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Timber benchtop help
Hi everyone, We sealed our timber benchtop on the weekend with a Cabot's clear flooring polyurethane (was told that this was perfect for benchtops) and it has not turned out how we expected... We sanded the timber smooth using a belt sander/by hand until it was perfectly smooth. We then applied x 2 coats of the…
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How to paint 80s aluminium doors?
We recently completed phase 1 of our renovation and had most of our house professionally painted. The rooms look completely new apart from the ugly aluminium doors that will not be replaced until phase 2 of the renovation in 18mths - 2yrs. Does anyone have experience painting these?
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Vertical herb garden
Using a vertical garden kit is a quick and easy way to create your own herb garden along a fence. The project Thought I'd share the next phase of my fence makeover project – a vertical herb garden. To create the vertical garden, we installed three of the Whites Outdoor 'Garden Up' vertical garden kits to the fence with…
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Fence makeover by spray painting
Using a spray gun to paint this old fence saved hours and ensured clean up was quick and easy. The project We have been slowly transforming our courtyard since moving into our Victorian inner-city home. The previous owners kindly left us a cheap and nasty shed in the left corner of the space. In phase one of our courtyard…
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Fence makeover
We have been slowly transforming our 'backyard' AKA courtyard since moving into our Victorian inner city home. The previous owners kindly left us a cheap and nasty shed which was located in the left hand corner of the space (I forgot to take a before pic, but the you can see the discolouration in the fence where is was…
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Hot water system maintenance
Hi everyone, This is probably a silly question, but do hot water systems need to be serviced? All of a sudden we are running out of hot water after a short period of use. We have only owned the house for 18mths and it doesn't look like an old system...I just don't want to wake up to no hot water one morning during winter!…
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Renovation diary
Hi everyone, After 3 years of planning, our renovation finally started last week! We are turning our inner-city 2 bedroom,1 bathroom Victorian house into a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home. Week 1: Demolition The guys spent the first 3 days removing the 80's extension which featured a horrible low roof (with beams) and exposed…
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Vertical herb garden
Hi everyone, Thought I'd share the next phase of my fence make-over project - a vertical herb garden. To create the vertical garden, we installed x 3 of the Whites Outdoor 'Garden Up' vertical garden kits to the fence with screws. Apart from ensuring it all lined up with the fence panelling, it was quick and easy to do! I…
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Do I need a splashback?
Our new kitchen has been installed this week and I'm still undecided on the splashback. I have spoken to a Tiler and in order to put subway tiles on to the bricks, we need to add a concrete sheet first. The length is 4.8m and I know it will cost a fair bit... I don't think it's worth it for a kitchen that is being ripped…
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The domino effect of renovating
Hi everyone, I've noticed something strange on my street in the past few weeks and wondered if anyone else has noticed the same thing with their neighbours. It's the domino effect of home improvement! A couple at the end of our street recently decided to makeover the exterior of their house. They hired professionals to…
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Kitchen Renovation 1.0
Over the weekend we made a lot of progress on our short-term kitchen renovation that we are doing as a stopgap until we complete our full renovation in late 2017. Reno has been delayed due to firing our builder, council approval taking forever and a baby due in spring... We had a Plumber and Electrician rough-in plumbing…
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Renovating 101 - Planning is key
Hi everyone, As I finally get to the end of the 'planning' stage of my renovation, I thought I'd share one of our key learnings throughout the process - the value of investing in the 'planning' stage of your renovation. Let's start from the beginning... When we were looking for a builder, both my dad and father-in-law…
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Master Bathroom - layout help!
Hi everyone, I am trying to get my master bathroom layout right and am having some difficulty due to the shape. I have had to put in a Euro laundry in the space (access from outside the bathroom in the hallway). Below is version 6 of my plan. To let in natural light we will need to insert a vertical window on the back wall…
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Carpet vs Timber Floorboards in bedrooms
Hi everyone, Would love to get some opinions on flooring for the bedrooms in my Victorian house renovation. Once renovated, our house will have 2 bedrooms downstairs in the original part of the house and 1 bedroom + study upstairs in the new (modern) part of the house. We had originally decided that the downstairs bedrooms…
