# Forum More Stuff Go to Whoa!  My Un-Slum Project...

## AaronM

*The Story:*
A semi-parentlike figure has an old house in a good old 'burb here in Canberra.  For the last 10 years he's had his brother-in-laws family living there for no rent to "get back on their feet" and look after the place. 
Anyways a couple of years ago they were told they were getting the boot and finally on the 19th of October they moved out. 
Now it has been our problem to fix up, live in and generally make home for a while...  *The Problem:*
In late August we had a walk through while the BIL was fixing the place up before moving...  From the 6 (yes six) chainsaws in the house, the lawnmower in the dining room and the piles of crap in every room, complete with punched in walls and doors off their hinges the place looked like a slum... 
The floors are a premium tongue-n-groove hardwood original to the house, they need refinishing, the paintwork needs to be done and the wooden windows need to be stripped, the glass re-puttied and then they need a repaint.  There's a dated kitchen and a dated bathroom.  *The Plan:* 
Fix it.... Before we intend to move in around Mid-November (which has slipped to Early December!)...  *
Exterior Photos Before:*

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## watson

Wish you well....and keep the progress reports coming......,sounds like redneck's invaded.

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## rrobor

You know it surprises me people would sell a house like that. They must have dropped tens of thousands on that. Sure it will be hard work  getting it fixed but if they had cleaned up it would have got more. Ah well whats the old saying about a fool and his money.

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## zacnelson

The house is in a beautiful location

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## Smergen

Look forward to following the progress champ. Keep the photos coming!

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## AaronM

*Interior Pics*

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## AaronM

I've been plastering up vents in the wall..   
but it's not my forte..   
Seriously though that's the first one I did and it sanded back fine...  
The old gardens have been found in the weeds and mulched from all the cuttings..     
We found the "back of the house" under Wisteria and Honeysuckle     
Some priceless bogan art...    
Corflute window  
More mulching to be done   
Quality air cooling  
Spring rains bring out spring flowers

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## AaronM

Perhaps this was a better starting point....  
And finally we've had some successes on the inside... first coat of one of the feature walls (and the friend that painted it)   
More to come!

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## AaronM

Ceilings are starting to finally look white...  
Starting to see potential in the floors once they're refinished  
Work is getting closer to the kitchen now  
Bought new tiles for the bathroom - white, plain, 200x400mm  
Easy Access to cupboards in the kitchen...

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## AaronM

I'm finding the Wattyl "ID" paints to be flowing and covering much better than Dulux or British.   
The old master bedroom is now painted (except the guts of the wardrobe and window frames), the foyer is painted with its first coat, and the lounge walls are finally done.  The new Master bedroom has most of it's (colourful) scheme done, with just the feature wall left to re-coat. 
We've also been working on the kitchen re-jig and have decided on a plan to freshen the water damaged end but leave the rest for now.  
Some Pics... 
Lounge looking towards the street, the walls are Dulux "Off White" colour tinted Wattyl "ID"   
Part of the Foyer (which is roughly the size of a bedroom) with the first coat of Dulux "Lemon Tea".  The Foyer colour was chosen to be a nod the the era the house was built in.  
Lounge through Foyer to Bedroom-3 (unpainted as yet) and new Master bedroom (the crazy "Bollywood" colour).  Also shows on left of the pic in the lounge the painted brick chimney stack that never had an actual fireplace.

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## AaronM

It never stops - unless we're talking about the smell of the toilet.... 
See since we took possession of theplace we've been trying to get the stale urine smell out of the place.  It finally left us, the toilet and the smell. 
Walls have been multi-coated with Anti-Bacterial treated paints, they've been washed and washed again....  The wooden subfloor was soaked in mould and stench killer...  Then I extended the pseudo tiling into the room and the plumber installed our Government subsidised Man-Throne.   
I think removing the top 25mm of the concrete tower it sits on helped with the smell reduction.  I'm a little amazed that I was able to work on that directly above the open sewer line and it smelt less than when the old dunny was in there. 
Also plumber did some stuff in the kitchen...  
Water outlets for the new sink and dishwasher, relocated the drain... 
I unfortunately had to remove that much plasterboard to get rid of the rot under the sink area.  
A.

