# Forum More Stuff Go to Whoa!  WIP - Kitchen, bathroom, laundry and verandah

## SilentButDeadly

Just come off three weeks of worknig on the house and I thought I'd crow a little on behalf of the team... 
Fugly was a little timber box dating from the 1920's.  Over time it had morphed from a four room box to a five room house with enclosed rear verandah.  On the positive side, it has a strong hardwood frame and was fully gyprocked internally in the early 90's. On the negative side, it is very low to the ground and is clad twice (fibro then fake brick  :Annoyed: ) 
Previous owners had seen fit to place the bathroom, laundry and part of the kitchen within the enclosed verandah.  Bad move cause the floor sloped and the inclusions were badly built.  Result was structural failure on a grand scale........so it had to be replaced.  With something slightly larger and with a back verandah 
At the same time, we decided to add 70sqm of enclosed verandah out to the side, new deck out the front, new old windows all around and a total reclad & reroof in a combo of zincalume and colorbond. So we'll be at this a while yet. 
But this is where we started just three weeks back...  
This is what was....everything under the flatter roof pitch had to go.   This is what was left after the wrecking crew had been playing for nearly a week    Once the dingo and bobcat had been playing we were left with a field of holes...   which were filled with red gum stumps (down 800mm!) and topped with Duragal bearers....   ...which were covered with new hardwood joists....  ...while the new rear verandah has oiled red gum joists.  The little shack to the right of the water tank is our very comfortable temporary bathroom (even has hot water) 
We've since done part of the framing for the new bathroom and laundry and sourced the rear verandah posts (125x125 red gum - lovely) but I'll see if I can add some  more photos to reflect this a little later..

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## Dirty Doogie

Geez that house is low on the ground as is the deck in progress. I'm not sure it would pass the Qld regulations for termite inspection clearance (not sure what the regs are for your area). Are you going to chemically treat the dirt under the deck bit for termites? 
Doog

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## Dirty Doogie

LOL Photo 3 looks like a battleground complete with fallen comrades  Hee hee!

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## Bleedin Thumb

SBD,  
Have a beer on me. It looks like a major project you have started on there. 
Keep the updates coming!

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## SilentButDeadly

Ohhhhhhh yeah.  Old Fugly is low to the ground........no question.  However, because of this we could get away with the new section being close too.   
We thought about lifting the house but it simply wasn't worth it.  It would've resulted in extreme over capitalisation.....as would've a new house. 
Termite treatment is a given........and it has been received.  Termites also explain why we used steel bearers....it ain't perfect but as long as it makes it harder for the little buggers to get to lunch then I'm a happy camper.

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## SilentButDeadly

The first frames are on....   
...and covered with sarking.   
The rear verandah posts and top rails (all river red gum) have been through the thicknesser and had two coats of oil. They are now awaiting their inclusion into the structure.

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## Dirty Doogie

OO LA LA ! river red gum !! You cant get it up here unless you are very very rich! 
This is the extension where you are installing the half wood, half tile bathroom floor ? 
Keep up the good work 
Doog

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## SilentButDeadly

> This is the extension where you are installing the half wood, half tile bathroom floor ?

  Yep...  
More additions....  
Beginnings of the new front deck.....steel bearers that will be covered by 200x50 sleepers running at right angles to the house.  The window will be replaced by french doors...and the fake brick will go!!  
Some of the rear verandah posts are up...  
Some timber detail......nice figure, eh? :2thumbsup:

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## Dirty Doogie

Hi SBD,  Yep that is lovely figure and color!!   
Years ago I found a stash of river red (old growth I was told) and thought I would make chest of drawers out it. It had grain almost the same at that in your pics. I fastidiously finished the drawers off but within a few years the timber was still cracking and checking. Just a learning experience I suppose.  I hope you can get it to stay in the condition it is in the pics. 
BTW what is that flowering tree you got out the front? 
Doog

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## SilentButDeadly

RRG (especially in thin sections) really needs to be fully sealed in poly or similar AND ideally should be select grade to minimise timber movement.  There are a few furniture makers about that use RRG but it is always fully sealed and thicker than you'd expect.   
My stuff is 1st grade roughsawn but with kiln drying would probably end up feature grade rather than select.  Given the size of the pieces and the form that some of the older pieces are in (see old pergola posts behind the new frame) I think they'll be OK. 
We think the tree in flower is some sort of ornamental cherry.......

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## Dirty Doogie

I can't wait for the next pics. When I sell this place I might just kick back and watch all the reno projects in these forums for a while  Lol

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## SilentButDeadly

Been on the busy side so progress has been slow-ish but most of the frames are up and the back deck is done...

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## pawnhead

Looks good. 
Just a point. That lintel should have jamb studs, or be continuous to the next stud if it's fully housed. 
If it's half housed, you've probably done your homework and I should just shut up.

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## seriph1

nice going! Can't wait to see this one progress

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## peter_sm

I love the red gum. I grew up in Barmah all my life, my old man worked at the saw mill. I lived, breathed, and played with it.

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## SilentButDeadly

> Just a point. That lintel should have jamb studs, or be continuous to the next stud if it's fully housed. 
> If it's half housed, you've probably done your homework and I should just shut up.

  Well spotted!!  It wasn't till after the photos were taken that I stood back, looked and swore  :Doh: .  I'd housed the lintel but forgotten the continuous stud.  So now there is a continuous stud in there as well... 
The red gum deck is 200x50x2700 landscape sleepers that have been dressed in the thicknesser. They've been slotted between the 100x50 red gum joists.  The sleepers have been spaced up level using red gum as well.  Finish is Intergrain Natural Decking Oil.  The sleepers were about $11 each and there are 30 of them....from a materials perspective the cost per sq metre worked out at roughly $20.  Cheap yes but she took a bit of time to finish and fit..... :Biggrin:  
Last two walls this weekend and the roof frame next weekend....

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## pawnhead

You also don't really need those extra jack studs under the plate at the bottom of the window opening. They don't carry much weight apart from packers to support the window until it's fixed solidly through the sides.

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## seriph1

Man I reckon this is Aussie innovation at its best!   :Biggrin:  :Biggrin:  :Biggrin:  :Biggrin:

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## SilentButDeadly

Framing was approved by the council today!!  And old mate inspector reckoned the new back deck looked 'really good'. 
So now we can do a roof!!

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## DvdHntr

> Termite treatment is a given........and it has been received. Termites also explain why we used steel bearers....it ain't perfect but as long as it makes it harder for the little buggers to get to lunch then I'm a happy camper.

  You do realise that the termites can just climb over the bearers and into the joists? 
The whole point of using termite caps and steelwork is just to slow them down. So that a regular inspection can detect them and they can be removed before they damage the house. You will not be able to inspect, so you really needed to provide a barrier that they can't foil. I can't believe that the council inspector would allow you to get away with it as it is clearly stated in the BCA. I just hope you treated the ground.

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## SilentButDeadly

> You do realise that the termites can just climb over the bearers and into the joists? 
> The whole point of using termite caps and steelwork is just to slow them down. So that a regular inspection can detect them and they can be removed before they damage the house. You will not be able to inspect, so you really needed to provide a barrier that they can't foil. I can't believe that the council inspector would allow you to get away with it as it is clearly stated in the BCA. I just hope you treated the ground.

