It's raining outside, so let's rip out the laundry floor

Today's job was to rip up the laundry floor. It is tiled at the moment but it will be moved to make way for the staircase. We have to rip up the floor to dig a new stump hole underneath, so bye bye laundry floor.

 

Again we have a fabulous little helper. What would we do without him?

 

Till next time!

 

The job no one wants to do

One of the first things that we need to do I to replace some old stumps and dig lots of stump holes that are 1m deep. We have had 2 people come to look at the job because Dave would rather pay someone to do it than break hi back digging endless holes.

The first guy quoted $3800. He obviously charged this amount o we wouldn't give him the job. The second guy seemed more keen but is now not answering his phone and even if he wanted to do it, probably couldn't start for a few week.

So Dave has decided to just try doing it himself. I think he ha to dig 12, that's right 12 x 1m deep holes. So it will save is thousands of dollars but is it worth the effort?

This is the first hole (the easiest one location wise):

Today we had a friend come and help us replace an old bearer. Too fiddley for Hubby by himself. So he called in his expert carpenter friend Dean (Not pictured).

Sammy is always nearby to fetch a hammer or do some sweeping.

The other thing we did this week is to take down the laundry hanger which we made here

and rehung it in the old living area because the laundry wall will be coming down at some point.

So the week ahead Dave plans to dig one hole a night. No going to the gym this week as this will be his workout. The bar he uses to dig is 25kgs. Definitely don't need to go to the gym when lifting that thing. Each time he lifts it to dig he thinks "there is another dollar saved'.

Thanks for reading,





Lots of holes and dust

We started working on the inside of the house this weekend. The back lean to section has been sinking badly for years and David is constantly jacking it up and trying to re-level it. To no avail. It sinks again in no time.

We need to replace a bearer in the old part of the house so we ripped up the old floorboards in various places and jacked up parts an tried hard to get it level.

David wasn't able to replace the bearer by himself so he will have to find some help for that. Maybe next weekend. He said if we can get that done next week then we can get the digger in after that to level the backyard and dig the stump holes.

This renovating business is tough when you have 3 kids to wrangle. They are constantly trying to help and getting under our feet. We have many snack and drink break as well as doing the regular household chore or washing and cooking and cleaning.

Anyway here is what we did in the back living area.

Cosy living

In preparation for the demolition of the back section (i.e living room) of the house, I have had to make some changes to the sleeping arrangements. Today I pulled the boys beds apart.

and put them back together in the nursery. All by myself mind you.

Now the boys room will be our living area as I move the living room furniture into it.

Here is Heidi's room getting shifted around to make room.

So far the have been good and only called out once when Heidi was making noises and standing up in the cot. I think she was excited to have company.

We still have to shift the TV into the temporary lounge room and move out the couch, TV unit and bookcase from the existing lounge room.

We will be very cosy for the coming months.

Take care!







Dug me a hole.

One of the first jobs we needed to do was to relace the old earthenware sewer with a new PVC pipe. Apparently you can't build over earthenware. So we had to find it and dig it out so that the plumber could replace it.

I just realised that they are dressed the same. Minus the helmet of course.

I had to get my head in there some where so here is my selfie.

 

 We also had to remove the concrete stump that was over the pipe. Still have to finish this part.

 

The plumber also had to block of this other pipe (Not sure why). Thought I'd take a pic for reference.

 

 

 Here is the new pipe and the access point.

 

And a little drawing so we know what we did.

 

This weekend we will do a tip run, and thanks to the in-laws we can use a tip voucher, to clear up the junk in the yard ready for the digger to come soon.

 

 

The kids and I pulled up heaps of the pavers and cleaned them and saved them. That was hard work.

 

Still have to remove the old drain pipes and vegie patch too and mark out the new build with a string line.

 

Fingers crossed the weather is good.

 

 

Til next time!