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## AaronM

Some more pics of progress... 
New vanity unit - not installed yet but it made it into the room to test size  :Smilie:   
Where did my old shower go?  
One of the window frames painted  
Lounge Windows all done!  
Kitchen gutted and starting to get primed  
The dining room  
The old 1964 original upper cupboards are being "restored"  
We're restoring about half the lower cabinets at this stage..  
Alternative view of the lounge   
It would be nice to be installing all new kitchen, and to have done a few things much better than we have - but keeping in mind we still don't own it, and we're also running very low on cash we've decided to be somewhere between don't give a @@@@ and do a good job. 
Since these pics kitchen walls are completely done the under cabinet lights are in and I need to have some wiring finished up for dishwasher power etc 
Lots of doors to paint still, plus the inside of the laundry cupboard, the last bedroom (currently the tool room) needs to be done from start to finish.  Then there's floors and naturally moving in...

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## AaronM

Oh, I don't think I mentioned I'm doing this on afternoons and weekends around full time work and role a primary carer for my wife (broken by her military service) 
A.

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## AaronM

Other interesting facts, under the house is still chocka with stuff so we're cleaning ti out to give us additional storage... 
It's revealed a lot of unique things; 
There's about 2 dozen of these, all early 1970's US editions...  
Lots of different cigar boxes  
Lot's of things to handle with care   
There's heaps heaps more stuff, wooden cotton reels, paddlepop sticks, Leyland/Austin/Morris/Jaguar parts rubbish, a wing-back chair, suitcases, rat droppings etc etc. 
The bottle of 2-4D (one component of Agent Orange) will probably not be used on the garden, then again it would probably solve the weed problem at least once!

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## Bleedin Thumb

Man that place looks like the place I grew up in....its not in Lyneham is it?

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## Armers

holy sheet!! you've done awesome man! Damn good work... I am about to start all that, we got our architect in on last friday night to check out the place... hes gonna provide us with some rough drawings and then we're into it! 
anyway man awesome work there!! Damn good job! :brava:  
Cheers
Armers

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## AaronM

Thanks, it's a long road (even if traveled at 100mph) and there's some light at the end of the tunnel. 
No it's not Lyneham.  Woden area actually. 
Something inspirational was seeing the under-cabinet lights on the refurbed kitchen section on Saturday.. 
A.

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## AaronM

Finally the Laundry Cupboards got underway...     
Kitchen re-furb is coming along...    
Still painting f..king doors...

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## AaronM

Some more pics... 
We paid a dude to come over and disrespect the evaporative air-cooler.  
He did a great job of taking it apart  
Overall it was filled with filth, bacteria, scum and mank...  But oddly the actual workings of the unit are fine so it's been cleaned, sterilised and chlorinated.  Not bad for $200...  It also explains why on the few occasions we'd run it we'd both end up sick for a couple of days and why the kids that lived here with the ferals were also sick...  
I also finished putting the upper cupboards together...  
The new handles, new paint and restored hinges (I stripped the originals to find a modestly detailed chrome finish original hinge design) as well as the under cabinet lighting have really made the potential show up.  It's actually not bad for 1964 original. 
Also found under the house yesterday was some of the orginal floor timbers - the labelling identifies it as Tasmanian Oak...  It's going to look awesome when refinished next week! 
A.

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## AaronM

Finished the lower half of the old cabinets last night.  Still need to put handles on the drawers though.

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## robbo3

The place looks great, I really like the flooring and the kitchen is coming along well  :Smilie:  
Hayley.

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## AaronM

And now for something different! 
The Kitchen door (and the rest of the kitchen trim) has been painted the same charcoal to match the cabinet frames.        
Laundry Cupboard doors painted and re-hung (along with 11 other doors about the house)  
Turning the corner by packing up the "tool room" - the only room not touched so far - it's getting done very soon.  We're getting everything off the floors because this week we're floor sanding!

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## AaronM

Been a few sudden hiccups meaning the house has to be finished by the 21st of December for us to move in on the 22nd December.  I need to be elsewhere (Mum is dying) but can't be there until the house is done so the work rate is picking up... 
Had a couple of mates come and help yesterday (Saturday).  One punched down nails on the entire floor and then finished up ripping apart more of the kitchen.  The other tiled... 
But before we could tile there was a "hump" to get over.  
It's sturdy enough to sit on  
I also re-sheeted the wall  
Then jammed my mate into the cubicle to start work!  
We finally laid the first tile!  
And we kept going and going...   
Today I won't forget the angle grinder so we can cut the odd shapes. 
But's still looking 100x better than before!