  
I'm well aware of the capabilities of termites but I'm not terrified of them :Biggrin:  
The house stumps have all been treated in accordance with the BCA and the underfloor is now well ventilated so I've done about all I can do in terms of risk minimisation.....and we are located in semi-arid Oz so we don't have the humidity problem of most Australian rat runs  :Doh:  sorry.....cities, which seems to encourage termites to climb considerable distances... 
Routine inspections for termites and other greeblies are also a given....even here :Wink 1:

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## DvdHntr

> Routine inspections for termites and other greeblies are also a given....even here

  How do you get under there to inspect? looks like about 150mm.

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## DvdHntr

Also, they will not attack the stumps but they will go for those nice newly sawn timber joists. Having steel bearers makes little difference in my opinion. I think they would have cost a fair bit more than conventional timber bearers.

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## SilentButDeadly

Underfloor inspections admittedly aren't easy as most of the existing house is fairly close to the ground but I've carved a couple of crawl paths under both old and new sections which even a bloke like me can warp and weft into. 
True.....termites will gun for the joists but the as we said the stumps are treated, the bearers are steel, the underfloor is well ventilated and underfloor soil moisture is almost no existant....so they'll have to work hard to get there.  Not impossible very true but apart from knocking the thing down and building totally in steel there's not much I can do to totally obliviate the risk... 
And yep gal steel costs more than hardwood bearers (steel $120/8m length) but a) a smaller profile will carry more weight over a longer span (which meant I could deal with the limited height issues) and b) is still cheaper than modern termite treated LVL alternatives like Hyspan.   
If we'd tried to use timber bearers then they would either have been sitting on the ground or sitting on stumps only 1000mm apart or less as opposed to the far more practical 1500mm spacing we got away with....

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## SilentButDeadly

Well........things have moved onwards....the frames are covered for starters....   
Yes we know it's the shiny side out and that's not the way everyone does it but it's very hot where we are for more of the year than it's cool and.....it only makes R 0.1 of a difference anyway!!   
The back deck has turned out really really well....   
...and just to show that one must have plans when building something this...flash....here are ours..

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## Purse

Hi, Great thread  :2thumbsup:  especially seeing as though i am about to undertake something very similar. Couple of questions just for my own learning purposes: Was there a point of installing decking joists as in the end you didnt use them other then for decorative purposes?  By the pictures, the decking roof posts dont go into the ground, are they bolted onto the bearers/joists and how, or am i miss-seeing them?  Love the plans, did you have to submit any to the council before building?  Looks great, keep the pictures/updates coming Cheers<O :Tongue: </O :Tongue:

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## SilentButDeadly

> Was there a point of installing decking joists as in the end you didnt use them other then for decorative purposes?  By the pictures, the decking roof posts dont go into the ground, are they bolted onto the bearers/joists and how, or am i miss-seeing them?  Love the plans, did you have to submit any to the council before building?

  q1. Yes...there was a point.  The plans said there'd be hardwood 90x45 joists....and we didn't want to disappoint to building dude and have him turn around and disappoint us!! Plus the contrasting sizes works quite well...the building dude thought so too. 
q2. You're right...they don't go into the ground.  They are housed over the bearer and bolted, triple gripped to the joist and nailed to the interjoint block that the sleepers are screwed to....I hope I don't ever need to pull them down  :Biggrin:  
q3.  Yep...we took the wall (it used to divide the kitchen from the laundry before we realised it'd fit in the new 'hole' we'd created) down to the planners office in the back of the ute before we kicked off......his signature and stamp are on the centre left (over the water container).

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## Bleedin Thumb

Silent, our council requires that we submit 3 copies of plans........if you had to do the same I recon you may have some problems with drafts. :Biggrin:

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## DvdHntr

I had to submit 3 full copies and 6 basic plan and front elevations. The funny thing is I don't think they even checked mine because they asked about things that were clearly stated or shown on the drawings.

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## SilentButDeadly

> Silent, our council requires that we submit 3 copies of plans........if you had to do the same I recon you may have some problems with drafts.

  We DO have a problem with drafts even now that the plans have been returned.... :Biggrin:

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## SilentButDeadly

A message to the dude that invented/sold/fitted fake rooftiles made of pressed metal: 
MATE, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES.....I WILL BE HUNTING YOU DOWN. 
...and you will be placed against the wall next to your best mate (the dickhead who invented/sold/fitted fake brick wall cladding) where I will take abject delight in dumping a roof load of your poxy pressed metal tiles on your head!! 
...that's better. 
Normal programming will resume when I've recovered.<SIGH<SIGH>

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## SilentButDeadly

Okay!!  We have a new roof.... 
But first we had to remove TWO old rooves. 
First the tin tiles.......  
plus a layer of hardwood battens...  
then the final layer of corrugated iron.  
Repeated out the front....  
Then fit the new roof... 
First out the back....  
Then out front...  
So how did it turn out? 
Out the front...without the new cladding...it's a bit like putting a new cap on a broken bottle  
But out back......it shows real potential!!

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## Dr - 307

Dude, your making me tired just reading your thread.  Great work.  
I'm going for a nap. :Biggrin:  
Doc.

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## SilentButDeadly

Further progress has been made!! 
Firstly.......we wrapped the rear in corrugated iron   
Then added a couple of doors and a window or two...   
then removed an internal wall...  
...on the same day as a massive dust storm (which wasn't good since the main south facing window had not been fitted)    
So after the shovels and brooms had been put away and the last window fitted and trimmed it looks a bit like this...

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## seriph1

love it .................. esp. the corro!

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## SilentButDeadly

Righty ho.  
After twelve months without one........our new bathroom is now largely complete.  Only requires a fixed glass shower screen and some architraves.  The former should be in place in the next couple of weeks while the latter might take a little longer. 
The bathroom is a 2500mm x 3700mm space divided into two sections - wet and dry.  Wet section is a tiled shower space and bath taking up an 1800mm wide section at the western end while the Dry is a timber floored section 1700mm wide with the entry door, custom River Red Gum vanity and bog.  
Also in place and functional is our new laundry. 
All was done with the help of family and our friendly neighbourhood sparkies and plumbers.  No other trades involved. 
The kitchen remains a work in progress.  Work will now move to the construction of the eastern verandah frame and roof (and completing the entire roof itself - barges & soffits etc) before moving back to the western side to replace windows and re-clad...... 
Pictures.......hopefully....to follow.

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## SilentButDeadly

We are done...well, the bathroom and laundry are (mostly)...and here's the pictures to prove it   
Left and right view of the wet area with the shower and bath - wall tiles are 100x300 in 'ice cream' and 100x100 glass in an aqua colour, floor tiles are 200x200. 
Vanity section through the glass screen....all home made or using recycled materials (except the taps, lights and glass screen)

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## Vernonv

The whole project is looking great. Well done. :2thumbsup:

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## Bleedin Thumb

SBD, the bathroom looks all class! very nice indeed. 
I'm  not a great fan of corro as a cladding (unless its minimal with lots of glass aka Glenn Murcutt) but it is heaps better than faux brick! 
How are you going to treat the front?

