RENOVATING THE CAVE
Following is a web history of the ongoing renovations
at my new address in Iluka
When you have finished browsing this page and the archives don't forget to take a look at my photography/arty pages
Colour Scheme - to get a realistic idea of colours refer to Taubmans colour card,
which is available from your local hardware store, as the colours in Photoshop images below are not exact.
Taubmans Colour Card - as you can see I could not get the blue/purple colour correct in the images below
(my Photoshopped blue/purple is a bit overpowering - pretty scary actually :O
proposed colour scheme - kitchen (note floor should be polished timber, but lost this during Photoshopping)
Lounge room - looking from stairwell
Since the above was done we have gone with Faux Marble bench tops.
And the Work really begins!
July 01 05 (10am to 6pm) - even though the 'crud' has been removed from most of the house, the walls and ceiling will need a good 'Sugarsoaping' before painting.
So today did the kitchen & dining room from top to bottom - muscles knew I had done it by knockoff time.
Washing the ceiling - got soaked with all the droplets cascading down.
Covered the floor in towels to ensure no damage, then covered that 'beautiful' dining room light fitting with plastic bags!
July 02 2005 (2pm to 7pm) - Time to fix all the bubbles in the ceiling and dints, nail holes etc in walls. It looks as though the ceiling was not prepared correctly before the previous paint job and there are a massive number. First we used a spatular to remove the flaking paint - more often than not a 1cm bubble turned out to be 50cm of lifting paint, which had to be then sanded back, Spakfilled and resanded. Where the job had been completed there is no evidence of the original imperfections and hopefully when painted the ceiling will look A1.
Jane added a bit of comedy to the afternoon - jokingly, she had found the way to still have a smoke whilst wearing a dust mask!
July 04 2005 (2:30pm to 7pm) Had a day of rest yesterday and got back to the work this afternoon. Finished the filling and sanding, dusted off the ceiling and walls, vacuumed then started on the undercoat (over the Spakfilla and Timber stained Windows, timber cornus etc). Hopefully, if it does not rain as forecast, we can finally begin the actual painting. The ceiling will be the worse - my neck is already sick and tired of all the looking up, but once that is done we can do the walls and really see what the colours look like.
Wall behind the stove & fridge Dining room after undercoat went on
July 05 2004 (10am to 7pm) The real painting begins! I am sick to death of all the prep work, it seemed to take days and days, and every time I look into what has yet to be done in the lounge room I cringe. Anyway here are some results of today's work.
Dining room corner before - Whoops, Dining room corner after a little paint - skirting boards still to be painted
no it's not, it's the lounge room, but the colours were the same
Mission Brown trim with Beige walls - not nice but very 70's!
Looking from pantry end of kitchen toward dining room What job! Painting a ceiling is not much fun.
(will have to paint that old fridge soon!)
July 5 & 7 2005 Did not record hours as we were only doing second coats where necessary with nothing to really show photo wise and cutting in around cornus and skirting boards (all the boring stuff).
July 8 2005 2pm to 7pm Went and got timber to put around the bench top edges in order to hid the chips, cracks etc. I was quite proud of my carpentry efforts (all the mitre cuts etc)
One of the bench edges (not the worse) after undercoating. The chips etc were really evident and were going to spoil the final finish, thus the decision to cover them
with timber)
Using my Mitre box - was real fun! Adding a run of Liquid Nails to add more grip Nailing it all on
Tomorrow, I hope to get to the actual painting of the bench tops - here is an idea of what I will be aiming for:
July 9 2005 - Noon to 5pm Some days one should just not do anything where the brain is involved! We got the timber D moulding to cover the bottom of the kitchen cupboards and drawers where moisture has swollen the bottoms out, and to hide the chips etc. Jane did a wonderful job with a rasp cutting back the cracked laminex etc in order to get a reasonably flush product on which to glue and nail the strips. I was in charge of working out where to do the cut-outs for the hinges which are exposed on the outside of the doors. I do not know how many times I went up then down the stairs to George's Shed (next-door) to use the bench and tools - the first error I made was to put the cut-out on the wrong end! Then I cut one too short! But we got through eventually and got them on and you would not believe the difference the last two days has made to the overall look of the kitchen - talk about making a silk purse out of a sows ear!
Before: Just a few of the doors showing the damage on the bottoms The drawers and one door after Jane had cut the bottoms back
After: Almost :) You can see the wooden strips along some of the cupboards - when all is painted it should look great.
You can see (bottom right of the above photo) one of my wonderful corner joins in the laminex edge covers....my Dad would be proud!
