Posts tagged "Home & DIY"
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Hot sauce
I just bottled my latest fermented hot sauce. 30 bottles using Andy's recipe. Same as last year except last year I used red jalapenos and this year I'm using "long red" chillis. I have some habaneros…
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We're in!
We moved in last weekend and are back in Marrickville. It's been a long slog and there's still a bunch more work to be done before we're completely finished, but it's looking good. Awnings and privacy…
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Move in this weekend
Huge amounts going on in the house. We move in on Saturday which is enormously exciting. Yesterday Holly managed to score a bunch of turf for free on Facebook, so this morning I was back at the house…
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Home stretch
We're moving in next weekend. It feels like it's been a very long time, though realistically it's been pretty quick. Yesterday we dropped in to check out progress. Rooms getting painted, bulkheads ins…
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Final details happening
Popped in this morning to check on progress. There were about 8 tradies on site putting in finishing touches. Painting, plumbing and carpentry all going on. All happening to allow us to move in the we…
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We have a move in date!
Big milestone reached this week. We got the builder to agree to a move in date. Everything should be finished enough for us to move in by 14th November. There might be some stuff still going on but al…
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Stairs done, rendering happening, plastering underway
Popped in on Saturday to check the place out. Rendering of the hempcrete is underway. Plastering the internal walls is ongoing. The stairs are complete and look fantastic. Bathrooms getting waterproof…
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Cladding done, plastering and rendering underway
The exterior cladding to the first floor is complete and looks fab! Recycled blackbutt timber. We're going to let it weather to grey. Inside the first layer of render is going on hempcrete, plastering…
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Kitchen and cladding
Things are moving along pretty quickly. Popped in on Saturday to have a look. The exterior cladding looks sensational. Really happy with how that looks. Kitchen is going in and looks vibrant. Applianc…
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Animation of the story so far
I've been taking photos from pretty much the same position throughout the build, so I thought I'd string them together in a dodgy animation.
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Kitchen going in
Popped in this morning on the way to school dropoff to look into progress. It's looking incredible. Kitchen is going in downstairs. Plastering happening everywhere. Exterior cladding going on the outs…
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Lockup, stairs in, solar hot water in
Popped in today and there's lots of progress. Yesterday, all the glazing was finished. We got keys and the place can now be locked up! On Monday the stairs went in. Today the pantry under the stairs w…
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Bath is in!
Popped in this morning to check on progress. There's lots happening and the place is basically weatherproof now. Windows are in, roof is on. External cladding has been happening and it looks beautiful…
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Exterior moving along
These photos from the builder. It's looking quite amazing! Cladding is lovely and crisp. Apparently the bathtub went in yesterday.
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Windows are in!
Popped in on Saturday to check on things. The windows are in and they look fantastic. Double glazing throughout and they're beautiful things. Also delivered on Friday was the recycled timber to used o…
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Windows arrived, chimney complete
Dropped in yesterday to check on site. Windows have been delivered and they look awesome. Double glazing throughout so it's gonna be quiet and perform well temperature wise. Yesterday they finished th…
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Hempcrete complete
I popped in on Saturday to see the house and there's been much progress. The hempcrete was almost complete and it's looking amazing. Even with walls and windows missing you can hear the deadening of s…
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Ground floor walls done
Ground floor walls were completed yesterday. I popped in this morning to check out progress. They're moving really fast with the hempcrete and the wall downstairs, which we're thinking we'll leave as…
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Walls going up
On Friday the first hempcrete walls went up. Holly took some photos.
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Hempcrete!
Holly just sent these through. The first Hempcrete wall is going in as we speak!
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Getting ready for Hempcrete
Popped in this morning to check on progress. Formwork for the hempcrete is going in. They should start on the hempcrete on Friday or so. I've booked in a day of leave to help out, cos I'm curious to s…
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Rooms are taking shape
Popped into the site today and saw that the frame is getting close to complete. It's great seeing the shapes of the rooms and where the windows will go. It's gonna be so light and airy upstairs, and t…
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That's a lot of cannabis!