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## SilentButDeadly

> SBD, the bathroom looks all class! very nice indeed. 
> I'm not a great fan of corro as a cladding (unless its minimal with lots of glass aka Glenn Murcutt) but it is heaps better than faux brick! 
> How are you going to treat the front?

  Thanks, BT.  
Corro is difficult to do well because it does tend totake over in a big way.  Most of our external architraves (approx 100mm river red gum) around windows and doors are not yet in place so it still takes up a lot of the view. 
Definitely better than faux brick though. 
Out the front....  
Right side window (as viewed in photo) will be replaced with full height french doors.  Left side windows will be replaced with quad casements.  Sliding door on far left will be removed.  There will be another deck out front (matching the rear deck) with a hardwood pergola to eave height to carry deciduous vines. Walls will again be corro however, the wall within roof pitch over french doors may have painted Shadowclad rather than corro...

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## president_ltd

bathroom looks beaut, hope you've verified its all allowed in building code though. 
in this part of Aus (victoria), one cannot have ANY timber flooring at all as of mid 2007 building regs.  i'm told that this was bringing Vic into line with the rest of Aus. 
as a result of this, we had to take a perfectly good hardwood floor, tank it in cement sheet / fibreglass, then put vinyl lookalike on top of that!

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## SilentButDeadly

> bathroom looks beaut, hope you've verified its all allowed in building code though.....

  Have to wait and see eh?  :Wink 1:  
Personally....I'm hopeless with code. Much prefer common English.  
By the by, access to the BCA is available free for a 7 day trial period from http://www.bcaillustrated.com.au
So yes I have read it and I'm fairly confident that our building and finishing methodology is in accordance with the Code.

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## president_ltd

> Have to wait and see eh?  
> Personally....I'm hopeless with code. Much prefer common English.

  here's an article that says basically what we were told around this time last year:  http://ask.homesite.com.au/index.php...g_regulations/ 
specifically the point that says:  "If the floor outside the shower area is constructed of timber, the whole floor is required to be waterproofed. " 
 there's also a draft of the 2008 BCA at http://www.abcb.gov.au/index.cfm?obj...B4C97D1E3E504A where there are some proposed amendments, but you can see what the current 'standard' is based on those amendments too.  
all good if you're good with it .. you might be able to get away with it if the shower head is 1500mm away from the floor, but in our case it was too & multiple (paid for) opinions said it still wasn't a goer...

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## zacnelson

That corrugated iron cladding looks great.  I don't see much of it around; my question is, do people always install horizontally (as you have done) or is it sometimes installed vertically?  Which way is considered to be better looking or more functional?

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## Bleedin Thumb

Thanks for that link SBD. do you use them? If so is it easier to gain the info you need than having a hard copy to thumb through? 
I'm like you, BC's don't mean anything to me but we have to do a major extension soon and it will need to be certified - so I guess i will have to throw the common sense out the window and do what I'm told as no one seems to take bribes anymore. 
Damn you ICAC.

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## SilentButDeadly

> That corrugated iron cladding looks great. I don't see much of it around; my question is, do people always install horizontally (as you have done) or is it sometimes installed vertically? Which way is considered to be better looking or more functional?

  Zac....sometimes it's installed vertically but it is a) harder to do because of the need for extra battens to attach to the walls - vertical corro and vertical wall studs don't go together - and b) only looks good in low heights or where the wall height is broken up length ways (say by a verandah roof) because the vertical runs make the walls look tall.

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## SilentButDeadly

> Thanks for that link SBD. do you use them? If so is it easier to gain the info you need than having a hard copy to thumb through? 
> I'm like you, BC's don't mean anything to me but we have to do a major extension soon and it will need to be certified - so I guess i will have to throw the common sense out the window and do what I'm told as no one seems to take bribes anymore. 
> Damn you ICAC.

  Damn my cynical tounge.........but....the Building Code sometimes appears to be subject to the whim of building product suppliers.....spoke to my truss dude yesterday and he reckons that his supplier of truss components continually changes the design requirements of trusses with the general excuse of 'better engineering' but the upshot is that more of the suppliers material gets used in every truss......and then the design requirements end up forming updates to the Standard!!  Turns out one of my now installed beams would probably no longer satisfy the so-called design requirements even though it is in no greater danger of falling down now than when it was specified....if only they could see some of the structural stuff in our house being replaced!! 
I've used the above site as a source for guidelines....occasionally (you need to source form different IPs over time).  There is a book available from Skills Publish that gives a potted summary of the Code that for $30 is affordable and handy - but probably out of date. 
Given that the extensions are major.....it might make good sense to splash out the $150 required to get a printed copy of Volume 2 of the Code (which is the one you'll need) - minimal addition to the budget for a bit of piece of mind https://www.abcb.gov.au/shop/Results.cfm?category=0 
With respect to the Code (and other such fluffery) we have relied on our building surveyor to give us the advice we need when we ask for it.  Bloody good resource.

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## SilentButDeadly

It's a new screen door  
Rather happy with our work here.  Simple air dried river red gum frame 105x35 mm dowelled and glued (Titebond III) and finished with Intergrain Natural Decking Oil. Covered with Cyclone Petmesh and hardwood quad (finished with Black Japan). Handle is a piece of a tree attached with Type 17 galvanised batten screws through 25 mm long 13mm gal pipe spacers...

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## AitchJay

That's a great result, the contrast between the wood and the iron is really striking, congrats!

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## Bleedin Thumb

That does look good, brings out the quintessential Australian nature of both materials...if that makes sense. 
You will have to make sure that your surrounding landscape is the very Australian as well...native grasses, with a gnarly old malley form Euc to frame the house. 
Its a great makeover form faux brick!

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## SilentButDeadly

Here's a little saga about recycling windows.....   
Due to some much welcome genorosity, we scored a collection of double hung windows like these for not much more than effort.  The vision was (and remains) that these will replace the collection of aluminium uglies that currently grace 'Fugly'. 
First job is dismantle...    
and strip...   
at this point, replace any broken glass....for which (thus far) we've typically paid $75 per frame fitted. To date....three broken panes. 
Then re-finish...    
...and assemble.  Now these are double hung windows with spiral balances - eight per window.  All totally rooted after the best part of forty years use.  Replacements seem to average about $20 to $25 each.  Say $200 per window... 
Then add new internal latch (fitch style) and lift fittings....another $100  
Once in place with their oiled RRG trims, new hardwood screens (more $$)....   
and rather fancy (but blessedly cheap) filligree to hold the screens in...   
...they look quite good.  We are extremely happy with the outcome 
But under no circumstances think that using recycled windows is a 'budget' option. 
We were lucky in that we got this lot for not much more than love.  Yet from a building recycler our house set of six windows might have set you back the best part of three grand.  They were in essentially good condition yet they still needed stripping, re-beading, painting and new fittings.....anything up to $400 per window by my guess, assuming you don't have to replace glass!!  And then there's the time......which'd have to be running at about 100 hours per window. 
And how much does it cost for a set of six such windows new?  A 1200x800 double hung single light timber window finished in clear Sikkens from http://www.woodworkers.com.au/websit...t/1l_dh_2u.php will cost you about $930 each plus frieght.....say six grand.....if you spend two and half grand (plus many hours) doing up a set of used windows you paid three to four grand for....then you are just a bit silly.