July 29, 2005 - I can't believe 20 days have passed since my last update. The first week was not worth posting as there were no dramatic changes just fiddly bits :( although I did get the primer and first coat of paint on the kitchen cupboards and wash, scrub, prime and repaint the inside of the kitchen cupboards. I also managed to fix the back of the sink where there were no tiles (removed sometime previous to my arrival)
Check out the condition of back of sink
BEFORE..................&......................AFTER I put up the beaten metal sheeting
(still have to paint the window sill)
Painting the inside of cupboards - Very fiddly & NOT fun! Almost finished the painting kitchen cupboards etc
Then the cold weather came and that stopped the painting as the temperature was not warm enough for long enough for the paint to set correctly. During that time I did a bit more spak filling of the lounge room ceiling, some gardening, and wall washing while "Dr. Doolittle" ducked off every time I turned my back to play with the animals...........
Rain and pushbikes don't go, but a garbage bag raincoat helped :) "Dr. Doolittle" and her flock
On Monday I started "doing" the downstairs bedroom, ready for Andrew to move in on Friday. There were the usual dirty walls and ceiling to wash down, then spaking and sanding - the room looked like it had measles by the time I had it ready to paint. The worst part was removing the paint roller dribbles etc from the previous paint job - there were runs and dribbles everywhere and I was not going to leave them there or people would think I had made them. Sadly however while painting the room I discovered some runs I had missed and it was too late to do anything about them. One day maybe I will get enthusiastic enough to go back and remove them - I have saved enough of the colour to spot paint.
Andrew's room before Example of the Spak required Me painting, and painting, and painting
On inspection of the downstairs bedroom it was discovered that the 70's shag carpet was rotting because of water damage from who knows where. It was full of dog hair, people hair, tiny feathers, dead fleas..............etc etc, so it had to go! For the time being I have put paving paint down over which we will lay some scatter rugs for warmth. Because of time constraints I had to leave a 6" strip around the edge unpainted. I will have to go back and trowel on some concrete in this area to fill the holes and gaps caused by the removal of the strip which held down the carpet.
Made some curtains for Andrew's room using some material left over from the time I recovered the lounge. Looks quite nice now and worth all the effort.
Andrew's room after the makeover
After all the above was completed I washed, spaked etc the downstairs hallway ready for painting. Also during this time I started fixing the downstairs bathroom cabinet which is falling apart.
No photo will ever show all the filth which was on the walls in this house when we moved in, but this one should give you an idea.
Oh I almost forgot, during all this time we also worked at removing the lovely 70's style bar in the upstairs lounge room! A pinch bar and a couple of strong women and before you knew it it was gone. (forgot to mention the finishing touches by "the toy boy". The bonfire pile in the backyard is getting higher and higher :)
August 21, 2005 - too busy with work, Daisy an renovations to have time to update this page, but here is an idea of what's been happening since July 29.
2 out of the 3 bench tops have now been "marbleized" - enamel paint, a pelican feather and a sponge was used to get the effect. Jane, while she was here, spent hours scratching back the "bloody awful" paint job which had been done over the scratched, burned and otherwise marked 70's timber laminex. I then coated it with Taubmans 3 in 1 Primer after which I rolled on the white enamel - while it was wet I used the pelican feather, dipped in black enamel, to lay down some streaks and blotches. I then sponged and dragged out the pattern to give it a marble look. I will let it all set hard, give it a fine sand with wet and dry paper then apply several coats of enamel varnish to add strength. LOW AND BEHOLD ANYONE WHO USES IT AS A CUTTING BOARD! Here is what was done to the bench next to the stove.
Meanwhile I became a Great Grandmother! One of Jane's hens had 2 chickens.
We did a right royal clean up along the back river side then had a singe up (massive bonfire) - hose on hand of course.
We have also planted 15 new trees and shrubs, quite a few of which were the makings of a lilypilly hedge between Elaine's house and here. Following photo is Andrew planting the last tree, with the assistance of a few chooks. While he was away at Byron this weekend visiting a few friends I bought 20 more plants in tubes - he will be a busy boy when he gets back.
As well as all the above and other various necessary tasks I have also managed to finish painting the downstairs lounge and hallway areas. My plan is to next finally do those last bits and pieces in the kitchen then paint my way up the stairs into the upper lounge area and eventually meet up at the finished dining room and kitchen. How long that will take, your bet is as good as mine :) especially when it comes to the ceiling above the stairs as both Andrew and I are scared of heights.