A huge quantity of cannabis got delivered to our house last week. It's the interior (hurd) of the stem from hemp plants, grown somewhere outside Maitland. This will shortly be mixed with lime and wate…
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A trip to the first floor
On this morning's site meeting I got to climb up the ladder and see how the first floor is gonna look. Everything feels bigger than I expected. Downstairs ceilings are higher than I thought, upstairs…
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Taking shape now
Popped in on Saturday to take a look and it's really coming along well. Good progress. Builders have had great weather for it too.
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Frame going up
Holly visited site again today and the frame's going up. This is going nice and fast and the weather's been great. Hooray! Also Louis came first in two events at his school athletics carnival.
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Slab is down, now to get moving up!
Visiting site this morning we got a good look at the concrete. Looks great and the space for our new kitchen and living room is going to feel enormous after the disjointed, poky rooms we had before. O…
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Concrete is done
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It begins
Holly just sent this photo of the concrete pour.
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Concrete poured today
Slab was planned to be poured last Friday but sickness amongst the team meant they weren't ready. The builder brought in extra work and got things moving over the weekend. The kids and I popped in on…
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Excavation underway
So demolition is nearly complete. Builders are now working on excavating down for the main slab where our new kitchen will be. Concrete apparently should be poured end of this week or early next week.
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Demolition seems almost complete
Holly and I popped in on Friday to see progress. The back half of the house is now pretty much gone. Also some photos from a bit earlier in the week when Holly and Tracy visited.
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That happened quickly!
Holly popped in on the house this afternoon and snapped these.
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Demolition starts today
After a rather frantic week of moving stuff around the house and clearing things out, we're ready for the build to start. Holly's been working like a trooper on this! Builder moves in today with all h…
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Our build is about to begin
For those I haven't mentioned it to, we're about to do a major renovation on the house. We've lived here nearly 8 years and done a couple of little changes over the time, opening up the dividing wall…
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Bunnings: the Soviet hardware store
One of the most frustrating things about living in London was the supermarkets' reliance on Just In Time goods delivery, which more often than not ended up being Just Too Late. Rocking up to the Tesco…
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In which our garden gets sorted out
When we first moved in, I built some garden beds with sleepers lying at the back of the garden. I also made the rather stupid decision to have one of the beds jutting out into the yard. That dramatica…
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Disappointing experience with retrofit soft closers
I was quite excited when I found this inexpensive approach to creating soft close drawers and cupboard doors. They're a pretty simple concept: a little damper piston that you stick wherever possible t…
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Shed progress, and networking disaster
Insulation Over the weekend I started insulating the shed. It's tough work because every joist width on the shed is different, seemingly for no good reason. That means every batt has to be cut. I boug…
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Shed in the pipeline
We had the council's tree officer around yesterday to look at the tree we want to remove from our garden. It's a camphor laurel, an invasive non-native species. In much of NSW it's listed as a noxious…
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More lair plans
Last night I knocked up a couple of changes to the shed plans, taking out the windows on the "shed" side and removing the door between the two sections to reinstate the separate doors. So we'll have a…
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Out come the broad beans
The broad beans came out today. We've had an enormous amount of beans from a very small space. They were lovely! However, they've been taking up a lot of space and providing a haven for snails and cab…
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Fridge efficiency revisited
A while back I blogged about fridge efficiency and my idea for improving it by creating airflow over the condensors. Lance at the ATA didn't seem to think it would be effective without forced air, tho…
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Bugs on my garlic
Something is eating my garlic. Little black bugs. What's that all about then? From what I've been reading, garlic is something that repels garden pests, and that you can use to get rid of garden pests…
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Fruit trees are in
I planted out all the fruit trees and vines today. There's two types of apple, Dwarf Dorsett Golden and Dwarf Tropical Sweet, two types of plum, Maiposa and Narabeen, and two types of passionfruit, th…
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Weekend of garden bed making
Earlier in the week I thought I'd missed fruit trees, but suddenly one of the suppliers has got some more stock. So I've quickly ordered some trees today. I'm changing tack slightly, as according to B…
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Missed out on fruit trees this year
One of the things I wanted to get in early in our house was some fruit trees. But because we live in the inner city, we have some constraints over what we can plant. We don't want something blocking o…
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New fence
We've had a shiny new fence installed all around. It's been a few months in the making, getting quotes and agreement from three different sets of neighbours. Finally it's done. We now have a gate on o…
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Heat, and keeping it in
We finally got our gas point installed last Thursday so we've now got our excellent gas heater. It's the Paloma PG-711FRN which is the one that scored best in the Choice comparison of unflued gas heat…
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A war of attrition with whitefly
We've had an infestation of whitefly on our herbs and lettuces. Absolutely smothering them. They've killed off the purslane, and they're retarding growth on all the rest. Little buggers. I tried the b…
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Well there's $5,000 saved
We've just saved $5,000 by deciding not to buy ducted heating for our house. Why were we thinking ducted heating? Well it's funny how the mind works, you end up on a path a long way from where you sta…
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Sun Lizard: any good?