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## Bleedin Thumb

Is that Gecko real? 
BTW nice windows. :Biggrin:

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## SilentButDeadly

> Is that Gecko real? 
> BTW nice windows.

  hardly!! It is a bronze casting of a gecko that is based on a Hawaiian design....same origin as the one on the door - which is (we're told) a representation of Alii, which is thought to be some sort of royal sign. http://www.alternative-hawaii.com/pr...rs/ilnicki.htm 
The windows are quite nice...

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## zacnelson

You've done an amazing job with those windows, thanks for going to the trouble of outlining the detailed process, and explaining the costs.  It's a real eye-opener. 
It was worth all the effort, every time you look at those windows you will admire them with pride

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## SilentButDeadly

Summer has been pretty good to us. Fine weather.....not too hot. Until now of course.  
But most of this happened before the latest heatwave... 
Xmas was the time of the Western Wall. 
Many moons ago....it looked like this  
More recently it looked like this...it spent a long time like this!!  
Then before Xmas.....we stripped the old cladding, removes the aluminium eyesores and re-built the house frameing to accomodate the restored timber windows...  
....and stuffed it with glass fibre batts.  
We then fitted the new windows, covered the wall in Sisalation Tuff-Wall and flashed the windows........and there it sat in its blueness for the Xmas period and a large chunk of January. 
But the Oz Day Long Weekend proved too tempting and the tin went on. 
And here's the result.    
Only job now here is to put up the external architraves and a little extra flashing (over window architraves and the sheet join near HWS).....and the fascia & soffits.

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## Vernonv

Makes a huge difference to the look of the place. Great work SBD.

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## Bleedin Thumb

Beautiful job, not that it would take much to improve faux brick!. The corrugated iron with your timber windows looks great though, a bit different to the usual louver's/ aluminium windows and corro mix. 
I think the timber anchors the design down and sits really well with the external deck etc. Well done.

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## chromis

I just love watching this post grow. There's something very warm about the house and the attention to detail is a joy to watch as it unfolds.  
Who da thought a "lick-n-stick-on-brick" house could be transformed like this.  
What's the plans with the garden?  
Not that I'm rushing you or anything  :Biggrin:

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## SilentButDeadly

Why sandshoe!! 
The transformation is easy enough as long as one is paitient and can craftily minimise costs.  This exercise would be soooooo easy to drop in the overcapitalisation bucket. 
The western wall windows now have their oiled red gum architraves and the fly screens are awaiting their paint jobs.  We opted for smaller profile timber in the screens for these windows and I ended up recycling some of the old hardwood battens from the roof....a few passes through saw, jointer and thicknesser and they come up nice. And free. 
The western wall will also get a steel shade structure....like a colannade (?) on which we will grow grapes and espaliered fruit trees.  All to provide shade from the summer sun...one day. 
Garden will probably revert somewhat to a more native arrangement due to minimal available water (both rain & irrigation).....annual rainfal is typically 260mm (but it hasn't reached this for a while) and this year we are only allowed to use 700,000 litres (or just under 2000 litres per day) of untreated river water via our water use licence to run the house and garden (excepting drinking water - but then it hasn't rained since mid December)....so we are being very very circumspect in our watering.  And our planning for future plantings is made on the assumption that this arrangement will continue.

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## chromis

I'm doing a bit of an over capitalisation myself. The only thing that stops me doing a bigger over capaitalisation is errrr money. 
But yeah it's amazing how far you can extend your budget by being inventive.

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## SilentButDeadly

It's now May.......nights are getting cooler, days are getting shorter and the leaves are falling.  Unlike the seasons however progress remains at one speed.....slow.   
Work on the verandah structure began in late March....   
By the end of April the basic verandah structure was in place and work began on a retaining wall.     
By last weekend (third of the way through May) the main frame of the verandah was completed by the inclusion of a massive 300x65 LVL beam which was then painted black (Weathershield charcoal) and the retaining wall had been completed....apart from the capping. 
Now to the verandah roof....

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## SilentButDeadly

...it was supposed to be all finished by now <sigh> but we are still having fun 
Anyway, the trusses are in!!   
Lifted in with the aid of a Franna crane, these two oregon trusses (150x50 top chord, 200x50 bottom chord) went on with minimum struggle.  And the pre-painted ridge beam (300x47 Hyspan) fell in perfectly. 
The process of adding rafters began shortly after. They are 200x50 F7 oregon  
We've since finished filling the main pitch with rafters and cross bracing it all back into the original roof.  Now to do the rear section and add the battens etc. before covering it all in tin. 
In other news, we've another new toy......a Biolytix septic filter  
The tile drain on our old septic failed and this thing seemed the best option for us.  Not cheap by any means and certainly not complicated despite the makers desire for it to seem so (my background is in sewage treatment so I am familiar with these things).  It would actually be possible to assemble one of these from off the shelf parts (Biolytix do) but then that wouldn't be legal now would it.  Oh well.  But we can't complain as it will reduce our garden watering needs rather substantially which is good considering our very restricted water supply.

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## Vernonv

Looking good SBD.  :2thumbsup:  
These things always take longer than you expect. I've given up being surprised when our renovation schedules blow out ... just need to condition the wife to accept them as easily as I do. :Biggrin:

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## ashley75

> Well spotted!!  It wasn't till after the photos were taken that I stood back, looked and swore .  I'd housed the lintel but forgotten the continuous stud.  So now there is a continuous stud in there as well... 
> The red gum deck is 200x50x2700 landscape sleepers that have been dressed in the thicknesser. They've been slotted between the 100x50 red gum joists.  The sleepers have been spaced up level using red gum as well.  Finish is Intergrain Natural Decking Oil.  The sleepers were about $11 each and there are 30 of them....from a materials perspective the cost per sq metre worked out at roughly $20.  Cheap yes but she took a bit of time to finish and fit..... 
> Last two walls this weekend and the roof frame next weekend....

  I'm just wondering how your redgum sleeper deck is holding up - as far as cracking and moving goes.  i think its been a couple of years since you built the deck (based on the posting date).  I was thinking of doing the same, but the sleepers are 'wet' (straight out of a plastic sealed pack, and seem to be holding a fair bit of moisture, but very straight).  great post -

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## SilentButDeadly

Ashley.....the deck is holding up just fine. It now just needs a good clean and an oil. Yes there has been some movement but nothing drastic or unsafe. As long as you can cope with some wobbly lines in your deck then I reckon that the sleeper option is a ripper. 
There has been some substantial progress since I last posted but that is another tale.

