: Framing continues

Rain limited the amount of outdoor work, but there was some progress.

Day 10: Framing up begins

Wooden frames now standing on both sides - so good to see something going up at last.

Most of the time, nothing happens...

Builders made a cameo appearance this week on Tuesday morning to measure up for the steel. Otherwise, we have had peaceful mornings.

Day 9: The big pour, a splendid slab

Two big trucks, lots of blokes, lots of concrete. All happening.

And all done, looking spiffing. A pity our old slab wasn't done with the same degree of expertise as our neighbour's new one, but the idea of wrecking the tiles and underfloor heating to jackhammer it up and put in a new one was too horrible and too expensive to contemplate.

Day 8: The earth moves...

Much soil removed from neighbour's side, as trenches are dug for his foundations, area levelled for the slab, reo put in place ready for another concrete pour tomorrow. Watch this space for a pic of the two back areas side by side.

Day 7: We have foundations...

Concrete has been poured for our foundations, and we get more of an idea of how much floor space we will gain.
Now they wait until our foundations harden, then come back to do the neighbour's side.
Hopefully warm weather will mean his foundations and slab can be done on Friday.

Meanwhile, the neighbour's back wall came down today - more noise and dust. The excavator came in handy as a demolition platform.
But at least it's all happening, and after three early starts my body clock is starting to adapt to the new up-at-6:30 regime and I've stopped wandering around as though jet-lagged.

Day 6: Work resumes, really

We lurch out of bed before 7 (again), ready to ensure that the new concrete foundations go in the right place, and that no one damages the controls for the underfloor heating, sticking out of the slab.
Builder Dave is trying to reconcile the measurements on various plans to work out where the boundary is between the houses. The result he gets moves our wall much further than we, or our neighbour, were expecting. It seems so unlikely that he decides to wait until he can get the Council Surveyor to check it out before digging the trench.
To our surprise, the calculations are verified. We thought we were going to gain about 100mm (4" in old money), but the actual gain is about 310mm, a bit over a foot. Neighbour is less than happy as he is going to have an unexpected step in the wall on his side, and his new living room will be a little smaller. I take him out for a consoling coffee.
By close of play there is a nice neat trench ready for concreting, but the delay in checking the survey means no pouring. We are bemused to find an ancient pipe running from one property to the other, through the trench. Carrying what? who knows...

Work resumes, almost...

We lurch out of bed before 7, ready to ensure that the new concrete foundations go in the right place, and that no one damages the controls for the underfloor heating, sticking out of the slab.
Concretor is a no show, so nothing happens.
We take the car to be serviced and prowl the streets of Richmond looking at windows, furniture, sinks, taps, range hoods etc. Most of what we like turns out to be at IKEA. Which is good, because their prices are reasonable for well-designed stuff.

Good news, bad news

Good news:
Second soil test confirms that our original test was the incorrect one. We will need much less elaborate footings and the overall price will drop by quite a bit.
Bad news:
We have to have our engineering work re-done, and because our builder had a technical hitch in his communications, he couldn't get the engineer started on the rework for about a week.
Good news:
Builders keep on working until quite late this year, don't knock off until Friday 20 Dec, so there is a slightly greater chance that we will have a roof on by then.
Bad news:
Builders keep on working until quite late this year, don't knock off until Friday 20 Dec, so we won't get to start our summer live-aboard life in Tassie until Sunday 22 December. We're going to fly down on Saturday for a two day visit just to check that Nahani is still there.
Meanwhile:
While we've been away, they've done the plumbing on the next door site, so once we get the reworked engineering specs, the concretor should be able to go ahead with the footings for both projects and the slab for next door.

Second soil test

A couple more blokes arrive, do the soil test. Advice provided to them on where to dig, as they seemed to have missed the message about digging where the new walls are going to be built. Now waiting for their report.
Builder confirms that that no action is likely until after Cup Day, so we have found ourselves a 4WD camper and we're off to Queensland "Following Burke and Wills Across Australia", checking the route for the next edition of the Touring Guide, which will go from Melbourne to the Gulf and be published some time in 2014.

