Walls come tumbling down

There is so much to do and so little time when you have small children.  On Saturday I escaped early in the morning and went by train to the new house, no kids in tow, and spent 2 blissful hours pulling out nails and sweeping.  Sore hands by the end of the day, but seeing the nail free floorboards was so satisfying.

Early morning waiting for the train- The new house is only 2 stops away, but 2 trains also.

Houses are really quite simple constructions.  Once you've removed the walls and ceilings, there's really only a few sticks of wood holding the roof above the floor.  No noggins either!

Our real builder starts tomorrow, yippee!.  The electrician on Thursday, Then the repair work can begin.

The Great Undress

Today we hired a couple of guys to continue with the dirty work.  They made great progress, getting the ceilings and all the wall layers off in one day.  Tomorrow they rip up the lino and carpet.

We're starting to see what was originally there.  And more things are making sense.

Why are none of the windows centered in the walls?  The original windows were much narrower and taller than the aluminium ones.  Instead of cutting 2 studs to put in the windows, they cut one and went for asymmetry!!  I can't live with that, it will jar every time I look at it.  So luckily, our new windows are even wider than the al ones, and we can centre them in all the walls without having to patch the ext weatherboard.

The next great discovery is the shadow of the original window architrave.  A good job for Jeremy to replicate!  I hope he's as excited as I am!

And todays last but definitely not least discovery is the false ceiling that was put in the corridor, hiding a fanlight above the front door and the original line of the verandah.

Can't wait to see what's under the lino!

Windows

All of the windows in the house were replaced with aluminium ones many years ago.  I've been looking for secondhand timber ones, all the same height, on ebay and in various salvage yards.  I think I've bought 11 now.  They all need some work, but we decided on casement windows as repairs are simpler and I really like the proportions of tall, narrow sashes.  One of the sets of windows was a bay window with leadlights.  One day!!! I'll get to re-lead them all and re-install them.  And One Day I'll get to make leadlights for the whole house.

Little gifts from nature

I wonder what they were running from?

Not one, but two.  You'd think the tenants would've smelled a rat.  Is that poo all from the one little mouse?

You must remember this

Look Familiar? (that's for all my family!)

Today we got the keys

The 8 week settlement seemed interminable at times, but as always, the day finally rolled around.  After some argy bargy with the previous owner and the real estate agent about the rubbish and old furniture left behind by the tenants, we finally got the call from the lawyer to say it was ours.  We bundled the kids into the car, (along with some tools and beers) picked up the keys, some maccas and drove into our own backyard for the first time!

I couldn't wait to start demolition.  As the house is 80 years old, there's a few layers of wall coverings which we couldn't see behind until now.  I assumed there was at least one layer that included asbestos, but I was wrong.  Under the 70's ply fake wood panelling is a layer of masonite and then really solid and much painted Timber Regency Lining Board!!! It's in all 4 main rooms and maybe even the kitchen.  

The plans we'd made for our renovation now have to all be re-worked.   It's all positive though.

The first skip (10 cubic metre) arrives on Monday morning, Yay!