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## SilentButDeadly

The last little while has been taken up with preparing to replace the kitchen. This has involved fitting a tad more of our recycled floorboards to give us the final (ish) floor area for the kitchen then sanding and oiling them. Also a bit of gyprocking, painting and whathaveyou. 
That part of the fun done and we move on to the kitchen itself. 
Like many these days we chose to purchase an IKEA kitchen. They are cheap (especially when you elect to have a drawer dominated kitchen like us) and it would fit easily into the space.  
Unlike many these days we chose to purchase only the cabinet frames and drawers (no fronts and no worktop) so we could make our own bespoke kitchen. 
Thus far this has gone smoothly......except for IKEA not holding any 800mm wide base cabinets in stock - they have to be ordered (or reserved in IKEA speak).  
Interestingly...the cabinets are not special. Far from it. Made in Slovakia from compressed recycled matchboxes and two hopeful layers of melamine they are not brilliant. But they do work and appear quite strong. 
The drawers are special. I thought they'd be made in China el cheapo double walled Blum knock offs. They are actually Blum TandemBox drawers!! If I'd known this I'd have bought only the drawers and got a Lamikit flat pack for the frames instead. These drawers are much cheaper at IKEA than anywhere else to my knowledge - 60cm wide drawers for a 70cm deep cabinet were just $45 each. Every other price I saw for these drawers had them at a cost of anywhere between 300 to 500 extra over the basic five drawer cabinet - wheras at IKEA we paid $310 all up per 60cm five drawer. 
So there you go....more soon!

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## pawnhead

The sleeper deck looks great SBD!  :2thumbsup:  
I used crapiarta TP sleepers on a small deck here. It's cheaper than decking, and I like the chunky look.

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## ashley75

thanks for the update - well that settles it for me.  i'll be going with the 200 x 50 redgum.

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## SilentButDeadly

Works continue........as does the amusement. 
We have focused recent attention on the wall that separates the house from the new verandah room. We knew that it was going to be replaced because it was likely to be complete crap in a structural sense and extremely difficult to repair and/or retrofit. 
With the installation of the new roof trusses in the verandah (which were designed to support the full span of the wall) the original wall was no longer a significant structural component of the house....fortunately. 
Stripping off the two layers of original cladding exposed the old frame....and it was just so special that I had to take a few photos and share the beauty... 
We had studs that don't span the full height of the wall, unsupported lintels, not bracing bracing, a random approach to noggins and a number of other entertaining little mishaps.  
The cream and cherry of the wall was the almost total absence of gyprock adhesive and fasteners so we were able to dismantle the entire wall without removing the internal lining. 
The icing sugar is the power point under the old mini window that is wired up around the outside of the studs.....our electrician loves our place. 
All the visible framing has now been replaced with new studwork with openings for two new windows and all is to Code (so much more timber!).  The centre of the wall is still in place until I can put a beam across the internal wall perpendicular to this wall and then it'll be removed to make way for a set of double doors.....this weekend I hope.

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## SilentButDeadly

Well.......the beams went in. The beam over the new double doorway is a 2.2 m length of 300x63 LVL and that is supporting a 4.9m length of the same across the house. The remaining 400mm wall frame above the long beam is also cross braced with bracing angle. 
If you compare the first photo with the first photo a couple of posts back (the one with the oven in it)....they are much the same view. 
All installed by yours on the lonesome with some rope and rachets. Not entirely recommended because that LVL is on the stupid side of heavy but it worked none the less. 
Just two windows and a set of double doors to go in.....perhaps this weekend?

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## Bleedin Thumb

Good stuff SBD. All I can say is that your missus is more tolerant than mine. It will be a real transformation when its finished.

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## SilentButDeadly

Tolerant?  Tolerance is not required.  Just Realism. And we have plenty of that.

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## SilentButDeadly

This year represents the third calender year of the renovation....which has of course really ended up being a rebuild. 
To close off 2009.....we opened up the house...which you saw earlier.  But now we've got windows, doors and new gyprock.  And it is so much nicer. 
We also have new tin on the outside but we can't seem to find the photos.... :No:  
This year....we'll finish it.  For sure.  Mostly. 
We still have the front to do outside plus the rest of the verandah structure and quite a bit of flooring....

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## tcf

Looking good SBD....but what does finish it. for sure. mostly mean? haha this stuff never ends does it?

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## SilentButDeadly

Three months later......time for an update. 
Things have taken a turn for the slow due to 'other commitments' (there's a clue in one image) but there is still progress. 
The first image goes back a few months just to get a picture of how far things have come.  Everything is based on a frame.  And this is our to be enclosed verandah... 
The new old windows and doors went in on the inner wall then the wall itself was clad.  Sparky has also been in - fitting lights, power points and fans in the verandah space. Then we moved to the outside walls of the verandah itself - more tin, topped with 200x50 river red gum landscape grade 'sleepers' (planed and oiled).  Just finished the tin on the outside of the low walls. 
Still to do here....hardwood verticals between the RRG posts to carry the (probably) galvanised steel woven insect mesh, painted timber mouldings or steel or both to hold insect mesh to the timber, four screen doors and the small matter of 50sqm of reclaimed Tasmanian Oak floorboards. 
And then there's only the front to go!  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## PVS

WOW SBD what an amazing transformation!!! 
Your renovation looks fantastic, and the (almost) end result seems well worth the time and effort. 
Thanks for sharing pics and details  :Smilie:

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## SilentButDeadly

Why sandshoe! 
Been working on the verandah a bit further.....another dozen 120x45 KD verticals are on their way into the structure to carry the insect mesh. 
This mesh comes in 1220mm roll widths.  We've selected 16 mesh x 28 SWG woven galvanised steel wire as our mesh - it looks like typical insect mest on steroids.  Cost is a smidge under $30 per lineal metre from Locker Locker Group - Expanded, Perforated & Wire Products  We could've gone with mesh from 304 stainless but felt that the additional 50% in cost would not get us a 50% improvement in durability or practicality.  
Soon....the front of house beckons.

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## Crestfallen End

Just found this thread .....Amazing transformation, I love the verandah,  is that nice wide board on the edge for seating?
Also congratulations on the arrival of your pram, I mean baby.....that sure will slow you down  :brava: or maybe motivate you especially once they start crawling  :Biggrin: .

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## shauck

That was a great mornings read. Would never have seen it if not for recent post. Awesome. Any more to come??

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## SilentButDeadly

Ah...yes.  Much has changed since I updated this.   
Verandah has been floored (November 2010), screened (January 2011) & lined (Feb 2011 - lower section only).   
50sqm of damaged internal T&G floor has been removed and replaced (March 2011) 
Front deck has been fitted (March 2011 - more RRG sleepers)..... 
Still to go.....internal floor sand & oil, pergola on nothern and western sides, northern external architraves, much internal architraves and significant internal joinery 
Having been saying to myself that I must update this thread for ages!!  So will try and manage photos to match shortly...

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## SilentButDeadly

One year of work since our last public demonstration of progress.  We have many excuses....most are related to not feeling the need to make sufficient effort to keep our Unknown Audience (that's you, Dear Reader) informed.   
That shall be rectified in the next couple of posts.... 
In August 2010.....we got ourselves organised for another push.  And we did some verandah flooring....almost 50sqm of it.  A tag team of three worked over a seven day period to measure, cut, fit, cramp, drill and nail a small mountain of recycled Tasmanian Oak floorboards to our now very well seasoned hardwood bearers.  Best we managed in any one day was 12 rows of floorboards....or 60 lineal metres.  Recycled is ethical, good for the soul....even affordable.....but it is a slow bastard of a job!

