# Forum More Stuff Go to Whoa!  Hunter Valley Rural Renovation

## stocko

After vowing to never renovate, my wife and I tired of our brand new four bedroom home theatre blah blah home in the burbs. The decision was made to move 20 mins out of town to where I grew up and where my parents still live.  The advert for this place was worrying, some repairs needed but the location was to good ( on the river ) more land then we thought we would get (26 acres) and the price was right..  A delayed settlement ( 6 months ) due to problems with the water licence allowed us to get on top of the yards, they were well out of hand with it being a deceased estate.

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## stocko

With settlement taking place it was time to prop it up, poor footing and nice black clay had led the house to sink a little, the engineer thought it could be fixed and we took a punt that it could be done on the cheap. It cost us 1200 in concrete and 500hung for my uncles fuel and time

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## stocko

Lucky for me I have a uncle who has a digger, bobcat and a water jet/ suction digger  We hooked into digging piers under the house as per the engineers report. Luckily rock was only 1.5m down.  We concreted RHS into the lifting footings so we could pack it out later when removing the jacks. All up it was a days work digging  After this we let the concrete cure we then got the jacks in place for the lift. Plenty of time was spent removing concrete from the joints to allow it to move back. It came up very easy and we got it within15mm of level before it started getting hard to move, we decided it was best to call it at that.

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## stocko

In the mean time I have started doing the bathroom and laundry and spare shower and toilet, gone is the western red cedar panelling and brown tiles. Its all double brick so sheeting is on sum walls fixed directly and sum walls battened out   I got a mate to screed the floors and we did the waterproofing and tiling

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## stocko

With the house having moved near the main bathroom I checked the bathroom plumbing for leaks and as expected it was leaking. Out with the saw and hammer to dig out the floor for new plumbing..  Kitchen wasnt to bad and to save coin we are just chucking new bench tops in.  This is pretty much where I am up to atm.  Hopefully for xmas the main bathroom will be finished Early in the new year I will get a gyprocker in to fix cracks from when the house had moved.  Then it will be full steam ahead painting ready for me to tile the floors out. Then carpet.   Lots to do

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## shauck

Awesome. Someone's castle once upon a time. Looks like it has great potential.

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## PlatypusGardens

Yeh mate, looking at what you're doing in those pics I don't think you're suited for the brand new 4 bedroom house in the burbs. 
Lots of work there.       :Smilie:

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## goldie1

Never renovated !! Mate your a natural. Get this one finished, sell and on to the next one  :Biggrin:

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