# Forum More Stuff Go to Whoa!  Making a dream home for my family

## HandyDaddy

Hi everyone 
I planned to start this thread back in April, and to log my reno progress as it developed, just like some of the excellent threads that I've beed reading here, but where has the time gone? I dont know? Since starting this reno I just dont have time for anything else anymore. 
Anyway, my Wife Angie, my sons Nicky, Dan and James and I moved here from Wales in the UK 18 months ago. We were lucky enough to buy a lovely 22 square house on a two and a half acre block in Langwarrin, Melbourne. We love this place and its got plenty of room for the kids to play, well outside at least, but the house is a little on the small side with three kids running all over it. 
Heres the house from the front   
and from the back   
So, we sat down and thought what we'd like to do with the house and then got in touch with a draughtsman. He took our ideas and said he would call back in a week with his suggestions. A few weeks passed and so I chased him up. He made another appointment but didn't turn up. I chased again a few times then give up. He called me back 3 months later, made another appointment then didn't turn up again. At this point I just thought stuff it - I can do this myself and save the $4-$5,000 that he estimated for his work. 
I spent a few evenings learning how to use Autocad drawing software and started to lay down my plans. Thats when I realised how much I had to learn, especially since we only knew about half a dozen people in the country and had very few friends to call upon for advice. So I read, and read, and found this forum and did more reading here, and registered as an Owner Builder. I spent countless hours learning about building, trying to get an accurate costing for the project, getting quotes, material prices etc. and finally had all the necessary information and reports in place, finished my plans and applied for a Building Permit in February 2010. It was granted two weeks later, and first time too. I was so pleased and busting to get started on the build.  
So, exactly what are we planning to build?  
The .pdf files below show the drawing of the existing house, and then the plans for the proposed house.  
existing property ... House plans 11022010 A2 Existing Property (100-1).pdf 
proposed property House plans 11022010 A1 Plan and Elevations (103-2).pdf 
You'll see that I'm planning on... 
building 180 square metre extension
adding 21square metres to the living area
adding a porch
adding a verandah
knocking the kitchen and laundry together 
In addition to this we also plan to put in a pool and build a 45 square metre pool house in the garden. (I hope to get round to doing this before the kids have grown up a left home) 
Whew, makes me tired thinking about it. 
I'll start adding pictures of progress so far in additional posts, but let me just say here, a big THANKS to all you guys (females included), that have helped so far by answering questions as I have come across issues. You've been a big help   
Mike

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## jago

So have you started the build? 
Looks like you're adding some finess to the property whilst making more functional and you did the plans without previous experience ...kudos. 
I do have a question about your media room....why have you chosen to locate it next to your master bedroom and ensuite?  :2thumbsup:

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## HandyDaddy

Hi Jago 
Yes we have started the renovation, and are progressing well. Will be adding in more photos shortly. 
Regarding the Media room, its actually not going to be used as a media room, its going to be used as a home office. At some point during the design I wrote "Media Room" in there and it just stuck.  In fact, I pondered over this space for a while. Originally had it down as two rooms - a smaller office and an additional store room, but ended up going for one bigger room because we can easily divide it up later if required.

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## HandyDaddy

First thing we had to do was to clear the site. This basically meant tearing down an old carport that was on the end of the house, and also clearing a few trees from the area. This is where we plan to put the main extension.   
so we tore it down   
and then got an excavator in to cut the site. I must admit I was a little concerened about how much experience the driver had  :Shock:      
Well actually thats my middle son Dan, playing with diggers as kids just love to do    
This is the site after the cut. Can you believe that we took 4 truck loads, about 40 square metres, out of this area and the ground was already pretty flat!

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## HandyDaddy

Because we were joining onto the side of the house the brick veneer had to come down.    
We had a French student called Max staying with us for a few weeks so we roped him in on the job, and of course my eldest son Nick has got to earn his pocket money somehow. Thats him at 10 years old handling the jack hammer like a pro.   
A couple of weeks later we were laying the slabs for the extensions. There were two seperate slabs to lay. One about 180 square meters and another smaller one at the front of the house, of about 21 square metres which would extend our living room.     
You can see in the photo below the termite barrier that was used to protect the join between the new and existing slab. We used Homeguard Blue, which was run along the length of the slab joins and then burried into the concrete.    
In addition Homeguard collars were placed on the pipe penetrations through the slab. These again get burried in the concrete.    
A couple of hours floating off and the slabs were done     
So, that was 31st April 2010, we had the slabs layed and we were feeling great. A bit of a family photo was in order    
Someone told me a few weeks earlier, "the hardest part of building is getting out of the ground", so I thought at this point - this is not so bad.

