Renovation: 90-year-old double brick country home in Wellington NSW

MikeBenstead

Yesterday we started renovating our "new" home on a shoestring budget

Watch this space for "before" and "after" shots (coming soon)

* planning, budgeting and juggling tasks

* "tradies wanted"

* opening up the wall between the kitchen and dining room

* choosing and installing a new hot water system

* living in a renovation

* choosing and installing the new kitchen

* plumbing and electrical

* repairing plasterwork and old render

* replacing the veranda

* installing the back deck

* enclosing the patio

* installing sliding doors to the deck

* sanding old hardwood floors
* remodelling bathroom, laundry and toilet

* upgrading pantry shelving

* repairing and hanging old doors

* repairing old brickwork

* prep and painting

* lighting

* concreting the driveway

* concrete slab for the garage

* choosing and installing a garage

* landscaping

* building a chook house

* going solar - towards off-grid

* gardening - towards self-sufficiency

* our mistakes (I'm sure there will be many)

... and the list goes on.

Watch this space 🙂

https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-nsw-wellington-124949594 Front 003.jpg

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Flooring

Decorating

Painting

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Comments

Jason

How exciting for you @MikeBenstead. It looks like a beautiful period home that you can restore and turn into a wonderful home. I'm sure the Workshop community will be happy to give you plenty of advice, suggestions and inspiration along the way. We're thrilled you could join us and share your renovation journey.

What are you going to be tackling first?

Jason

MikeBenstead

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/3777#Comment_3777

002 kitchen & dining room walls.jpg Thanks,

I'm sure that with each project I'll have lots to share too (including my mistakes).

The first group of tasks will be anything structural i.e.

* Removing the wall between the toilet and the bathroom

* opening the double brick wall between the kitchen, which is part of the original structure, and the dining room, which is part of the addition.

* opening up the back wall to accommodate a sliding/bi-fold door with retractable fly screens.

Someone might want to share their experience in this area. Also looking for tradies in Wellington NSW (carpenter, plasterer, tiler) to assist.

Baretta11

@MikeBenstead

Hi Mike and welcome,

My only suggestion for now during the plaster off and frame visible stage, is to have extra nogins and studs for things like the shower rail, heated towel rail, robe hooks etc...even the toilet roll holder as most homes and especially an older home, never have these supports installe, actually even new homes don't have them!!

In bedrooms, nogins for pictures.

In the kitchen, a nogin for the rangehood which we forgot and had to cut the plaster to fit it in.

Towel rail nogin in the laundry or if you plan to have a clothes dryer on the wall.

If I think of anything else I'll let you know but the best of luck with your fabulous project!!

Cheers,

Barbara

MikeBenstead

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/3780#Comment_3780

Thanks Barbara,

Very valuable advice. I hadn't thought of that.

I'm also grabbing the terms "Plaster off" and "Plaster on" to separate plumbing and electrical into two distinct stages.

00 Plan categories.jpg

Mike

Jason

@MikeBenstead,

Do you have floor plans that you could share with the community? Be great to see what the current floor plan is, and what your plans are. You might get some valuable suggestions from community members.

Jason

Baretta11

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/64082#Comment_64082

@MikeBenstead

Hi Mike,

I do hope that you will get help and advice from others on the forum that have "renovated" as I have built from new and even though you can still forget stuff, it's nothing like renovating and coming up with unforeseeable things.

What I did and you probably have done is master the electrical whilst in the "plaster off" stage. My sparkie told me I had more electrical in my home than any other he has every worked on save a commercial building!!!

Frankly I don't think I have too many but I have plenty in each room, for example in the bedrooms, I have one on either side of the bed behind the bedside tables and then one other for vacc'ing and finally one on the wall for the TV, so four per room. The problem seems to be in new builds that it is considered plenty to have the standard one per room!!

I do have a pp in the toilet because I could, so I'm happy to admit that probably wasn't necessary and apart from that I have two pp along the passage which is about 12mtrs long so I don't think that's excessive but perhaps the sparkie was eluding to the amount of internal wiring throughout to obtain all this ha-ha

I have two pp in the bathroom, one being for the heated towel rail and the other for the hair dryer.