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## AaronM

Floor sanding mostly done, it took 9.5 hours of solid back breaking labour but the Tasmanian Oak is looking good.  Better pics coming when I get over there this morning in daylight!  (finished just short of 10pm). 
Still have some edging to clean up with the mouse... 
From this:  
to this:  
A.

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## AaronM

Opps double post!

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## AaronM

So then it's time to make it look good!
Cabots CFP, Cabots Interior Stain and a edger and roller and away I went!  
1st coat in one room!    
I'll darken it a little more with a second tinted coat, and then a final clear coat ready for the weekend!

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## rrobor

Oh Lucky Jim, How I envy him. Yes mate I envy your youth, your enthusiasm, your common sense. Jees man I just envy you, Your mom dont raise no fool.

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## AaronM

Second tint coat on the floors has evened the colour out nicely.     
Not perfect but on the bad of bad advice and the need for expedience this is the result we'll have to be happy with!

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## Armers

looks good nuntheless.. you've done well. Good Work!  :Biggrin:  
Cheers
Armers

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## AaronM

> looks good nuntheless.. you've done well. Good Work!  
> Cheers
> Armers

  Thanks! 
Was just running through the project as we're at that "under two weeks to go before moving in" list; 
* Grout bathroom
* Paint bathroom
* Re-Paint study (Second coats on walls + trim)
* Paint touch-ups throughout house
* Install End of Kitchen
* Tile backsplash in kitchen
* Install Bathroom Vanity
* Install all new Taps
* Install waste plumbing for shower
* Curtain Rails in all rooms
* Hang Curtains
* Phone Cabling for Study & Lounge including Central ADSL2+ Splitter
* Take Awesome Photos... 
Then move in... 
A.

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## sundancewfs

Going hard! AaronM.
Well done :2thumbsup:

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## AaronM

The end of the kitchen is starting to look like a ktchen now.    
Dishwasher plumbing is all ready!  Cabinets are attached to walls and doors are ready to go on! 
Just final hookup on the sink to go!

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## AaronM

The 900mm Pantry between the doorway to the lounge and the exterior kitchen door.  
Found another piece of the textured Masonite for the back of the old cupboards.    
The new stuff! (No Benchtops yet)  
The fridge recess will take our 800mm wide 530L unit.  The stove can be up to 600mm wide and the dishwaser is a standard F&P 600mm unit.     
A more cat-level view

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## AaronM

Plumber came and took another lump of cash to finish up the work in the bathroom.  We now have water and drainage in every room that shoudl have it! 
Gave the walls their first coat of the new colour too.       
Even had to put in a new fan

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## Naf

Aaron, it looks like you have the same problem as me in regards to the vanity being in front of the window. What do you do for a mirror? When I redo the bathroom I was thinking of putting a free standing mirror on the vanity unit in front of the window. Could we possibly see a wider/more shots of your bathroom. 
Thanks
Nathan

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## AaronM

Nathan, we've got a little bit in shaving cupboard on the right plus on the wall over the bathtub (painted area) we're using an array of 3 mirrors for a combination of  artisitic effect and practical use. 
In the mean time here's some more pics!     
With most of the place done enough to move in (two sleeps to go) I've turned the focus to the shed... 
Found: 
More Porn  
Lots of "stuff"        
Even relics from the Prince of Darkness  
But I'm making headway      
The Skip bin is getting pretty full...

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## Naf

Thanks Aaron, could you post a pic of the mirror over the bath when you get a chance. And I hope those magazines aren't in the skip bin. 
Nathan

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## Master Splinter

I'm sure you'll find people here who will help you clear all that 'stuff' from the shed....

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## AaronM

So the story continues: 
On the 22nd of December 3 guys and truck turned up to move our stuff in... 
So we're now finishing the place with stuff everywhere.
However some updates;  
We got a car in the shed!  
The Cats helped a lot with moving (by sleeping whenever possible)  
The house wet our ($7500) bed  
That could be related to the water bed problem... 
In short the ancient evap unit (directly above our bedroom) has ruptured and dropped all the water it contains through the roof.  This happens whenever it's active....  Unit is not repairable (rust holes throughout the base) and needs to be replaced.  However modern replacements cannot reuse the duct, the hole in the roof or the plumbing or power.  Roofer is needed to repair the sizeable hold in the roof it will leave behind.

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## ibuildbenches

Oh, thats gotta hurt! When scrolling down I originally thought the cats pissed on the bed then I saw the last picture.. Cat unine would of been better.

