Thursday, July 25, 2013

Issues- the floor and door variety- Reno day 68


So, after a whirlwind weekend of colour and crochet, (which I will share as soon as I can sort through the mountain of images) I am back recharged, hopefully enough to get me through the remaining weeks of this reno. It seems that I hit my hump-slump quite late in the day as the builder tells me that the bulk of the "building" part will be finished this week! Goodness, that seems incredible.

It will still be a few weeks before the kitchen and laundry are installed and the electrician and plumber return, but it does seem that we are on the home stretch. More exciting (and equally frightening) was the dawning realization that our lease is up in about six weeks and we will be packing up again to move back home.

So, let me fill you in on the most recent debacles. Firstly, last week we realised  that the second hand french doors we had purchased a year ago were significantly too small for the space they were meant to go in.  This walkway (in the above pic) separates the kitchen from the tv/family room and was always intended to have a set of doors, partly to conceal the height discrepancy between the two rooms, but also as a noise barrier to separate the tv from our other living area.

When our builder suggested that he could keep part of this room at the full height of 3 m we jumped at the chance. This really opened up the space and we toyed with leaving it all open with no doors. If this was a purely aesthetic decision I must say I would not have put the doors back. However, as I am keen to create some noise barriers in the house we really felt they needed to go in. So, now we had to find wider doors and some sort of fanlight above them, within a week.

Luckily, my favourite displaced demolition yard ( Woolloongabba Demolitions at Rocklea) came through with a set of french doors the exact ( unusual) width I wanted.


So then I had to try and find a fanlight 1450 wide to go above them. Unfortunately this is an extremely non standard window size and they had nothing close. So, I then trotted over to my other favourite demolition yard ( The Demolition Yard in Coorparoo ) and would you believe they had a casement window almost that exact size. In fact, once the bottom was trimmed up to make all the edges the same width, it was THE exact size. So that's $320 for the doors and $40 for the window, all sorted. (The same combination custom made for these unusual sizes would probably be around $1200) so I was a happy girl.


And, here they are installed beautifully. Yes, one side is blue.


And the other is green. Lucky I like painting! The hideous gold handles will be going, not sure what to replace them with, knobs or handles?




And because the fanlight was a casement window in it's previous life, it still had all the hardware to open like one. So my awesome builders (without even asking) installed it to open like a hopper to encourage airflow. I was impressed as I was just expecting a fixed panel.

Now back to the other debacle. Remember this pic? What is going on, you wanted to know?


Well, the fantastic blue star floor from the back bedroom that was to become about half the kitchen floor turned out to not be level due to this old platform it had been built over. Quite a few of the boards were not in good shape and had to be removed. This meant that the pile of reclaimed pine flooring we had been amassing for the last year was going to fall significantly short. And reclaimed hoop pine flooring is almost impossible to obtain, especially at short notice.

 I desperately rang around all the demolition yards in search and was told a houseful was expected that week and we could have the lot. I waited with bated breath, only to discover at the final hour that the floors were all  rotten and could not be used and no more was expected in the coming weeks. So, with some sadness we have had to go the way of new pine flooring for the family room. Our builder says it can be stained to match, and luckily we have been able to place to join in the natural junction of two rooms, but it is still disappointing.


The cost difference between the two options is not huge but unfortunately, to find reclaimed timber you  need time on your side and at this point in the reno that was one thing we did not have.


The one positive is that we were able to continue to pine into my sewing room which otherwise would have had this issue to deal with.


Yes, that's the original narrow hardwood floors on the right half of the doorway and the yellow tongue subfloor of the closed in verandah on the left. Not a great look in a doorway as even  if we added more hardwood there would still be a huge join down the middle. So much better to just continue the new pine straight in here from the family room.


And look, there are are even cornices, architraves and skirting boards now too. And the sliding door is in for my little room. We ordered the same profile as the original part of the house.



And in other progress, the back stairs were completed.


The wall was sealed up between our bedroom and the pantry.


And a start was made on the installation of the high louvres in Liongirl's room



All in all, a bit of drama, but lots of progress. Back soon with LOTS to share from this week.

21 comments:

  1. Excellent work on the doors + casement combo... it looks great. I bet you couldn't believe your luck in finding that pair of oddly-widthed french doors!