Day 5: demolition complete

Pause in proceedings while we wait for another soil test. Each side of the Berlin Wall has had their own test done, with very different results. Now the wall is down we will get one done right in the area where the new walls are going to be built, and find out which test is correct.

Meanwhile, we are investigating putting a rainwater tank in the light well - should provide enough to think about in the interim.

Day 4: wall nearly all gone

East & West Berlin?

Alex on his own today, slogging away at the wall and Leigh's chimney. There are now only about two courses at the bottom of the wall - this is where it gets challenging for them to remove them with minimal damage to the concrete slab and floor of our living room, which we are trying to preserve intact as it has underfloor heating embedded.
Now the wall is down, I am tempted to get a spray can and write "East Berlin" on Leigh's side, "West Berlin" on our side.

Day 3: the wall comes down

Peter having a catnap

This reno business is playing hell with my circadian rhythms. Builders arrive about 7am, so we're awake shortly after and feel that we should be up and about in case they want something. We're trying to shift our patterns to showering in the evening, and being earlier to bed and to rise, but it isn't working. The first night I went to bed early I woke again at midnight and spent the next hour or so tossing and turning (normally I'm awake and doing useful things about that time). Still trying to get to bed a bit earlier, but not succeeding very well and the net effect so far is just less sleep, and we're wandering around as though jet-lagged, dozing off if we sit down for a bit, and feeling unwontedly cold and hungry.

Wall mostly gone

Today most of the wall came down. The guys enjoyed the wrecking, but were pretty tired by the end of a day alternating between wielding a sledgehammer and picking up bricks to put in the skip.
Not too much dust came into the house, but we were pleased to escape to friends for dinner.

Day 2: demolition continues

Removing doors and windows

The truck delivering the skip was held up in traffic, so the guys filled in the time by finishing the covering for the floor - when they ran out of timber they recycled a bit of our old kitchen partition. Then the skip arrived and they started in earnest.
We went off to put the last chair in the store, before going off for the morning. By lunchtime most of the roof was off and they were shifting the sliding doors and the windows. By evening, only the side wall and a few rafters remained.

D-day, at last!

Awoken by the squeak of next door's gate at 7:30am. Yes, builders' trucks are outside. Fling ourselves into clothes and go out to see what is happening. Huge (40 ton) truck plus trailer parked in the side lane. Alan the amazing bobcat artist works all day. Bit by bit the mess is cleared from the back of Leigh's garden, then the sheds come down, then the concrete slab comes up, revealing, to everyone's surprise, floorboards underneath. They go as well, all picked up by the bobcat and dumped into the truck and trailer. By the end of the day, it is just bare earth.

Bobcat gets started

Alan departing with first load for landfill

Tony wields a seldgehammer

While the bob-cat is working, the guys take down the pergola at the back of our house, then start demolishing the short side wall between our two gardens. This is a recent erection with modern mortar, which takes a bit of serious bashing with a sledgehammer - boss builder Tony even takes a hand in the job. His workers get up on our roof and start on the side wall, reducing it to roof height - a much easier job as the old lime mortar gives up easily. All the bricks are chucked down to where the bob-cat is working and go into the truck with the rest.

"But I haven't done my hair"

Meanwhile, the electrician comes and sorts out a regime for providing power to the joint building site without cutting off the power from either the front of our house, or the garage. After a strengthening coffee we get to work to remove the light fittings, the skirtings and half the remaining kitchen cabinet from the back room. The last chair is slid down the passage and goes out into the car. Tony orders some flooring - a kind of cross between Masonite and chipboard with plastic tongue and groove sides which goes down to protect the tiled floor and the under-floor heating beneath.
While the builders have smoko, Leigh disinters a long-dead cat from his garden. The exercise is somewhat hampered by the fact that the bobcat is parked pretty much above the grave, so he can't finish until the end of the day.

