Hi ,

If you’ve ever renovated a house, you’ll know there are weeks where everything moves at lightning speed…

…and then there are weeks where you spend a fortune and it looks like absolutely nothing happened. Welcome to Weeks 4 and 5.

The biggest challenge over the past fortnight hasn’t been builders, suppliers or budgets, it’s been rain. Lots of it.

The site has been so wet that progress has slowed to a crawl but despite Mother Nature doing her best to derail us, we did manage to achieve a few important milestones. Click the image below to watch Episode 3 and see some of our latest progress over the last fortnight.

THE MAIN HOUSE SLABS

Most importantly, all the piers for the main house have been concrete poured and are now complete. There’s over 120 of them to be precise! And then we’ve completed the cut-out of another 30 footings that go on top of the piers with concrete to be poured into those this Friday. Did I mention we’re expecting rain again this Friday? Arrgghh …

Now I know footings aren’t exactly the sexy part of a renovation. Nobody scrolls Instagram looking for photos of concrete in the ground but these are the bits that are hugely important to get right. At the end of the day, they hold your house up!

Just one small section of footings on the main house.
The sunken lounge area can be seen in the left back corner.

IF IT RAINS AGAIN, I’M BUYING A BOAT

This week (Week 6) is supposed to be a big one for us.

The formworkers and concreters are booked. The steel is going in.
The footings are scheduled to be poured early this Friday. Everything is lined up perfectly which naturally means the weather forecast is predicting more rain. Of course it is! At this point I’m checking the weather app more often than my bank account.

Before we can pour the footings, the certifier and structural engineer need to inspect and sign off on all the steel work. If everything gets signed off and the weather behaves itself, we should be able to get all the footings in, in preparation for the suspended slabs to be laid on top.

Soil being stockpiled for my future garden beds from excavation of the piers & footings.

THE GUEST HOUSE

Meanwhile, over at the guesthouse, the surprises continue. Unfortunately, they’re not the fun kind. Every time we remove something, we discover another issue that wasn’t in the budget.

When we removed part of the roof, we found material in the ceiling that looked suspiciously like asbestos. Nothing gets your attention faster than hearing the words, “That looks like asbestos.” We immediately sent a sample away for lab testing. Thankfully, the results came back negative. Best $60 I’ve spent in a while.

The next surprise came when we removed the last of the internal wall linings. The structural frame wasn’t exactly what you’d call textbook construction. It became pretty obvious that parts of the structural wall frame had been assembled by someone without any qualifications or proper building knowledge. The result … a lot of the structural frame is now being rebuilt properly.

One positive change has come from redesigning the bedroom. I stole half a metre from the bathroom to make the bedroom larger. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s amazing what a difference 50 centimetres can make. The bedroom now feels far more like a proper main bedroom & I believe the bathroom layout is better too!

GUEST HOUSE LAYOUT – PRIOR TO ME PURCHASING THE PROPERTY

GUEST HOUSE LAYOUT – DA APPROVED LAYOUT

GUEST HOUSE LAYOUT – NOW (AFTER FINDING STRUCTURAL POST IN WALL)

AFTER 36 YEARS RENOVATING, I’M STILL LEARNING …

One of the things I love most about renovating is discovering products that genuinely make construction easier. Every now and then something comes along that makes me think, “Why haven’t I been using this for years?” This fortnight’s discovery was Dincel.

Dincel is a structural walling system that replaces traditional brickwork. The easiest way to explain it? It’s like comparing a smartphone to an old flip phone. They both technically do the same thing but one is a whole lot smarter. Traditional bricklayers are expensive to hire and hard to get. This product solves that problem.

Dincel is basically an alternative for brick walls or retaining walls. The panels are waterproof, fire compliant, earthquake tested, VOC tested, rodent-proof and don’t require termite protection underneath. Depending on your property, they also don’t need as much steel reinforcement which can save you quite a bit of money when doing a structural renovation, like I am.

We’re going to be using Dincel under some of the suspended slabs and as retaining walls and from what I’ve seen, I think I’ll be impressed. It’s one of those products that makes you say … “yes, there is a better way to build than how we’ve traditionally done things!” More info to come on this when we install it.

Dincel is a modern day alternative to traditional brickwork.

COUNCIL UPDATE

For those who missed my last blog, I got a formal warning from council for mowing my grass. Yes, the saga continues. I’ve now engaged both a town planner and an ecologist to help resolve the issue.

Council won’t budge on their position which means we’re now preparing a new DA application, just for this. The estimated cost? Somewhere between $5,000 to $10,000. To mow grass. I wish I was joking. Unfortunately, I’m not. So, onwards we go. I’m not letting things like this get me down. It’s all just part and parcel of being a renovator.

The grass which has been historically mowed for decades can no longer be mowed.

TINNIE UPDATE

And finally, to my robot Tinnie who is fast becoming popular in his own right.

Tinnie is slowly improving. Very slowly. Let’s just say he’s not replacing anyone, anytime soon. The training wheels are still firmly attached. That said, he’s had a few wins recently.

I asked him to recommend 3 steel reinforcement suppliers and within seconds he blurted out company suggestions. As it turns out, one of the companies he recommended, Reo Steel ended up winning the job.

Even more impressive, he’s become surprisingly comfortable wandering around muddy construction sites and chatting with tradies. No-one is threatened by him and in fact, my builder Paul said Tinnie is the best thing for the construction industry!

It’s becoming obvious on site that a robot simply can’t do, what tradies do. Instead of young people moving into jobs that can be easily replaced by AI, they may want to move into trade roles where robots can’t physically do their work. And that’s really what this social experiment is about, seeing what’s possible.

Hopefully by the end of this build, Tinnie will be confidently providing useful information at lightning speed and becoming a genuine asset on-site. Either that or he’ll pursue his backup career as a professional dancer. Based on how much he likes busting out random dance moves every 5 seconds, I’d say his chances are pretty good. 🤖💃

See you next week!
Cherie (CB x)