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## AaronM

Yeah same evap unit.  Obviously the gunk was plugging up the rust holes!  Haven't used it for a few days, arced it up today becuase of the heat and no leaks WTF? 
The bed is one of the "you'd spend anything to try and relieve a loved ones suffering with chronic pain" purchases, 'tis nice though! 
Have installed new sensor lights outside the doors..    
New Light in the Dining area...  
Finally installed the light in the Dunny  
Morris Parts gone! 
Old Trailer Gone! 
Over a tonne of scrap metal items gone! 
Have started dropped LAN cabling under the house, about 50m short so need to scrounge up some more!

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## AaronM

Pussy Cat Alcatraz   
First sketched out a basic plan to make the west side of the house a enclosed cat run.  It's also the narrowest and most exposed side.  
The structure is as simple as possible, and deliberately designed to not appear to be pergola or heavy duty piece of structure.    
Just so everyone is clear on what we're doing  :Smilie:   
The completed front view from the from the front yard, the Kanji is "Neko" meaning "Cat".  
The upper portion of the front is 50mm square wire mesh, allows good flow-through ventilation.  It also lets the cats look out from perches on the inside. 
The screen panels are ready made, we've had them for ages and just have been re-stained/oiled in the new colour pattern.   
First we added 2400x500 woven fence extenders ($34.95ea) down the length of the side of the house.  
They're screwed to the fence for additional security.  
This is what the neighbors see from their driveway.  The improved privacy is a bonus for us.  
This is the view from the front door of our neighbors.  Yep we were sick of them and their visitors looking straight into our house.  
Our side, this gives you an idea of the 36sqm we're giving the fur covered terrors.  It's about 3m wide and an easy 1.8 to 2.0m high at the fence line with the extenders in place.

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## AaronM

70x35x1800 treated pine is used as "posts" to support the extenders and roofing. They're screwed to the fence rails. The roof structure is very lightweight and will only support shadecloth and a small area of laserlite for shelter.  
The angles of the rafters does change as we go down the side, the relative level of the fence, ground and house all vary.  This method is matching the purpose - catrun - not entertaining patio with pergola.  
Lightweight 42x19mm treated pine battens are used to staple the shadecloth down.  It's first wrapped around the batten at the gutter, then draped down.  Rafters are ~2.2m apart and the battens are under 1m apart, closer near the fence recognising the cats will probably climb and hang down there a bit.    
3 and a bit sheets of laserlite are used above the laundry door to provide the humans and feeding and feeding area with some shelter.    
In progress looking to the front yard.  The last batten-to-fence shadecloth has not been tightened and secured yet.  We're doing that that last.  
The cloth wraps around the fence side batten and will get stapled to the top of the fence extenders.  
The structure at the front is more solid, and allows for a gate to be added in the middle panel if we choose.  
At the backyard end some of our pre-fabricated run panels are used in conjunction with wire mesh.  This end is going to be rebuilt with a large gate that opens to a 2.4m section that will form an enclosed vegetable garden to the corner of the house.   
In time we'll extend 2.4m past the end of the house as an open shade section, to provide privacy from the neighbors lounge that overlooks our backyard and also some more vege/garden area that will get morning sun only.  This section needs to be built "proper" as it's not sheltered between a house and fence! 
The use of the open wire mesh at both ends gives much better airflow than shadecloth of screens.  In the moderate winds already experienced there's much less billowing of the cloth than in our previous enclosed at both ends setups in other houses.

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## AaronM

Well it has been a while between updates and it's fair to say progress has been slow. 
We're still mired in paperwork over the heating and cooling - the quotes came in for about $11K to $16K and we're getting the mid-priced quote installed.   
Doing Bonnaire Ducted Gas Heating, Bonnaire Ducted Evaporative cooling and a 6-Star instant Gas Hot water system.  More info and pics when the install finally gets underway! 
In the mean time I've been tinkering with all the small jobs and some outdoor stuff...  
Good help is hard to find - his worst attribute as an assistant is the lack of opposable thumbs.  
Some decorative cane tangle panels added to a wall.  
Towel Rails and hooks and stuff in the bathroom (Why are those things so expensive?)  
Dug out a level spot on the high side of the yard for the garden shed.  It's about 1m deep on the fence side and 150mm lower than the previous level on the other side.   
The floor is going to be 450mm square pavers, at the moment these are just for leveling up and getting the corners of the shed in place.  I'm about 24 pavers short so will have more to do in the future.  
The finished install.  It's nestled about as low as I could go to ensure the neighbors didn't have to pit up with it blocking the view of our scruffy assortment of trees.   
At the backyard end of the catrun (Alcatraz) I've left about 4.8m of shadecloth covered area to put in a vegie patch - coincidentally it's outside the last room of the house and stops the neighbors from looking directly in the window.  A hurdle to gardening goodness is this snowball plant.  
Farewell snowball!  My wife (nopics) spent about 8 hours digging the root ball out so we could relocate it to the front yard.