Bobcat knocking down a shed

Pulling up a concrete slab

Tony arranges for a plumber to come at the end of the day to disconnect the taps from our sink and the gas from the stove. That done, stove is shifted into the passage and backed up against the door to inhibit access. Sink finishes up in the garden, taps saved in case we want to re-use. Final bits of cabinetry go into the rubbish pile. Back room now completely bare, ready for the roof to come off and walls to come down.

It's official

So far, so good. One day down, only another couple of hundred to go.

D-Day minus one

Did I say that we moved the pantry shelves from the side wall of the kitchen and located them on top of the kitchen cabinet in the garage on Saturday? Probably not, but we did. Today the shelves that normally hold my more decorative cooking and serving equipment come down, and are parked under the workbench in the garage, along with the bookcase which normally holds cookbooks etc. Every last item out taken out of the remaining kitchen cabinets. Two more big boxes of kitchen stuff progressively packed. Laundered loose covers from sofa, just in case they turn out to be useful for something. Uninstalled the dishwasher, put on trolley, moved to garage, followed by the last two boxes.
Some time ago, we took down the shelf unit from above the fridge, and Peter took it apart. Amazingly, the shelves fit neatly across the bath, giving us places to put clean and dirty dishes as we wash up in the laundry trough. Organise the bath and laundry trough area for washing up and tea making, installing kettle beside trough.
Take a break to go to Elwood to feed Archie, cat belonging to Peter's daughter Barb and fiance Scott, who are away for a week.
Move the footstool into the middle room, giving us three seats - the piano stool, the footstool and one easy chair.
Remove all remaining odds and sods, tools, bubble wrap etc.  Put out two very full bins for collection. Pack up one more op shop box. Now the only thing left is one easy chair (due to go to the store tomorrow) and the stove - need a gasfitter to disconnect it before we can move it.
Prepare first microwave only meal and eat in reasonable comfort on a stool each - me on the piano stool, Peter on the footstool. Do first wash-up in the bathroom, all OK. It reminds us of living aboard Nahani, except it isn't quite as convenient - table isn't as good, sink is further away from the table, microwave is no substitute for my lovely Force 10 stove. Ah well. Only 209 days to go (builder's estimate of elapsed time!).

Moving forward, backward, sideways....

Kitchen benches gone
revealing 30 years of filth on side of stove

Lost count of the number of times we've walked from the house to the garage and back. We've emptied every drawer in the kitchen, taken the drawers out of the bench, replaced contents in drawers on floor of living room. Then a bit of work with a jemmy and a saw and we were able to take off the bench top, then pick up the entire bench unit and haul it down to the garage (using rollers, like the pyramids). Put bench beside the dining table. Replaced bench top. One by one, brought each drawer and contents (sometimes together, sometimes separately) from house to garage, replaced drawers, then replaced contents. Phew!
Stowed the hi fi speakers and assorted other boxes under dining table. Packed content of pantry shelves into plastic containers, more things under dining table. Packed up hi-fi equipment, videotapes and DVDs.

Friday night setup, kitchen shelves in the background.

Sewing cupboard transformed
to pantry & cooking facility

On Friday, Bluestone came again and removed the sofa. We put one of the remaining chairs into the car and took it to the local storage where my sis-in-law is renting some space. Rearranged all her furniture so our chairs will fit as well.
On Saturday, moved the fridge, the 'entertainment unit' and the TV into the middle room. This minute room now has to contain our lives for the next 6 months - microwave to cook with, fold-away bench for food prep, fridge to store food, TV cabinet to hold cutlery and crockery and support the TV. Piano in there somewhere, but could only be played by someone sitting on top of it with very dexterous toes, as the keyboard is behind the TV.