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## jago

Look as if the build is going smoothly and yes getting the foundations down I believe is the biggest hurdle... 
FYI, tell your pest guy hes put the collar on upside down nearest penertration I can imagine the response as it doesnt matter :Biggrin:  lol

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## HandyDaddy

We let the slab cure for 2 weesk before getting started on the frame. First job was to get the Termite protection in. Again we used Homeguard Blue around the perimeter. Its fixed to the slab under the bottom plate and run into the brickwork along with the DPC.   
I got a couple of carpenters in for a few weeks to build up the frame.             
And of course I had to leave my son James in charge to make sure everything was nice and square   
One of the main features of the new house will be seven 200mm square cypress posts. I bought these in rough sawn, so while the carpenters were busy starting the frame I spent 14hrs on a belt sander making the posts look respectable.   
Now those post had to go somewhere, and in this case that somewhere was seven 1.1m deep holes in the ground. Got an excavator with a hole digger attachement in to dig the holes but theres always some mess left in the bottom of the holes. How do you clean out the bottom of a 1.1m hole? Well, thats where the kids earn thier pocket money again  :Biggrin:    
And I can tell you those posts were bloody heavy   
Heres the posts prepped and ready to go.    
And all in place, braced and concreted. 5 posts for the veranda and 2 for the porch

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## HandyDaddy

With the wall frames and posts all in place we took delivery of the trusses and built the roof.             At this time we also had to start stripping tiles and connecting into the main roof so I hired three 12mx9m tarps to keep us dry until the new tiles were on.  So this is what our reno looked like at the end of the framing stage              The pictures here make it all seem so rose, but thats not entirely the case. We had some bad storms during the 3-4 weeks it took to get the frames up. Working out in the rain I developed a cold and a cough that was so bad I cracked a few ribs coughing. One night the winds were so high and the rain was so bad that the tarps were lifting and rain started coming in through one of the light fittings in one of the kids bedrooms. I ended up on the roof at 3:00 in the middle of the night, in the rain and wind, with a couple of cracked ribs trying to tie the tarps down tighter. And I can tell you those tarps get real slippery when their wet. How I didn't fall, or get blown off the roof I dont know.   This was the start of what turned out to be the wettest winter in Melbourne for something like 20 years. We had just moved here from Wales to get out of this sort of crap, but we had to plod on.  After the frame was built, we had to battle with the weather on an almost daily basis. I had to prepare eleven valley gutters and my wife Angie helped me put up 125 metres of fascia and gutter over the next week or two, so that we could get the tilers in and get the tarps off the roof. Unfortunately I have no photos of this stage of the build because quite frankly it wasn't fun any more and taking photos was the last thing on my mind. My wife Angie, was a great help though. She put up with my bad moods, constant whinging about my ribs, and learned a few new swear words from me on the way.  Those few weeks were undoubtedly the low point of the project....... well so far anyway!

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## pb02

Looks like its progressing nicely! 
Mate I can sympathise with you. I'm doing a reno around the corner from you in patterson lakes, the weather has been crazy with the amount of rain. We had leaks and water coming in along the whole south wall of our place but I had done my back and couldn't get up on the roof to fix it.  :Frown:  
Those posts will look brilliant when they are done. How many sanding belts did you go through?  :Biggrin:

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## HandyDaddy

> Those posts will look brilliant when they are done. How many sanding belts did you go through?

  Not sure how many sanding belts I went through, but I do recall going through a lot of beers  :Biggrin:

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## HandyDaddy

So, we poured the slabs for our extensions on 31st April 2010. Six weeks later, on 16th June, the valleys, fascia and gutters were in place, the tiles had been delivered, and we were ready for the new roof.    
The roof on the existing house was covered with Monier Elabana concrete tiles. Thats quite a common tile but the tiles on my roof were 20 years old and there was no way I was going to match them up with new and make it look good. I had the option of putting second hand tiles on the new extensions and then painting the whole roof, or replacing the whole roof with new tiles. After getting various quotes, it was evident that by using second hand tiles and painting the roof I was only saving about $2,000 over the cost of a whole brand new roof. So - a new roof it was. 
The roofing guys, all ten of them, turned up at 7:00am and set to work. I remember the day well, because there was no sign of blue skys anywhere, just thick cloud. The internet weather forcast give a 20% chance of rain, and the guys just took every tile off my existing house  :Shock: .      
I was assured by Rod Lacey, the boss, that it would all be OK, and so I spent the rest of the day on edge, watching the clouds roll over. But fair play, Rod was right, and it was impressive to watch the house transformed.        
That day more than any made the transformation from our 'old' house to our 'new' house. Yes, there were still windows, eaves, bricks, and a million other things still to do, but for the first time it looked like what we had envisaged and sketched on a bit of paper almost a year earlier.   
Very satisfying.

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## HandyDaddy

Just found a great website - PhotoMaps by NearMap  
Heres my house in April 2010     
and heres the house in November 2010

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## barney118

Looking good, it makes it heaps easier staring with a clean skin. You have done extremely well in a short time through the learning curve from dwg to building. 
Even fitting in well with our culture :Beer: sinking these !
I will look into the homeguard stuff as I havent come up with termite solution.

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