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## AaronM

As for other work.... 
Early January I square cut and cleared out the rubbish from alongside the garage.  Basically back when the garage was built in the 60's there was a small gap which previous occupants subsequently filled with lawn clippings, toys, a firepit and rubbish.  We'd cleared the surface level of it out but during the rain in December (while we were away at christmas) water was running through the shed under the walls etc. 
So with the recent heavy rains I was very happy that my efforts stopped the water ingress and it stayed dry.  Now I need to widen the cut as it will form a path from the back of the house to rear of the block and use the natural slope at the rear to form a ramp for the wheel barrow etc to get to the higher levels of the backyard.    
The current makeshift trench complete with crap I'm storing in it.  
Also discovered that we have a Pomegranate tree behind the shed.  
Wasteland behind the garage.  The garden beds on the lower left need to be kept in place, but everything else is fair game...  Ideas?  
Pomegranates  - Not ripe yet!  Don't know what to do with them but I'm sure they can be converted to alcohol somehow.

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## AaronM

Before I put up a couple of pics showing some of the dramatic changes over the past 6 months here's what has been going on lately. 
Works been a bit busier and I'm pretty much only doing stuff on weekends so progress is a lot slower.    
Vegie garden was started 2 weeks ago in the area vactaed by the snowball tree.  It started as a 1' deep hole and is now a 1' raised bed that extends for about 4.8m.  
I've got about 50cm to finish up and then top dressing/fertilising the soil to improve it.  
Along the side of the house (below my "office" window) there was a small garden bed that I've built up to grow climbing stuff - peas this time around with some bush beans in front.  
Spring onion seedlings almost ready to plant out.   
Pittosporums doing well, these will hide the neighbours socks and jocks from our view and form the majority of the screening of our back yard.  The Pansies are a new addition to add some colour to the very desolate back-yard landscape.  
Clearing the crap from up the back of the back yard.  There's some weed that we can't kill growing everywhere.  I'm having to dig it out...  Once I've cleared the whole area under the trees and behind the garden shed down to behind the garage will be weedmatted and mulched.  
This thing needs a serious chainsaw...  In the mean time I'm using a hand saw to break down as much as possible of the stuff around it to start work on the side-of-garage drain and path.  
For the past month we have had hundreds of Autumn Crocus pop up everywhere.  This one is in the middle of the front lawn.  
Big changes out the front with a new garden bed going in.  This is a work in progress and is made up of the dirt from the garden shed area.  It's going to be extended towards the house to include a lot of the random rose bushes we're moving.  Front edge is made of logs reclaimed from the backyard, then weedmat, cane mulch and Agapanthas split from a neighbours garden.  On the extreme left you can see the Snowball that we relocated.   
In spring the garden will look a lot better and the Agapanthas will grow over the edging and fill out a bit, in the mean time it at least looks beter than it did 6 months ago!  
I've started to use a pick to break up the bare patches were grass/weeds aren't growing.  It's like rock - guess that's becuase the previous occupants used to park their Nissan Patrol in the front yard.

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## AaronM

Well the day finally came to have some major investments installed. 
Haven't taken all the pcs yet - these are "Day 1" of a 2 day install..  
The Rubbish pile after a few hours work by a number of tradies.  The old Evap unit was dropped off the roof (vid to come) and old ducting removed.  The old Hot Water system is lurking as well.  Looks like EasyScrap is making another visit here.  
Yeah it lasted a long time on the brink of failure.  
They don't built them like this anymore.  However after 40 years the giant blower unit still spins with also no resistance.    
The new hot(water)ness... a Dux Endurance Six, 6-star energy efficient Natural Gas Hot Water... 
Rest of the system photos next!