Middle room, showing fridge, TV, piano (just visible)
Door to lightwell is open to admit TV aerial cable

Cleaned the stove, packed up most of the rest of the kitchen and moved it to the garage or into the middle room. Cooked what is probably the last meal on the stove for a while - twice-cooked pork belly with pickled walnut cream sauce (my own invention). Peter got the TV aerial working for the relocated TV just in time to watch New Tricks.

Bluestone cometh, furniture goeth

Vacuum the garage. Set up some stands to keep things off the ground. Move the two largest paintings and put them on the stands. Move all the other paintings and some ornaments into Peter's study, putting them on top of his bookcase or double-hanging above other pictures - room now looks like a gallery.
Remove drawers and shelves from cocktail cabinet, move cabinet to garage, replace drawers and shelves.
Feel need for strong coffee and lunch, even though it is only 11:30. Go and have same, take a break, hang out washing.
Move dining table to garage (heavy and awkward). Need more coffee.
Move dining chairs into middle room, ready to be taken away for re-upholstery.
Pack two more cartons of stuff on kitchen shelves, plus a third carton of things to go to the op shop. Decide that life is too short to own any metal objects that require cleaning. Add more things to op shop carton.
Take loose covers off sofa, find $10 in small change. Vacuum sofa removing 40 year old fluff and displacing some spiders.
Lovely man from Bluestone Furniture and Upholstery cometh (thanks Cyndi, for the recommendation). Dave takes dining chairs, advises on sofa. Turns out he once worked for my uncle, who made said sofa.
Start emptying out sewing cupboard, which will become temporary kitchen cupboard/pantry for the next 6 months. More stuff for op shop (the patchwork squares that were going to become a throw for my late mother's room at Napier Street Hostel - I figure that if I haven't done anything with them in the 5 years since she died, I'm probably not going to any time soon).
Remove clarinet, music, etc from music room to my study, as music room is going to become living/dining/kitchen (with piano - you never know when you might need one).
Need a break, go off to play clarinet (very soothing).

Signed!

You may have thought from the long silence that we had given up and run away to sea (literally), but no. It's just that we found out that him-next-door's architect hadn't got his building permit done, so there was another long pause while that got fixed.
But today we signed the contract with the builder, and on Monday next the excavators move in. Last night we started packing up the kitchen/dining room/living room. So far we have emptied the cocktail cabinet and now have about 10 boxes on the floor. Can we get the rest of the cutlery, crockery, glasses, all the appliances (fridge, stove, dishwasher), kitchen equipment, food, dining furniture, lounge furniture, books, paintings etc etc packed up and moved out by Monday? Well, maybe. Watch this space.

Kitchen planning continues

We hike out to Essendon today to see the kitchen people's warehouse and discuss designs. Despite my having told the bloke who came to measure up that I wanted the new kitchen to be exactly like the old one, the sketch designs they show us are quite different. However Peter has the foresight to take some photos of the kitchen with his iPad and bring them with us, and once the woman kitchen designer sees them, she 'gets it' absolutely, so the next round should be more like it.
I keep thinking that this is an opportunity to improve on what I have, so I have toyed with having some new overhead cupboards, a shelf to put the microwave on, etc, but each time I find that either the change will look terrible, or stop something that currently works from working, so I go back to, "I want it just the same". We even think we will keep our old sink, as we haven't found anything we like better. We will replace the existing bin drawer with one that a) works and b) has three separate lift out bins, for compost, recycling, and land-fill rubbish. The 'pantry' drawers will be swapped with one bank of crockery drawers so that all the crockery is in reach of the dishwasher, and all the food is down the end of the kitchen. Apart from that, nothing much will change apart from minor adjustments to dimensions to cope with the changing location of walls.
We are now wrestling with benchtop choices - the material that the kitchen place recommends is Caesarstone, which looks fine, except that I don't like any of the patterns/colours. Why are things never easy?