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## SilentButDeadly

Once the verandah floor was in place we then turned to the front of Fugly....time for its new face. 
Removed the last of the fake brick to find two walls that were actually made 'properly'! 
So of course we modified them to include yet another recycled & renovated double hung window (provided by a colleague for a good bottle of wine) which replaced the bloody awful aluminium window that was in there plus a set of double doors (new - from Entry doors, Pivot doors, Windows, Handles & hardware, Gates and many more at Woodworkers). 
Then a fresh coat of wall wrap and corrugated iron......and that was August 2010.

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## SilentButDeadly

Nothing much happened until.....well.....January 2011. 
Except a tonne of rain....between October 2010 and March 2011 our region received three times its average annual rainfall.....so it got a little soggy around here. 
This type of flooding was repeated four times....but the house was never touched. 
No matter.  The other delay was sourcing a floor sander person. We'd already had a go at floor sanding inside ourselves and quickly realised....never again. Our first booking failed after the bloke ended up in hospital and then it took until the end of the year to line another mob up - and he turned up between Xmas and New Year!  Still only charged $600... 
Then all we had to do was tidy up and give it a couple of coats of oil

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## SilentButDeadly

So the floor was in, oiled and useable.....but the rain meant the mozzies were ferocious.  So we had to get on to the installation of the mesh.   
This is beautifully woven 14ga galvanised steel wire that we purchased from the Locker Group.  It is way more expensive than fibreglass or aluminium but stronger, tougher and far better quality....should last 50 years. 
It is just stapled on.....broke my old hand stapler on the way around so a new one was required part way through.   
Suddenly, we could eat outside....but indoors  
Staples however are not enough.  Cue the battens.  Our battens are made from hot dip galvanised 40x5 steel....so we don't expect them to rot anytime soon.    
The bottom wall has been lined internally too. With JH Exotec 9mm external cladding.  Which is simply heavy duty cement sheeting.

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## SilentButDeadly

And we've done the front verandah too!  The sleepers are screwed into recycled plastic lumber bolted alongside the steel bearers....   
There's still the small matter of the pergola out here...

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## SilentButDeadly

And just to recap... 
Here's where we were back in 2007  
And where we are four years later  
Not a bad show, eh? 
But that's only the outside....still a WiP on the inside!

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## shauck

Simply awesome. You guys have really gone the extra mile. Keep posting. I'm hooked.

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## dangermouse1598

Holy moly... What a transition! You are true visionaries.... Amazing work. Keep posting, I'm hooked too.

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## SilentButDeadly

The Easter period was productive......some time off and an invasion of in-laws and various outlaws (bloody mice) promoted yet another fertile period of building. 
The aim of the game was 'to finish the front of the house'.  So easy to say. And why not...it was nearly there anyway. 
Just a small matter of dressing & oiling two dozen lengths of rough sawn River Red Gum and then shaping them to fit.  And making sure all the measurements are done perfectly because its all the timber we have and the mill shut early this year.....so no more RRG. 
Much checking, rechecking, angst.....and general dicking about.  Took a few days in all.  Despite this I still made an elementary wood fashioning mistake....but you'll never know to look at it. 
What we did was:
Line all the eaves;
Alter the downpipe plumbing;
Install a pergola; and
fit external architraves. 
Has come up rather fine....  
The first photo comes from late 2006, the middle shows how we stood in early April and the last......how it appears now....

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## shauck

You'd have to point out the mistake because all I see is great work.

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## mcsmart

Fantastic.  I see where you are coming from with some of your posts in other threads.  Great job.

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## SilentButDeadly

Never let endless renovation get you down....it is now a full year since I last updated this thread.  And what the stuffing mushrooms have we done to show for it?  Nothing but smug satisfaction  :Biggrin:  
Improvements in that last twelve months have included:
- a completely repaired kitchen floor which involved total removal & replacement of the remaining 20 square metres of smashed up & shrunken floorboards then a full sand to strip the estapol off the old boards and re-finish the new boards followed by a complete oiling.  So now the floor looks like it belongs there...but holy moly what a mess;
- all the internal architraves are in!  90mm Merbau decking for skirts, windows and doors with 80x20 River Red Gum machined from rough sawn air dried 90x45;
- the Library area at the front of the house has been established with a home made floor to ceiling bookcase made from recycled hardwood beams (laminated into  five 300x50 uprights), left over bits of house frame and the last of our floorboards for shelves - I had to make it in the shed as a knockdown frame, disassemble it for finishing and then carry it into the house for final frame assembly.  Twenty two shelves were then made up from the floorboards, finished and installed.  Voila! 20 odd metres of new storage....that is stronger than the wall it is attached to.
- Outside we managed to finally chew through the many cubic metres of 50x20 pine batten that was once used to attach the accursed fake brick cladding to the house frame and it is know all roughly piled in the woodshed for future incineration...
- and the house now wears a 2.2 kW grid connect solar system that (based on the last quarter results) looks like easily ensuring we don't pay another power bill...provided I can keep the damn things clean in the face of many a dust storm! 
Photos, eh?

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## The Bleeder

Don't tell me....massive dust storm covered the solar panels so no lecky to charge the camera battery..... :Biggrin:

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## SilentButDeadly

In case of dust storm...use the bicycle charger instead.   
And yes...we painted the low wall around the outside verandah in Porter's chalkboard paint - four different colours.  It's a fabulous quality product, excellent price and great service and (naturally) a really fun result.

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## SilentButDeadly

Kitchen drawer fronts.  Such simple things.  So why do they take three years to do?  Probably because they are simple. 
Our kitchen is an IKEA.  It uses 'Made for IKEA'  Blum Tandembox drawer system...which is why we bought it.  We decided way back to make our own fronts and benchtops since the IKEA stuff didn't suit us.  As a temporary measure, we used old floorboards as drawer fronts, chipboard sheets overlaid either with melamine finished chip from some old cupbards or oiled construction ply as benchtops and ceramic knobs that we found on closeout at a local furniture store. 
Original plan involved River Red Gum and Hoop Pine plywood fronts but a combination of budget, time, ability, care factor, time, time and time bought us back to a modicum of reality.  Original plan for tops (laminated RRG) remains on station. 
So we just went for plywood.  Plain old (or new in this case) CD grade construction ply.  18mm Carter Holt Harvey Ecoply.  $240 for four sheets. 
Two hours one Friday morning in the local woodworking machinery supply shop with their panel saw had my four sheets chewed into small sections....$140.  I spent another $90 on a smashing little Festool Euroscrew drill bit which was a lot for a little but well worth the spend. 
Cupboardware in QLD had a nice little Blum jig for marking up the drawer fronts for drilling...$70. 
The cut up fronts then spent a few weeks chilling out because they were still a bit juicy from when they were trees.  They needed to dry out a bit before they could be easily sanded. 
Sanding was an allround blast of 120 grit on the belt sander followed by a 240 grit on the front face with the orbital.  Edges got the 240 as well. 
Than all the fronts got drilled & fitted - painstaking and slow but less fraught than finishing then fitting.  Took a few weekends and just a little swearing. 
Now they were ready for finishing.  A quick wipe over with 400 grit on the face and then they were coloured all round with food dye.  $10 for four bottles. 
We mixed three colours - variants of blue, red and green from the full color range available at your nearest supermarket.  We were looking for a slightly dirty lime washed version of each colour.  The first image is one of our test sheets.  Patience is the key to using these dyes as they change as they dry especially the reds. 
In the end, about a half litre of each colour was sufficient to colour the panels all around.  
Once the colour had dried then the panels were lighlty sanded again to flatten any raised grain and the sealer applied.  We chose Intergrain UltraClear Interior water based in matt ($125 for four litres).  Proved to be a good choice.  The finish is totally clear and slightly enriches the colour.  The product dries fast even with the cool and damp weather and is a joy to use.  Seems to be a PVA based product because it looks and feels like dilute Aquadhere in the tin!! 
So far the blue sections and red sections are now fitted.  Only the green bits to go.  In the meantime...some taster photos.  I'll whack up something more definitive in a later post 
There's no doubt that our result is not everyones cup of tea but it works for our house.  Certainly didn't cost much.  Took a bit of time but not as much as I make out since the time taken reflects our time management rather than actual time spent on the job. 
Sadly, it does bring into stark reality the fact that the benchtops are really really not very nice....