We've been getting quotes for heating in our house, as it's starting to get cold. Initially we thought we'd go for a flued, fan-forced gas heater in the fireplace in the lounge room. A friend has the…
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Improving fridge efficiency
At some point over the next year we're planning to renovate our kitchen. We did a very minor renovation soon after we moved in, replacing the lino floor and swapping in an Ikea bench/drawer unit, but…
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Weatherproofing
It's starting to get cold in Sydney, so we're starting to think about heating and improving the house a bit. The front door has enormous gaps all around, and there's space between much of the skirting…
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Mitre 10: You suck
Conversation had with a clerk at Mitre 10 (large DIY store chain in Australia) on Saturday morning: Me: I'm after some 50mm 6 gauge screws with pan heads, stainless steel. Clerk: (looks around the she…
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Bathroom done (almost)
Well we're finally done on the bathroom, but for two small jobs. I need to paint the door, which I'm doing today, and we have to put up the shower screen. The wall to which we're attaching the shower…
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The dreaded lead paint
Like most houses built before the 1970s, our house almost certainly has lead paint. Given the number of layers on the paint around the windows and door frames, I'd guarantee there's lead paint there.…
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Bathroom nearly done
We're making progress with the bathroom. Phil's finished up yesterday, with all the fixtures in. Follow the link to see some photos. Today we sanded and painted the undercoat layer. During the week we…
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Bathroom renovation
We're into the second week of being without a bathroom as it gets gutted and re-done. Everything has come out and we're getting there. Gyprock went on yesterday, so tiling and plumbing in the applianc…
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Busy weekend of bathroom shopping and free stuff
We've had a very busy weekend getting all the bits we need for our bathroom renovation. The whole bathroom is getting gutted today, so we had to get a bath, toilet, vanity, cupboard and all the bits.…
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Eco Choices for Home Renovators
I did a class run by The Watershed on Monday night, Eco Choices for Home Renovators. This is my second class from this organization, the first being a worm farming workshop. They're funded by the City…
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Laminate flooring and Udden bench and drawers
Today we got a lot done on the house. We laid a laminate floor in the kitchen and built an Udden bench with drawers. Above is the "before" shot. Note the disgusting lino and the oh-so-chic bachelor pa…
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Productive DIY day
I'm starting a new category, DIY, to capture improvements we're making around the house. I had a very productive day of DIY yesterday. I made and installed a couple of flyscreens for our bedroom and t…
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Wall fastening
A question for any DIYers out there. I'm going to be installing an Udden shelf tomorrow and I'm wondering what kind of fastening to use. Ikea are very coy in their instructions: "Choose screws and fit…
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Gutters and tanks
Dear lazyweb, we've just got a quote for some Colorbond guttering to replace the rusted-through guttering on our new house. I'm exploring other options, given aluminium and PVC don't rust, and shouldn…