Further investigation of foundations

P decides that the amount quoted for the foundations is excessive. We are concerned because the engineering for the house next door doesn't specify foundations that are anything like as deep as ours. As the walls are going to be built side by side, they can't both be right. In consultation with the builder, have decided to waiting until they demolish the sheds next door, then redo the soil test on the boundary line. It will cost in the short term, but it may save us money long term if we don't need such expensive foundations.

Quote revision

Price looks a bit better, but that's partly because it excludes things like the painting, which will have to be done anyway and always costs more than you expect. Ah well. As I said to our neighbour, who started all this - it's all right for him if his renos cost more than he is anticipating, it just means he will have to go on working for longer. For us, it means we have to die sooner. But moving would be even more expensive for less benefit, and the house is trying to tell us "It's time" - shower screen has started leaking and one of the kitchen drawers collapsed yesterday. Peter has fixed it, sort of, but it's not a long-term solution.

And then there's the kitchen

Tony's preferred kitchen guys came round today to measure up. Now we need to head out to the showrooms in Essendon one day soon to see the latest in kitchen gizmos.

Quote shock time...

Builder came with proposal, terrifyingly large number. We're working on it. We didn't want the skylights to open anyway....

Another meeting...

Met with builder and architect to look at some plan details. All OK, but nothing is going to happen for a little while. Heart attack time (when we see the costs) still ahead of us. Likely start date, end August. Likely finish,  2014. And after all that the house will look much the same. Peter is quite positive about it all, I think it's going to be good at the end, but hell in the middle...

More plans..

Architect's detailed drawings arrived. They look good, but the list of repairs to the front of the house that we want incorporated in the builder's quote are absent. We need a further meeting with builder and architect to discuss. On the good news side, it appears they can solve the lack of footings under the slab in a reasonably straightforward fashion using screw piles.

Garden invaded by persons in boots

On return from Tasmania I got stuck into the pruning and weeding in a very overgrown garden. Umpteen bags of rubbish to the tip later, I started replanting, but decided to do the front garden only, not the back, as it was probably going to be walked on. A wise decision - the first lot of boots arrived today, adorning the feet of a charming bunch of young geological engineers who came to do the soil test and look at the footings of the slab at the back of the house. There were two young men and one young woman. One of the men said that she was the brains, they were the brawn, as they dug away with augers and a kind of double-sided spade. But he was clearly in charge, and the kind of person who is more than happy to tell you what he's doing and why, so I received a short lesson in the geology of the area. They dug down with the auger until they hit something solid (brick? lump of bluestone?), which was a "What a bugger!" moment as they had to start again. 2-3m down the second hole they came to a layer of sands known as Brighton Group sand, which is the stable layer that underlies all the infill and other stuff that has accrued over the years since it was swampy ground behind coastal dunes.
Along with a giving me a free geology lesson, they investigated the footings under the slab, or lack thereof. Slabs should be put on pillars that reach down to the stable soil level, but as a result of my being stupid enough to accept a friend's offer of a cheap builder when I was 30-something, the slab under the living room doesn't have any. Various discussions ensued as to how that may be fixed, but it's not really up to the soil test folk to solve - they just provide a report and then the structural engineers work out what to do about it. There will almost certainly be a solution, but I fear it will be expensive. Oh well, it's only money.

All quiet on the reno front

Architect tells us we need a soil test and "footings exposure" done, and that we will be rung for someone to make an appointment to do it, but no call yet. Meanwhile neighbour tells us builder is now talking about mid-July start. We plan to start packing up stuff this week, nevertheless.

Now for the detail...

Another meeting with architect Daniel today to give him the necessary information for him to draw up the building plans and specifications.

First delay

Probably the first of many. Neighbour Leigh tells us that builder Tony is now talking about a July start, not June.

So what are we actually renovating?

Basically, the east wall of our kitchen-dining-living area has to come down and be rebuilt, this time actually on our property line.