----------


## Uncle Bob

love ya work SBD! :2thumbsup:

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## sundancewfs

Looking good SBD, obviously there was nothing good on tele after all.  :Biggrin: 
Using food dye for timber is something i would never have thought of..... but timber being cellulose based and a food (if your a termite) is the perfect surface for it. Very subtle hues too, with the grain showing though.  

> The first image is one of our test sheets

  They look like they could do with a frame around them and be hung on the wall somewhere...  :Biggrin:

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## SilentButDeadly

> They look like they could do with a frame around them and be hung on the wall somewhere...

  There's a thought... 
TdF is on the tele....that'll sort me for the next three weeks.

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## SilentButDeadly

Had a bit of time and some decent light and taken some images that avoid as much as possible the rather average benchtops and their typical untidiness.   Fair to say though...food dye, construction plywood and a bit of effort make a decent looking kitchen.  Hopefully we'll finish it before another three years pass!!

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## SilentButDeadly

...ta daaah.  Or thereabouts.   
The last six months or so have been an exercise in quiet progress.  Winter and spring are a time for preparing for summer in these parts and the garden got an extra dose of TLC to cover for the lack of time spent on it over the last couple of years.  Also had to fit two new tank straps to the house water tank (an old concrete thing) that proved to be an elemental battle between Yours Truly and seemingly never ending lengths of metal strip over how keen we were about getting two coats of Cold Gal...which wasn't a renovation for a family audience.  But it was also a time of preparing a few other more enjoyable jobs. 
The main effort has focused on what we thought might be the last major construction effort that is to be attached to the house.  The western side of our place cops the worst that our hot dry climate can chuck down at us over a summer and we thought shading the western wall and windows would help the house perform better on the hotter days and reduce the need for using the swampy to keep the place cool.   So the idea of a pergola like structure was hatched.  A check of our remaining stocks of structural RRG showed that with a clever use of recycled lengths and some minor adjustment of 'Staines Law' we could build the main component from RRG to match the other major features of the house - nominally 100mm square posts (seven @ 2000 centres) & 150x50mm beams (enough to do about 14 metres).  However, there was a complete lack of 'rafters'.  A visit to the metal shop turned up seven lengths of downgrade 30x30x1.4 square gal which neatly knocked down into 2400mm lengths, a couple of lengths of 50x50x2.5 black angle (more sodding ColdGal) to act as a ledger on the house and two sheets of reinforcing mesh, each cut in half.  Application of welder, drills, paintbrush, many bolts and an abundance of screws and quite a lot of recycled wire...coupled with some unfortunate use of the English language...we had a pergola.  Shade cloth tops it out until the deciduous vines grow... 
Suffice to say that the addition actually works.  Heat soak is substantially reduced and the house can now withstand a high 30's/low 40s day until very late afternoon (if it was down in the teens the night before) without kicking the air con in the guts (and upsetting the resident frogs). 
Another job was the last pair of doors.  Screen doors to be precise.  Recycled jarrah from the 2nd hand shop and some left over metal gauze from the verandah and that job was mostly done - still needs handles and a closer...maybe next year. 
The other major work in progress is the kitchen benchtops.  I may have mentioned way back what the plan was but as a reminder - River Red Gum. Surprise. Surprise.  We invested a small sum of money when we bought the place on two stacks of air seasoned rough sawn 100x50 (nominal!) from the local mill.  No-one needed it, it was going cheap and we were cheap.  Fast forward seven years and we are now ready to treat it as it deserved.  The Boss and I spent a day at the saw bench getting filthy whilst milling a small selection of the timber into something flattish and squarish.  Another day on the thicknesser and, to a lesser extent, the jointer (I have a fractious relationship with this one - it may lose out in the end to a new table saw) and we ended up with a smaller pile of neatly aligned sticks, a small mountain of sawdust and some great smelling chooks.  Further banging away, swearing, sawing, more swearing (measure thrice, cut once - not the other way around) and the judicious application of glue and clamps got us the rough outline of one kitchen bench top.  Mostly flat, mostly square and only slightly shorter than originally intended [first bench image]. Devout application of planes, belt sander, melting candles, wax sticks, filler, orbital sander and enough sandpaper to make a sail produced something worth putting a finish on.  In this case, the finish is Organoil's Hard Burnishing Oil and it is applied straight onto timber that has been sanded down to 1200 grit wet & dry [second bench top image].  The final image is a close up of the finish post oiling but without further work.  Still to come is a rub with a fast moving piece of sheep and a final application of polish - still tossing up between Ubeaut's Traditional Wax or some plain old beeswax polish (though since the boss doesn't like the smell of the Ubeaut then we might already have a decision).   
Then I have to chop a bigger hole in it for a sink... 
[To be continued...next year]

----------


## SilentButDeadly

We chopped a hole!! And the sink fitted into it!   
For the sinkly minded it is an Oliveri Diaz double with drainers at both ends.  Quite large and highly practical.  And a right fiddly trucker to fit when you've never done one properly before and into a top that is quite a lot thicker what might be considered normal.  I ended up having to route a 10mm rebate in the back of the top so that all the clips could be fitted without getting in the way of the cupboard base structure. 
The most amusing part of the exercise was us struggling into the house with the top...twice.  The best part of 3200 long of anything is unwieldy at the best of times...if it weighs roughly 50 kgs in the bargain, is finely finished and can only go in one way with a well executed turn then the degree of hilarity goes up a notch. 
It fitted quite tightly and proved to be 'almost' flat.  Which meant it took about 80kgs of person sitting on one end to get it just so for the screwing down.   
The tiny return length also fitted sweetly and was a testament to the measure twice and cut once principle that I so frequently neglect.  Some of those fancy benchtop joiner bolts hold it tight to the longer section though the so called Forstner bit that I used to drill the four holes for the bolts (and all eight of the hinge holes in the plywood doors) is now merely scrap....twelve holes killed it.  And I sharpened it after the first eight!  Piece of crap.  
Once it was all sorted, the top got a couple of rubs with beeswax polish.  I'll have to follow it up in a couple more weeks to bed it in but that's no biggy. 
So now the kitchen sink top is normally clothed in kitchen paraphenalia and will be until we can find a tile shop that sells anything other than black, white or beige tiles for the splashback (don't get me wrong I love living in the country but there are times when I'd dearly love my neighbours and our service providers to be slightly more imaginative and less conservative in their decorative choices).  So that's for a later trip to The Big Smoke. 
In the meantime...we have two more benchtops to build.  One is an island...an island of river red gum...no sodding palm trees!