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    1. Nope I could not believe that a set of french doors in that span would actually exist, in fact they had 3 sets that had come in from a recent demolition. They don't have quite the soul of the other doors but fit the space perfectly. mel x

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  2. Wow...just great luck with the doors and the window...they look perfect!
    In fact, it all looks perfect!
    Such great progress!
    As the building is exciting but it is really all the finishing bits that I love, I can't wait to see what happens in the next few weeks!

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    1. Me too about the finishing bits, well a kitchen and laundry to be specific, it still doesn't feel like a home without these bits. mel x

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  3. Well you made it to lock-up! Love your new doors/fanlight - what were the odds of finding something suitable, really? Great work!!! I can't believe that old hoop pine flooring is so hard to find now. Last time I did a reno, I went to Kennedy's who made up floorboards from reclaimed timber. Once your boards are stained, however, you won't know the difference. Particularly once furniture, rugs, etc are placed on them. What probably seemed like a major catastrophe at the time, won't seem so bad in a few weeks when you're moved in. xx

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    1. Thanks Caroline, knew you would get it about the floors. Really it's not a big deal but would have been nice to have the old boards throughout that space. And the doors were a complete lucky fluke, have been a few of those, as well as a few disasters! mel x

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  4. Love the new doors and fanlight window, it must be nice to have a builder who knows what you're on about. Good idea putting the doors in, especially as the kids get older, everyone wants their own space by then xx.



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  5. Omg I am in love with your french doors and hopper window - amazing! And love those two demo yards the guys are lovely too :-) if u ever get stuck underwood demo has some great stuff too

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    1. Thanks for the tip, didn't know about the underwood one, hopefully I won't need to do any more last minute demo runs, down to choosing lights fans and locks now! mel x

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  6. the doors look fantastic Mel...such a great feature. pleased to hear you are all renewed for the home stretch. x

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  7. Thanks Al, loving all the opping joy at your place, have been missing it these last few months. mel x

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  8. The doors and the opening fanlight are gorgeous! What an unbelievable bargain!

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  9. Your persistance with the french doors has certainly paid off. They look great! And I love the initiative of your builder to create an opening fanlight. It's a shame about not being able to use your reclaimed timber flooring but the seamless new pine is looking good. We are currently deciding whether to lay new pine joining the existing pine in our kitchen/dining/living area or remove the old pine and lay blackbutt for seamless flooring over the whole area. So I'm keen to see how your new stained pine looks.

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  10. The progress is amazing! I love love love the doors with the window above! The floors look great. Can I ask what is the dimension of the other french doors? Maybe they will work for me? I am scouring demo yards too for my kitchen entrance way.
    Thanks. (I commented on your other blog post but I think blogger ate it :( )
    www.lasscreative.com.au

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  11. Oh the sheer greenness of me...and I don't mean in an eco way!
    My other half bought home some newer old french doors for out the front that were six pane extra wide french numbers. Not what I had planned at all. I like the whole proportion of those lovely blue ones. There's a lot to be said for sound proofing!

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  12. It looks fantastic!! Well done. I can't believe how fast your progress has been, I am green with envy! Can't wait to see the finished results. xx

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  13. It's looking positively amazing Mel! I love that you have continued with the character of the house (love the pannelling and doors!). I feel kind of sad when I see older house extensions done in a stark modern way. Yours is going to be wonderful and cozy.

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  14. Awesome progress, it's a lot to take in, moving so fast! Hubby and I recently saw some huge french doors at the demoyard, they were gorgeous at $460 a pair with two sets and painted white. Too big for your fanlight above though, pity they were hours away from you, they would have come very close to fitting your space.

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  15. It's looking SO great! And very spacious. The new doors/fanlight are fab too, awesome bargain! Hang in there, can't be much longer x

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  16. Don't worry about the floor - once it's done and stained to match and all your furniture is in place you wont mind that it's different wood, you'll be enjoying your fabulous new home! How cool that you found that fanlight to match the doors! It looks great in situ. xx

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  17. Talk about great luck in finding the doors and the casement! I also have to say that you're lucky with the builder you worked with because he seemed to know just how to make everything work. Having the fanlight functional is a huge plus. -Rolf Matchen @NVRoofs

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