Transformation Tuesday!

Let's see how the house is shaping up.

The first photo we have - from the real estate listing

About 4 years ago after we put in the gardens

Where we left off last post

Current situation (& worse lighting)

IS THAT CLADDING I SEE???? (& before you ask, no it's not staying that colour. That adorable shade of beige is primer, people!)

I know, I know. It looks like I posted these in reverse order. Eww Jess, what have you done to that beautiful house? BEAR WITH ME EVERYONE. Things always look worse mid-renovation but I promise it will be worth it. 

Last weekend was a doozy. We are incredibly lucky to have awesome people help us on both Saturday and Sunday - hence the progress.

On Saturday, good friends Wina & Vince lent a hand to install the garage cladding and complete some of the post cladding work. They contributed not only much needed help, but also bestowed the knowledge that you CAN in fact incorporate dessert into both breakfast, and afternoon snack.  (Wina = champion of putty & prepared to eat icecream at any time in any circumstance).

Actual video of Wina

On Sunday, Tim's brother Michael, mother Ellen and adorable nephew Jack fronted up for duty like the legends they are. Michael & Tim set to work framing out the tall side of the house, while Ellen, Jack and I provided back up in the form of tool-fetching, beverage-providing and cheeky-smiles. 

Oh hey there cutiepie

With Jack napping away in our bedroom, we took full advantage of Michael's skillset and started measuring*, cutting and installing the cladding on this side and the front deck.

*Not actually part of his skillset

Tim's stoked to be climbing a very tall ladder (Note: sarcasm)

We accomplished this by attaching a rail / piece of timber around 4cm lower than the bottom of the framing. We then lifted each cladding piece up onto the rail and supported it while one of the boys climbed up to nail it in place. Much, much easier than holding the 48.6kg (!!!) sheets up ourselves, and a lot safer as they tend to be quite bendy.

We will be painting the brick under the 3m cladding line to match, Colourbond Monument. It made sense to keep the brick in some areas of the house to protect the budget and also for practicality's sake - such as under the house. 

It was probably around this point that we realised we ordered one cladding sheet less than we actually need....what's a reno without a little hiccup amirite?

So there you have it. Another weekend done and dusted. 

This week will see our roof restoration finished, the eaves painted (Dulux Natural White for those playing at home), bottom level & brick cleaned & prepped for painting, and the cladding finished off. 

Next Monday our patio roof will begin construction - a job for the professionals. All going well, we should be ready to paint the house next weekend; fingers crossed!

Sing it with me.

FRAME! I'm gunna frame forever, I'm gunna learn how to....usethedropsaw&notcutmyfingersoff...

Last weekend saw us painstakingly measure and cut a whole bunch of framing timber to set up the base for our new cladding. Each James Harding Axon cladding sheet is a standard 1200mm wide, with varying lengths - 2450, 2750 & 3000mm. We attached 70mm treated pine lengths at 600mm intervals, with additional posts to support the cladding around the windows and tricky spots like the powerbox and NBN.

It sounds like a lot of fun, right? If you are me, then this is actually your idea of a good time. There are so few things in life that I can claim to be better at than Tim. If the 3 wrong cuts he made when I left him alone for 5 minutes is anything to go by, I definitely kick his ass at measuring. Oh, and I thoroughly enjoy reminding him of that every 10 minutes. 

Enough boasting, let's get into the pics!

First step was to wire wheel off the STUPIDFU....sorry.....the leftover silicone on the fascia of the sunroom/deck. 

Good job Tim

Then we moved on to framing the house. We started with the side of the garage as we had zilch experience with this product and would need to learn as we went (thank god for youtube). 

This bit went unsurprisingly slow however we found ourselves getting into a rhythm as we continued.

oh hey there sexy framing

Once we finished the side of the garage, we stapled on the insulation roll-stuff.

It was time to tackle the weird indent at the front. Tim decided that it would look much cleaner to bump out above the garage door to keep it flush with the brick columns on either side. We accomplished this by building what I affectionately call "the ladder". Then we enlisted the help of 3 of our awesome friends (& staff - because why have work staff if you can't rope them into helping with your home renos??) to lift and hold the ladder device while tim secured it to the garage wall.

Ignore the sad looking plants

The front deck is a combination of the original deck that came with the house, and a merbau extension that Tim added a few months ago (another blog post that never happened). We removed the decking plank closest to the front wall of the house to run the cladding behind for a clean look. Bricks under each window were removed with an angle grinder and lots of effort (Tim's, I just watched and said helpful things behind my mask like "eww, it's dusty" and "is it time to sit down yet?")

Tim's little deck

So there you have it. A weekend full of work and help from wonderful friends.

Hot tip - stay tuned for the next post in which I again let Tim and his bro Michael measure things unsupervised and an above stated plan may be forced to change.