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## AaronM

Well I have been doing more Gardening...  I suppose technocally I have the start of a "crop" with some Peas appearing!  
Some Peas, in a Pod! woohoo!  
Other stuff growing well...  
The new "garden" next to and behind the garden shed.  Need some more mulch to cover the rest of the weedmat.  You can see the scruff that's left to deal with further down the slope.

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## AaronM

Well after about 4 and a half months of not doing much except tending the vegie patch I've started work again. 
This post will try to catch up with the some of the past few months but also brings the "good" news that....  *We're buying the dump!* 
We made an offer to the owner and it's been accepted, now it's just up to getting the Mortgage side of things sorta plus finishing some cosmetics to get a decent valuation to get the loan over the line. 
So anyway on with the show... 
My beans grew..  
My vegie patch thrived through winter  
The pansies seem to like the place.  
The Mulberry stumps have been cleaned up to become a corner feature garden.  
I concreted the floor under the house to give a better (cleaner) storage area.  It's a rough job but functional and beats dirt!  
Suddenly what we thought were weeds started to flower - yes Iris - we have a few square metres of them al over the place!  
Car & Bike finally can be parked behind the gates with no drama.  Previously it was a narrow alley between junk piles to get the MX5 out of the garage.  
Paved an area in the cat-run for a table and chairs.  Yeah it's not perfect, but overall 110% better than dirt/grass muck...

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## AaronM

Finished the extension to the vegie patch.  It's made from the old kitchen cabinets.  Yeah it is crappy pine, yeah it will rot, but in a couple of years when it does I'll be redoing it to suit the rest of the major works in the backyard.  
I grew turnips...  
Some random bulb flowering in the middle of winter...  
First of the pre-spring bulbs are coming up in force.  
A close pre-spring second to flower...  
Even the dormant daffodils have come up.  Neighbours are saying it's the first time they've been seen in 10 years!  
More Pre-Spring blooms  
I grew Cauliflower - and now we're eating a lot of it.  From 9 seedlings I have 7 good heads!  
No f'ing way I was going to be doing much outside through winter with this level of cold.  
The temporary trench to stop the ground water leaking into the garage is being widened to a 1.5m path.  I estimate that's about 13 cubic metres of clay to be removed...   
Some of the dirt from alongside the garage is levelling out behind it to make another garden bed.  The lack of maintenance had meant that there was some washing out occuring under the slab which this also addresses.  Only about 30cm under some points.  But enough to be a concern if left alone.  
The Mulberry stump feature is complete.  There's Butterfly bush planted around it.  The stump also is the turning point were the path alongside the garage sweeps around it it (180 degrees) and up to the higher level of the backyard.  Not too hard to get a barrow etc up now.

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## AaronM

Behind the garage just needs the path done and some planting.  The rubble mound is going to be planted out with succulents..  
The pathway is cut - 1.5m wide and all the way to the back yard.  So glad it's complete.  
You can also see the lawn has been given a little top-dressing to neaten it up

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## andy the pm

Great effort Aaron, love the garden beds, it doesn't matter what you make them out of, like you say, they will last a couple of years and its easier than taking the timber to the dump. We didn't have much luck with cauli's, did you tie the leaves over the head? I found that out too late and they went a shade of light green, had more luck with the broccoli. Its a real good feeling when you pick your first harvest. 
How are you finding the instantaneous HWS? I can't decide what to replace our ould system with but the instant ones do appeal. 
Andy

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## AaronM

> Great effort Aaron, love the garden beds, it doesn't matter what you make them out of, like you say, they will last a couple of years and its easier than taking the timber to the dump. We didn't have much luck with cauli's, did you tie the leaves over the head? I found that out too late and they went a shade of light green, had more luck with the broccoli. Its a real good feeling when you pick your first harvest. 
> How are you finding the instantaneous HWS? I can't decide what to replace our ould system with but the instant ones do appeal.

  Yeah tied up the heads we got good results but had trouble with aphids on them.  I'm not trying to be organic but I am trying to avoid too much pesticides etc.    
Instant HWS is worth every cent.  It would have been easier/cheaper just to do a like for like swap but honestly it's stepping up and beyond that makes a house a home i think.