Everywhere else I've tried to have a pp on every wall for any eventual electrical addition like a table lamp, Christmas tree for example.

I also have 3 pp outside to be able to vacc the car, or run some lights out to the garden for Christmas or something I haven't thought of yet but at least it's there. It actually costs very little to install at lock up before all the plaster goes in as iI have oodles of space in the roof to get around.

I suggest you stand in each room and think about what you want in the end where a table will be for example or a TV or a lamp or whatever that's what I did and had it drawn to scale as well. In your case you may already have your furniture but if you don't, then you need to decide on things like what size your couch will be, will it fit in the space you've allocated??

I hear so many times people have their heart set on something only to find that something won't fit because they didn't measure!!There just can't be enough said for planning.

Case in point:

Was talking to a friend that finally renovated her bathroom and put in a nice fancy 30cm rain shower and hand shower and because of its weight, some 30kg she said, that does seem allot anyway, the builder had to pull the plaster off in her kitchen to be able to put in noggins and studs because no one thought of it before the tiles went up!!

Best of luck Mike.

Cheers,

Barbara

Isobel

Looks like a beautiful property with a lot of scope for improvement. Congratulations @MikeBenstead.

MikeBenstead

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/3784#Comment_3784

I had digital copies until my laptop died (It took offence to having coffee poured over its keyboard). I have to recreate them.

In the meantime I'm just saying "Cut here", "Plaster here", "Weld there", etc.

I'll see what I can do shortly.

Mike

MikeBenstead

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/94605#Comment_94605

Love it! You make it all sound so simple at "Plaster-off" time. I so wish it was.

Unfortunately most of the house is 9" double brick and powerpoints (most of which donlt even work) have been installed down walls without being concealed. I'm going to see if they can be brought up through the floor.

Unfortunately only 1/6 of the house is the extension with suds, noggins and plaster and even that has the original exterior brick walls (now on their interior) on two sides.

The extension has the right number of power points. My problem will be with the original brick house.

Baretta11

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/113736#Comment_113736

@MikeBenstead

Hi Mike,

Gosh that does all sound difficult.

Would be great if someone in the workshop had been involved in renovating a double brick home.

Can you get into the ceiling to bring power into the rooms?

I know there is still the problem of the double brick though even if you CAN get the cables down the walls but I suspect you cant??

First thing that comes to mind to me is, what if you put all your power in on the outside of the walls in conduit like you said you already have in the old part of the home inside and pack out the walls 20mm to cover all the conduit and then re-plaster, it means you would reduce the room by a little bit but it could be a way to get all the power points in and perhaps use something suitable with the packing material to attach the power points and light switch brackets on to?

When we built, albeit on stumps so easy enough to get under the house, we were adamant that there would be little or next to zero entry from under the house into the house to limit any rodent infestation. Unfortunately we did have to put a couple water outlets through the floor and one power point but I have bogged up every possible hole under the house with No More Skills as my plasterer calls it or No More Gaps if you go the Bunning's to get it ha-ha

If you do have to go under the house I would recommend you put all the power cables in conduit to prevent rodents from chewing the wires firstly but the conduit can be brought into the home neatly with a perfectly round hole however, if you have double brick then I don't know if there is an internal timber frame like a brick veneer home has, I suspect not?

A dilemma I will have to think more about ha-ha

Cheers,

Barbara

Brad

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/113736#Comment_113736

@MikeBenstead wrote:

Unfortunately most of the house is 9" double brick and powerpoints (most of which donlt even work) have been installed down walls without being concealed. I'm going to see if they can be brought up through the floor.

Double brick wall normally they will run power cables from the top using a cable feeder, my place the wall was capped so they have to drill through that as well to run cables.

You will need to check how the foundations were done to run cables up from the floor, hard to do if they have laid a slab.

MikeBenstead

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/3784#Comment_3784

Floor Plan 001.jpg

Jason

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/64093#Comment_64093

Hi @MikeBenstead,

Hope all is well. Just wondering how your renovation is going? It would be great to get an update.

Feel free to post post anytime you need a hand.

Jason

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