Since it is impossible to rebuild a wall without removing the roof, and since the present roof is a hotch-potch of mis-matched pieces with an ugly internal beam separating them, we will not only replace it, but remodel it. The new roof will be two gables, with a hip where the room narrows. The ceiling will follow the roof line, making the room look much more interesting. We will also put new, east-facing skylights on that side of the gable roof, and a south-facing triangular window in the new end gable in the kitchen, where it projects above the skillion roof over the mid-section of the house. The walls will be very slightly higher before the ceiling starts, and the new gable will project beyond the end of the house to shade the windows, replacing the current rather grotty pergola.
We will replace all the existing windows with aluminium-framed, double-glazed windows. Those looking into the side light well area will no longer be floor-to-ceiling, but will have a small area of solid wall above and below. There will be big sliding doors at the back, but a door facing into the light well at the north end of the west wall so that we don't have to open sliding doors all the time just to go in and out, and to give us ventilation with a fly screen that is less visible than our present one. The gable above the back sliding doors will be glazed.
The kitchen will stay more-or-less as is, but with a new sink, new benchtops over new cupboard units with all those nice new-fangled things like self-closing drawers. Stove (very old but dearly loved), fridge and dishwasher (new) stay.
So all we have to do now before the project starts is move the fridge into the middle room so we can still keep some food in the house, pack up every item in the kitchen and in the various cabinets in the dining and lounge areas, then find somewhere to store all the boxes, the dining suite, the lounge suite, the assorted occasional tables, bookshelves and cabinets in the lounge room, not to mention removing all the paintings from the walls...
Plan is to move the BMW out of the garage and up to Romsey, then move furniture and contents into the garage. Don't know yet when D-day is, but if it is early June as planned, then we're going to be very busy for the next couple of weeks.

Permit granted!

By Tuesday we have all our new supporting letters signed, and send them off to Daniel, who delivers them in person on Wednesday. He arranges a meeting with a planner on Thursday. On Friday he calls us to say that the planner has completed the report recommending approval, and it will go to his supervisor at 4pm. By 6pm we have had the call from Daniel confirming that the permit has been granted and we are knocking on Leigh's door to tell him the good news.

Submitting the Application for a Planning Permit

Plans are finalised, and on Thursday 9 May we go with Daniel to submit, and pay the fast track fee. The key issue is whether the Council decides that the application needs to be advertised, as this process can take weeks. We submit letters from Leigh and his mother, who owns his house, supporting our application.
We think we have all bases covered, but when we tell the planner that the rebuild of our wall also involves a small relocation, we are told that it may have to be advertised as it will affect 6 Finlay Street and 1A Little O'Grady Street. We point out that no 6 is Leigh who is already supporting the application, and that we own 1A Little O'Grady Street, but the planner still thinks it might not be able to be fast-tracked because of the wall re-alignment.
Frustrated, we dash home and draft four new letters, one from Leigh, one from his mother, one from us as owners of 1A Little O'Grady Street, and one from nephew Nick, our tenant in the house, as the occupier of 1A Little O'Grady Street.

Back in Melbourne, to bad news

In the absence of any response from Anthy we decide to go to the Council direct to find out what they are doing with the permit. We discover that no application has been submitted. We know that Anthy has had some health issues, so we assume this is the reason. We tell Leigh the bad news but assure him that we will now try ourselves to do what's required to get the permit application submitted.
We rapidly realise that we can't do it without more detailed plans than we have so far, so we decide to ask Daniel Ash to help us out. (He is the architect that builder Tony brought to see us in December.) After a couple of meetings we have plans ready to take to the Council.

Returning and re-focussing

We plan for our Tasmanian summer sojourn to end mid-April, so in early April, we start thinking about the renovations again. We send a couple of emails to Anthy asking how the permit application is going, but no reply. We start to feel a little anxious, especially when we check the bank account and find that the cheque we wrote in December to go with the application hasn't been cashed.

Just checking...

In January we communicate with Anthy to confirm that she has everything she needs from us to get the permit application done. She tells us she has.