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## AaronM

Well again some catching up - It's not 100% comprehensive as there stuff I haven't taken pics of yet including: 
Blinds in Kitchen, Dining and "Study"
Finishing painting in "Study"
Changing Locks/Doors/Screen Doors etc
Some fiddling with Flyscreens etc 
But on with the catch up...  
Finishing the weedmatting on the front garden bed under the street lamp (otherwise known as Mr Tumnus)  
From the front steps looking over the front yard.  I've filled the massively compressed wheel tracks across the front lawn as that's where the previous retards parked.  It's still to be top-dressed and lawn seeded.  This is about 5 weeks ago before spring flowers came up....  
Front porch area, you can see the years of neglect and crap faded flaking paint everywhere.  Our to-be-fitted front flyscreen is leaning up against the wall.  Yes it's reclaimed (ie free) and fits the hole plus looks ok - we'll probably paint it though.      
Close-ups of the guttering & eaves showing just how bad they really look.  On the last pic you can see on the grey staining on the eaves?  It's from having his BBQ positioned directly outside the kitchen door... I won't talk about the grease on the balcony rail etc...  
The "high" side - it's basically two storeys up at this corner and there's heaps of that dried up ivy crap still all over the place.  Going to be a nightmare to paint/fix up here as there's not much level ground for ladders around that corner either.  
Random Daffodil coming up in the garden.  I'm still surprised about the stuff that's under the ground...  Didn't see any last year (yes it's been a year since we started the project) and now there's probably a dozen or so!  
Another Pre-Spring shot showing the final extention of the front garden bed in the centre rear.  That stick thing is a giant "Snow-ball" that we hauled from the side yard (refer to earlier pics)..    
The place from Space before we moved in - you can see the cars and crap everywhere.

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## AaronM

Garden bed is getting planted with the next crop - Beetroot  
I've had to pretty much re-do the glazing putty on every opening window.  Sure a $13 bucket of the stuff will do the whole house ten times over, but the hours spent chipping out the loose/old stuff and then re doing will be time I never get back!  
Yeah that's how much the old paint is coming up.  and how much old paint is on the glass.  
So after doing the putty work I decided to paint the eaves.  Using "Evencoat" in un-tinted white.  At $89 for 15L I don't think it will last 100 years but it's a Taubmans product made in Australia and covers quite well.  
No more BBQ grease stain (after a lot of wash-down and 4 coats! - everywhere else covered fine with 2 coats)    
You don't think it makes much difference until you see painted versus not...  The lower pic shows two coats, a single coat, a cleaned, and completely untouched sections.  Yes all those ivy suckers were scraped off (overpainted by accident)  
The first bruchstoked of the repaint of the guttering begins.  We're using a "cheap" $130/15L Pascol Solarguard equivalent in "Nightsky".  Yup from blue and white to Black and White - should really change up the look of the place.      
Yeah not much of the old paint survived the scraping and wire brushing for prep.

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## AaronM

3M loves us...  Masking up to paint the windows.  Yes we experiemented with the paint the glass then scrape off trick but honestly it's a 50:50 about result quality on this place.  Inside we scraped, outside we're taping.    
We're also painting the beading between the brickwork and eaves in the nightsky colour.  
and BAM the white windows are gone!  It's a massive difference and I'm still getting used to it!    
Yeah it's looking much more striking!  
From the almost footpath it's looking damn good I think.  Had a lot of positive comments from the neighborhood (people stop for a chat whilst walking past - it's that kind of street)  
Also painted the laundry door after sanding off the paper that was stuck to it, filled all the holes and patched the bottom.  Edo came over and took the pic, new door handle also.    
The high (as in uphill from the driveway) side of the front garden bed made up of dirt from next to the garage.  
Eye-in-the-sky view back in January the shed was not put up as the panels can be seen in the backyard.  Also a lot of our crap dotted around - but no cars on lawn etc etc.  
June and you can see the cat run/shadehouse on the high side.  Footprint of that front garden bed along the footpath, a lot of other crap cleared up and the lawn coming back!

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## Gaza

did you sell all those cars for scrap or were they gone before you moved in.

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## Draffa

The big question is "did SWMBO let you keep the porn from back when women still had pubic hair and nipples were allowed on magazine covers"?  :Biggrin:  
I love the cat run.  Lets you keep your beloved moggies inside, and lets the local wildlife go about its business.  Best of both worlds. 
The house certainly does looks striking with the new paint on the outside!

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## Glasto

> http://lh6.ggpht.com/_FbwH0cZidwA/TK5kMNzLwxI/AAAAAAAAILs/fgrXEPOaFso/s400/1000001712.JPG[/IMG]
> Edo came over and took the pic,

  Bravo. I had to register to say thats the funniest thing I've seen all weekend, 
regards, 
PF

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