----------


## SilentButDeadly

The kitchen now has its proper benchtops!!  And the tiling is done too... 
Only took six months from start to finish...which seems kind of appropriate.  The short benchtop was done back in April but the big island bench had to wait until early July before it made an appearance.  It was made in two separate pieces and joined in-situ.  The join is just behind the stove top and is simply held together with benchtop bolts before being attached to the cabinet tops. 
The stove installation was a doddle but it may have seen out the old Bosch jigsaw...RRG is hard!  The stove clips were long enough to avoid the need for any routing - all I had to do was drill some pockets to receive them.  Worked a treat. 
The tiles are concrete tiles that have been lime rendered and painted.  Very cheap at only a couple of dollars per tile though this is offset by the expensive sealer required to make them work in a splashback situation.  The sealer cost way more than all the tiles!  Still...the result is quite nice.  Instead of grouting...we've used bathroom caulking so as to avoid any scratching of the tiles.  It worked in the bathroom behind the sink and it was perhaps more effective here. 
The 'only' jobs to do now in the kitchen is the box around the fridge and oven spaces and some pantry doors.  Oh and a couple of new underbench end panels because the colours didn't quite come through on the older pieces of plywood.  
As for the rest of the reno...there is 'still' so much more to come.  :Eek:

----------


## SilentButDeadly

I think this year will mark the seventh year of this expedition... :Cry:  
...but then all good things take time, eh?  Even grey hair... 
The last half of 2013 was occupied more by imaginations and machinations than renovations...plus more than the odd weekend off.  Make no mistake...stuff got done.   
The temporary vege garden that we made in the back garden back in 2005 finally expired and has been almost completely rebuilt and expanded...for example. 
But one thing we started before Xmas was the verandah ceiling.  We finally got tired of staring at roofing paper (only took five years).   
We ummed and ahhed about what material we would use to fill in between the rafters.  After much ruling in and ruling out of various materials for aesthetic, practical and financial reasons we chose to properly investigate compressed cement sheet, plywood and moisture resistant gypsum board.  And we'd virtually decided on the gypsum board when we came to our senses and bought a ute load of 9mm construction plywood.  Basically, we decided that while both would be fiddly to install...plywood would be far easier to finish and there was almost no price differential especially once you took finishing the gyprock into account. 
So some time in November we started the ceiling by fitting three lines of Top Hat in between each rafter with each length running parallel to the rafters...54 lengths in total...or about 180 metres worth.  That took a little while.  It proved most unpleasant to install when it was a bit hot outside... 
December saw the time for the plywood to commence.  The plan was to split each 2400x1200 sheet along the shorter axis to get three separate sheets that would each be installed between the rafters and held in place with a web of 15 wafer head screws.  To try and prevent a series of orderly lines being formed by the sheet joins we decided to offset each collection of sheets from its neighbour in the next rafter bay.  Fiddlier but probably worth it.  
The northern end of the ceiling took 26 of these plywood panels. The southern pitch had a further 18 and the far southern lean to end took another 14 or so.  So not an insubstantial collection of plywood (or screws).  As a result it has taken until just today to get sorted (we were delayed a couple of weekends by a heatwave) which is good because we are about to cop another week of plus 40 days.  The last sheet went on as the mercury approached 36 degrees... 
Of course it's not finished.  We now need to fit the trimmings which might be some form of quad or it could be a colourbond flashing...or it could be something else. We'll think of something...eventually.

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## SilentButDeadly

...still haven't finished that ceiling.   
But I have made some pantry doors.  The frame is oregon, cut out of beams taken from a building site skip in Sydney by my BiL. There's two of these - they are roughly 2700 tall and we appear to have enough corks to do all four panels  :Eek:  
The final layout will be the simple panel in the rear which is two rows of sparkling wine corks surrounding a field of normal wine corks on their side.  The remaining corks are in those orange bags...

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## SilentButDeadly

Twentyfifteen, eh? And this tiny thread can still be sparked into life...   
The pantry doors got done. The oregon frames got a rub down with Black Japan to key them in with the rest of the kitchen. The only fail was my ongoing inability to assemble a completely flat door due to undeveloped skill, insufficient space and the right equipment. But they open and close and their wonky nature appeals to me. 
In other news...  
The verandah ceiling got finished. We infilled the trusses with old Baltic pine lining boards attached to pine batten frames. Once pushed into place and fixed in the gaps were covered with home made river red gum quad.  Assembly nearly cost me the end of a finger but a bit of luck meant that I finished up with no lasting damage. 
The finish on the lining boards is Porter's chalkboard paint that was heavily diluted, painted on and rubbed off to give a limed effect. We reckon the green was more successful than the watermelon colour but overall...very happy. 
Now to the latest project  
...a cubby house over the sandpit that also serves as a windbreak and screen. It will also have a raised garden bed under the screen...one day. 
The view from the top is not bad!

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## SilentButDeadly

Resurrection time!!! 
The cubby house got clad and the extra garden bed got built...I promise!   
Oh you wanted finished? PAH! Ha! Maybe this year... 
Managed to start the 'missing' piece today.    
It's kind of maybe perhaps a low level deck! It'll link the verandah to the front deck and finish the front of the house.  
Plan is to use 75 mm C purlins as the subfloor with more River Red Gum sleepers as the decking. Thinking that spacing will be around 900 given the smallish sub floor but we'll think on that tomorrow since the sleepers themselves span 1200 no worries (proven by the back verandah). 
More to come...one day!

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## Moondog55

Love the cubby house

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## SilentButDeadly

It's funny how things progress. You think you are getting somewhere and then reality crops up and gives you a clip over the ear. 
Despite this we've made progress on the Last Deck. At the close of the day this is where we are at...   
Still needs more sleepers. Unfortunately. Because at $33 per stick, they are expensive these days. 
After sorting out the shed insulation...we decided to fit a couple of whirlies to reduce the heat load on the foilboard.
By Huey, they are ugly...

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## METRIX

Were the frames treated or non treated timber ?

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## SilentButDeadly

> Were the frames treated or non treated timber ?

  Which frames were you referring too? House? Cubby? Deck? 
Actually now that I think of it...there's no treated timber in this place. Certainly none I've put here. Although the cubby sits on recycled treated pine posts... 
The stumps have been treated, post installation (tee hee), but nothing much else.

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## SilentButDeadly

Here we are at the end of the southern Oz long weekend...and a milestone has been past. The last puzzle piece is in.   
Dropped the last sleeper in today.   
One could argue then that the Reno is done. This missing piece of the front verandah being it. But in actual fact, we still have some joinery to do in the laundry...and numerous other things. 
In fact, this has been going on so long that the bathroom is nearly due for an update. Just kidding! 
Actually we are getting a new 10 m x 6 m shed soon with room in it for guest accommodation...and the original shed is copping a major makeover.  So plenty more to come!

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