- Clean Interior (all walls/roofs sugarsoaped except the kitchen)
- Gap filled Bedroom Two (nearly)
- No (nasty) window coverings in any room
- Electricity (to half of the house)
- Carpet and Linoleum removed from the entire house
Job One: Re-Leveling the House
A few lessons in this one. Don't do it yourself... ever! Despite my emphatic disagreement my father assured me that this was an easy job that we could knock off in a day. He was only half right... someone else could do it in a day.
The day started out with my hiring some acro props (very inexpensive btw) which we assumed we'd be able to turn and use to lift the beams up off the stumps and then bought some hard plastic packing shims (thin plastic sheets that can withstand around 20 tonne of weight) which we would slide under the stump covers and bravo, done.
Little Tip:
Trying to turn an acro prop (to raise it) to use it to carry an entire house... not feasible unless you are Arnie in his prime. Needless to say, we got one stump up and then promptly gave up.
On the bright side, I managed to employee a builder than regularly raises houses for restumping for just over a $1,000 who used hydraulic jacks to lift the beams off the stumpts who (with another fellow) leveled out the house over the course of a day (and also replaced one of my cracking concrete stumps - they crack because the steel reinforcement inside them rusts when the concrete isn't poured properly i.e. the steel sticks out at the bottom, the water gets to the steel and then rusts up the bars).
The photos of the downstairs area this week so some of the packing shims, packed stumps and a lot of demolition that was required to get to all the beams.
Job Two: Finish Sugarsoaping the Kitchen
Only one lesson from this one. If you have a cut on your hand, sugarsoap hurts, a lot! Wear gloves if you have a cut or if you want to preserve your fingertips after using it for a few hours.
Job Three: Floor Sanding and Polishing
Whilst I was considering doing this job myself I have heard from a number of people that the only way to get a truly professional (and even) finish is to get this professionally done. After ripping up all the carpet the other week it was great to see the floors straight after the sanding.. nothing better than exposed hardwood flooring (almost wish I didn't have to polish it over).
Little Tip:
When choosing the polish to use for your flooring there are two key types. Water based polyurethane and oil based polyurethane. I selected water based because unlike the oil based it does not stain yellow over time and is (supposedly) less toxic than the oil based alternative (which may be important if you have young children). Unfortunately it also costs slightly more (only a few hundred dollars for an entire house though).
Job Four: Removing Everything from the Back Yard
Okay, so everything is a little dramatic and this week was only the start, so bear with me. We did however demolish the garage (roof & side wall), shed at the rear (which was, despite all appearances, build like a bomb shelter with reinforced steel and 20mm bolts everywhere). We tried to push it over but soon learnt of our gross underestimation when it didn't want to budge. We also got rid of around 200m worth of black polypipe (the old irrigation system), several large bushes and filled a skip worth of green and building waste. Mission complete (for now). Oh and we all had a lot of fun with the sledge hammer!
Little Tip:
When demolishing wear good worksite boots. In the process of pulling down the shed I managed to impale my foot on a nice rusty 6 inch nail. In short, it hurt and I don't want to do it again (bought $8 boots from Kmart - work like a charm).
At the time of writting this the backyard is really starting to take shape with the backhoe and trucks digging out masses of dirt and, strangely, these photos have got me feeling a little sentimental about 'how it all was'.
For this week's pictures click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_renovator/sets/72157629763631708/
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